TV Shows
Binge-worthy series from everywhere
Arena
1975 · ★ 7.2
Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC. Voted by leading TV executives in Broadcast as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time, it has run since 1 October 1975 with over five hundred episodes made, directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Alan Yentob, Roly Keating, Frederick Baker, Volker Schlondorff and Vikram Jayanti. Arena's subjects are a roll-call of the world's best known cultural figures from the 20th and 21st centuries, from singers Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse to academics Edward Said and Eric Hobsbawm, from writers Jean Genet and V S Naipaul to artists Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois. The current series editor is Anthony Wall.
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Mayday
2003 · ★ 8.2
Major real-life air disasters are depicted in this series. Each episode features a detailed dramatized reconstruction of the incident based on cockpit voice recorders and air traffic control transcripts, as well as eyewitnesses recounts and interviews with aviation experts.
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20/20
1978 · ★ 6.3
20/20 is an American television newsmagazine that has been broadcast on ABC since June 6, 1978. Created by ABC News executive Roone Arledge, the show was designed similarly to CBS's 60 Minutes but focuses more on human interest stories than international and political subjects. The program's name derives from the "20/20" measurement of visual acuity. The hour-long program has been a staple on Friday evenings for much of the time since it moved to that timeslot from Thursdays in September 1987, though special editions of the program occasionally air on other nights.
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NOVA
1974 · ★ 7.1
PBS' premier science series helps viewers of all ages explore the science behind the headlines. Along the way, NOVA demystifies science and technology, and highlights the people involved in scientific pursuits.
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Great Performances
1971 · ★ 6.1
The best in the performing arts from across America and around the world including a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama, and performance documentaries.
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Fuse
1962 · ★ 7.6
Fitil is a popular Soviet/Russian television satirical/comedy short film series which ran for about 500 episodes. Some of the episodes were aimed at children, and were called Фитилёк, Fitilyok, Little Fuse. Each issue contained from the few short segments: documentary, fictional and animated ones. Directed by various artists, including Leonid Gaidai who presented his famous trio of Nikulin, Vitsin and Morgunov into the cast. It was called in USSR as "the anecdotes from the Soviet government".
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Bares für Rares
2013 · ★ 7.5
In the show, selected applicants each present a curiosity, rarity or antique they have brought with them. Once they have received their expertise, they will have the opportunity on site to offer their exhibit to a changing five-person podium for sale and, ideally, to sell it to the highest bidder for „Bares“ ("cash").
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A Girl's Guide to 21st Century Sex
2006 · ★ 4.9
A Girl's Guide to 21st Century Sex is a documentary TV series about sex, which ran in eight episodes on Channel 5 and was presented by Dr Catherine Hood. The 45-minute long episodes were broadcast on Monday nights. The series started on 30 October 2006, with the final programme broadcast on 18 December 2006. Each episode explained a sex position and covered a sexually transmitted disease. Additionally, the following topics were discussed: sex among handicapped and overweight people, penis enlargement devices, penis enlargement surgery, sexual violence against men and penis removal, tantric sex, the g-spot, erectile dysfunction, sex reassignment surgery, cosmetic surgery of the vagina, swinging, lichen sclerosus, the use of recreational drugs during sex, male homosexual sex in public toilets, full body plastic wrap bondage, and sex dolls.
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American Experience
1988 · ★ 6.5
TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.
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Democracy Now!
2001 · ★ 6.9
A United States daily progressive, nonprofit, independently syndicated program of news, analysis, and opinion.
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Panorama
1953 · ★ 6.3
Current affairs programme, featuring interviews and investigative reports on a wide variety of subjects.
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Frontline
1983 · ★ 6.5
Since it began in 1983, Frontline has been airing public-affairs documentaries that explore a wide scope of the complex human experience. Frontline's goal is to extend the impact of the documentary beyond its initial broadcast by serving as a catalyst for change.
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The Wonderful Machine
1990 · ★ 10
A long journey in 8 episodes to discover the human body, with Piero Angela who closely observes our organism, focusing each time on a theme: the eye, the ear, taste and smell, the stomach and the intestine, liver, bones, lungs and heart. How does our "wonder machine" work? To make each explanation direct and clear, the program uses films, animations and photographs developed with the scanning electron microscope.
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Horizon
1964 · ★ 7.5
Horizon tells amazing science stories, unravels mysteries and reveals worlds you've never seen before.
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MythBusters
2003 · ★ 7.8
MythBusters is a science entertainment television program created and produced by Australia's Beyond Television Productions for the Discovery Channel. The show's hosts, special effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, use elements of the scientific method to test the validity of rumors, myths, movie scenes, adages, Internet videos, and news stories.
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The South Bank Show
1978 · ★ 5.6
The South Bank Show is a television arts magazine show produced by ITV between 1978 and 2010. A new series began on Sky Arts from 27 May 2012. Presented by Melvyn Bragg, the show aims to bring both high art and popular culture to a mass audience.
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Nature
1982 · ★ 7.9
Consistently stunning documentaries transport viewers to far-flung locations ranging from the torrid African plains to the chilly splendours of icy Antarctica. The show's primary focus is on animals and ecosystems around the world. A comic book based on the show, meant to be used an as educational tool for kids, was briefly distributed to museums and schools at no cost in the mid-2000s.
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In Search of the Dark Ages
1979 · ★ 7
In Search of the Dark Ages was a television series, written and presented by Michael Wood, and first shown in 1979. It is also the title of a book written by Wood to support the series, which was published in 1981. The television series consisted of a series of separate programmes, hence the collective title is often written as In Search of ... The Dark Ages. It began with In Search of Offa, recorded in 1978 by BBC Manchester, and shown on 2 January 1979. Subsequent programmes in the first series were on Boadicea, King Arthur and Alfred the Great, shown with a re-run of Offa over successive nights in March 1980. The first series was such a success when shown in an off-peak slot on BBC Two that a second series was broadcast in 1981, with subjects including William the Conqueror, Ethelred the Unready, Athelstan and Eric Bloodaxe.
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Eisenbahn-Romantik
1991 · ★ 9
Railway-related documentary covering modern railway systems, museum railways and their facilities as well as items on model railway layouts. Politics and criticism is not left out; the series reports on closures, controversial model ideas, delays to reconstruction plans or smart commuter transport concepts.
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Oddity Archive
2012 · ★ 8
The Oddity Archive is a web series that revolves around the "cultural dustbin", especially as it pertains to media. The Archive also functions as an actual archive of sorts, with a modest collection of off-air Betamax and VHS recordings (about 400 total as of June, 2014). There's also a decent collection of ephemeral video, "ripoff" and "drugstore" LP's/cassettes/8-tracks, as well as (working) obsolete technology.
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Intimate Portrait
1993 · ★ 4.5
Intimate Portrait is a biographical television series on the Lifetime Television cable network focusing on different celebrities, which includes interviews with each subject. Among the people profiled were Grace Kelly, Natalie Wood, Carly Simon, Jackie Kennedy, Katharine Hepburn, Carol Burnett, Tanya Tucker, and Marla Maples.
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Coast
2005 · ★ 7.5
The nation's love affair with the coast will be reawakened for this entertaining and ambitious exploration of the entire UK coastline. Every part of the 9,000-mile coast is covered to explore how we've shaped it - and how it shapes us. Hosted by a team of history and geography experts who investigate everything from life on a nuclear submarine; rebuilding the Titanic using computer images; the story behind the first Butlins holiday camp; and the birth of the Severn Bore. Discover the curious, sometimes dysfunctional, relationship between the British and the seas.
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Ancient Aliens
2010 · ★ 7.1
Did intelligent beings from outer space visit Earth thousands of years ago? From the age of the dinosaurs to ancient Egypt, from early cave drawings to continued mass sightings in the US, each episode gives historic depth to the questions, speculations, provocative controversies, first-hand accounts and grounded theories surrounding this age old debate.
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Natural World
1983 · ★ 7.4
Natural World is a nature documentary television series broadcast annually on BBC Two and regarded by the BBC as its flagship natural history brand. It is currently the longest-running series in its genre on British television, with more than 400 episodes broadcast since its inception in 1983. Natural World is produced by the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol, but individual programmes can be in-house productions, collaborative productions with other broadcasters or films made and distributed by independent production companies and purchased by the BBC. Natural World programmes are often broadcast as PBS Nature episodes in the USA. Since 2008, most Natural World programmes have been shot and broadcast in high definition.
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Vetenskapens värld
1971 · ★ 6.7
Vetenskapens värld is a popular science TV documentary program broadcast on Swedish Television (SVT).
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Know How...
2012
Get the know how to make technology work for you. TWiT shows you tech projects that you can do yourself and explains everything from tech basics to advanced techniques.
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Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives
2007 · ★ 6.9
Host Guy Fieri takes a cross-country road trip to visit some of America's classic "greasy spoon" restaurants — diners, drive-ins and dives — that have been doing it right for decades.
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Dateline
1992 · ★ 6.6
Dateline NBC, or simply Dateline, is a weekly American television newsmagazine series. It was previously the network's flagship newsmagazine, but now focuses mainly on true crime stories with only occasional editions that focus on other topics.
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This Old House
1979 · ★ 5.7
TV's original home-improvement show, following one whole-house renovation over several episodes.
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Independent Lens
1999 · ★ 6.6
This acclaimed Emmy Award-winning anthology series features documentaries and a limited number of fiction films united by the creative freedom, artistic achievement and unflinching visions of their independent producers and featuring unforgettable stories about a unique individual, community or moment in history.
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Galileo
1998 · ★ 4.8
This daily German magazine show delivers interesting facts on numerous topics centering around technology, life, and bizarre knowledge.
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Snapped
2004 · ★ 7.8
The fascinating cases of every day, seemingly average moms, wives and girlfriends accused of murder. Did they really do it? And if so, why?
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Omnibus
1967 · ★ 7.2
Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast mainly on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. The programme was the successor to the long-running arts-based series 'Monitor'. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings. During its 35-year history, the programme won 12 Bafta awards. Among the series' best remembered documentaries are Cracked Actor, a profile of David Bowie, and Rene Magritte, a graduate film by David Wheatley, 'Madonna: Behind the American dream', a film produced by Nadia Hagger, and a profile of the British film director Ridley Scott. For a season in 1982, the series was in a magazine format presented by Barry Norman. The series was replaced by 'Imagine' hosted by Alan Yentob.
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World War Two
2018 · ★ 8
Follow the deadliest conflict in human history in real time, week by week, blow by blow.
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Exclusiv - Das Star-Magazin
1994 · ★ 4
Exclusiv: das Starmagazin reports on the latest news and topics from the world of celebrities on a regular weekly basis. It covers the latest headlines relating to the stars as well as rumors and insights into the everyday lives of famous personalities around the globe. In addition to the 15-minute weekday magazine, there is a particularly detailed one-hour weekend edition on Sundays with additional reports and background reports on the celebrities.
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Australian Story
1996 · ★ 5.3
Putting the "real" back into reality television, Australian Story is an award-winning documentary series with no narrator and no agendas — just authentic stories told entirely in people's own words.
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Heritage Minutes
1991 · ★ 7.3
Heritage Minutes, also known officially as Historica Minutes: History by the Minute, are a series of sixty-second short films, each illustrating an important moment in Canadian history. They appear frequently on Canadian television and in cinemas before movies and are now also sold on DVD. The Minutes were first introduced on March 31, 1991 as part of a one-off heavily-promoted history quiz show hosted by Rex Murphy. The thirteen original short films were broken up and run between shows on CBC Television and CTV Network. The continued broadcast of the Minutes and the production of new ones was pioneered by Charles Bronfman's CRB Foundation, Canada Post Power Broadcasting, and the National Film Board. They were devised, developed and largely narrated by noted Canadian broadcaster Patrick Watson, while the producer of the series was Robert Guy Scully. In 2009 Historica merged with The Dominion Institute to become The Historica-Dominion Institute. While the foundations have not paid networks to air Minutes, they have made them freely available, and in the early years paid to have them run in cinemas across the country. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has ruled that Heritage Minutes are an "on-going dramatic series" thus each minute counts as ninety-seconds of a station's Canadian content requirements.
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Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction
1997 · ★ 7.3
Can you tell the difference between fact and fiction? Several stories of strange, mysterious and incredible occurrences are chronicled during each episode. It is up to the viewer to decide which stories actually happened and which were completely fabricated by the show’s writers. The answer is revealed by Jonathan Frakes at the conclusion of each episode.
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Special Operations
2017 · ★ 9
Thanks to unpublished testimonies and quality reconstructions, this series relates for the first time the most daring and delicate secret operations that the special forces have carried out in recent years.
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Ancient China from Above
2020 · ★ 10
Epic adventure using new satellite imagery and cutting-edge technology to solve mysteries, explore secrets and reveal the wonders of Ancient China.
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Countryfile
1988 · ★ 5.4
The people, places and stories making news in the British countryside.
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Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom
1963 · ★ 9.3
Premiering in 1963 broadcast on prime-time from 1968-1971 and airing in syndication until 1988 the Emmy Award-winning Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom was one of the longest-running and most beloved television series of all time. A pioneer of the narrative nature-documentary format the educational series followed venerable host and ecologist Marlin Perkins (later joined by Jim Fowler Peter Gros Stan Brock and Tom Allen) as he trekked to the farthest reaches of the globe to study wild animals in their natural habitats.
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Camp Woodward
2008
Egos clash and conflicts mount as young skaters and BMXers attend a specialty summer camp to learn tricks and tips from some of the biggest names in sport.
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American Masters
1986 · ★ 7
American Masters is a PBS television series which produces biographies on enduring writers, musicians, visual and performing artists, dramatists, filmmakers, and others who have left an indelible impression on the cultural landscape of the United States.
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Benjamin Franklin
2002 · ★ 6.7
An epic yarn spanning most of the 18th century, the series follows Franklin's career from humble beginnings in Boston to international superstardom: first as a scientist and revolutionary, and then as a founding father and America's first diplomat to France.
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New York
1999 · ★ 7.5
This eight-part, 16½-hour television event explores New York City's rich history as the premier laboratory of modern life. A sweeping narrative covering nearly 400 years and 400 square miles, it reveals a complex and dynamic city that has played an unparalleled role in shaping the nation and reflecting its ideals.
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Evil Lives Here
2016 · ★ 8
The true stories of people who lived with a killer. How well do you really know your family? Would you recognize the warning signs? Or would you become entangled in evil?
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The Curse of Oak Island
2014 · ★ 7.2
Follow brothers Marty and Rick Lagina through their effort to find the speculated - and as of yet undiscovered - buried treasure believed to have been concealed through extraordinary means on Oak Island.
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True Crime Story
2021 · ★ 6.8
This franchise is made up of series that tell a wide variety of true crime stories from unique perspectives. Each will shine a new light on crime and the genre, focusing on fresh and unexpected stories from unlikely, and much-needed voices.
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Finding Your Roots
2012 · ★ 6.5
Noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been helping people discover long-lost relatives hidden for generations within the branches of their family trees. Professor Gates utilizes a team of genealogists to reconstruct the paper trail left behind by our ancestors and the world’s leading geneticists to decode our DNA and help us travel thousands of years into the past to discover the origins of our earliest forebears.
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