Explore TV Series

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.

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.

Motoring programme featuring reviews of and reports about cars of all types.

Antiques Roadshow is a British television show in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom to appraise antiques brought in by local people. It has been running since 1979. There are also international versions of the programme.

A magazine-style television series on BBC1 which was broadcast from May 1973 to June 1994, presented by Esther Rantzen, with various changes of co-presenters. The show presented hard-hitting investigations alongside satire and occasional light entertainment.

A BBC documentary film strand, with the focus on investigative journalism.

Weekend World was a British television political series, made by London Weekend Television and broadcast from 1972 to 1988. Created by John Birt not long after he moved to LWT, the series was broadcast on the ITV network at lunchtimes on Sundays. Produced by Nick Elliott and David Elstein, it began by mirroring CBS's "60 Minutes" featuring several stories each week but gradually devolved into a show that featured a forensic interview with a major political figure each week. It was presented by Peter Jay initially when first broadcast in 1972, but was best-remembered for being anchored by former Labour MP Brian Walden between 1977 and 1986. Conservative MP Matthew Parris took over in 1986, resigning his seat, and presented the programme until the series ended in 1988.

Wildlife on One was, for nearly thirty years, the BBC's flagship natural history programme. First broadcast in 1977, each edition ran for half an hour. The narrator was David Attenborough. When repeated on BBC2, the programmes were retitled Wildlife on Two. The series came to an end in 2005.

V.I.P.-Schaukel is a 45 minute documentary-family-news-talk show starring Margret Dünser as Host. The series premiered on Sun May 09, 1971 on ZDF and Folge 37 - Final Show last aired on Fri May 09, 1980.

A documentary series that gives a historical account of the events of World War II, from its roots in the 1920s to the aftermath and the lives it profoundly influenced.

Molière pour rire et pour pleurer recounts the life of Jean‑Baptiste Poquelin, from his childhood in an artisan family to his rise as Molière, a central figure of French theatre. The series shows his difficult decision to abandon the family trade and join Madeleine Béjart to found L’Illustre Théâtre, marked by debts and repeated setbacks. While touring the provinces, he shapes his style and discovers the power of comedy. Back in Paris, he makes a name for himself with Les Précieuses ridicules, but his sharp satires provoke fierce opposition, especially during the Tartuffe scandal. Supported by Louis XIV, he continues despite attacks, literary rivalries, and tensions within his troupe, particularly with Armande Béjart. The miniseries also follows his growing exhaustion, his determination to perform at any cost, and his final breath after Le Malade imaginaire, the ultimate symbol of an artist who lived — and died — for the stage.

The Family was a 1974 BBC television series made by producer Paul Watson, and directed by Franc Roddam. It was a fly-on-the-wall documentary series, seen by many as the precursor to reality television. It was similar to an American documentary which had aired the previous year in 1973, called An American Family. It followed the working-class Wilkins family of six of Reading, through their daily lives, warts and all, and culminated in the marriage of one of the daughters, which was plagued by fans and paparazzi alike.

El hombre y la Tierra is a 1974 television series produced by Radio Televisión Española.

Téléfoot is a French football programme created by Pierre Cangioni and produced by TF1 Production for TF1.

From Bonaparte to Casanova, history is cast in the light of famous escapes from various European countries.

Hollywood Greats was a BBC Television series, which began in 1977. The film critic Barry Norman wrote and narrated a series of in depth profiles on major Hollywood film personalities, in which he interviewed surviving associates. He later made a series called British Greats in 1980. A series of books, entitled The Hollywood Greats, The Movie Greats and The British Greats, which were authored by Norman were subsequently published. A series of the same name was later presented by Jonathan Ross from 1999 to 2006.

In this radically unconventional television series, Godard and Miéville analyze the political economy of personal and mass media communications in relation to society, culture, family and the individual. Their inquiry focuses "on and beneath" communications in a provocative critique of the power of media images in contemporary culture and everyday life. Each of the six programs is constructed of two complementary segments: A discursive visual essay on one aspect of the production and consumption of images is paired with a related interview on labor and leisure with an individual — an amateur filmmaker, a dairy farmer, the mathematician René Thom, Godard himself. These extended interviews provide a subjective counterpoint to the theoretical essays on work, economics and mass cultural imagery.

Long-running series for schools and colleges produced by Thames Television which comprised classic plays, contemporary dramas, poetry anthologies, documentaries and other material suitable for English language and literature syllabuses.

The story of life, from the first primitive cells to the plants and animals that now live around us.

Based on extensive interviews, shot on 16mm in a series of static long takes, Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland, is one of the most fascinating examples of "Film history on film" ever produced. Straschek devoted years to researching the topic and accumulating both film and non-film materials. Apart from some radio features and articles, however, this 290-minute TV programme remains the only published trace of Straschek's lifelong work on the emigration of film personnel. He had intended to publish a three-volume book, encompassing all available data about 3,000 emigrants originating from the centre and peripheries of film production, but the book never materialised.

Produced for television by Claude-Jean Philippe, the « Encyclopédie audiovisuelle du cinéma », recounts the history of French cinema from its birth to the beginning of the 1960s. With commentary read by Jean Rochefort.

The Ascent of Man is a thirteen-part documentary television series produced by the BBC and Time-Life Films first transmitted in 1973, written and presented by Jacob Bronowski. Intended as a series of "personal view" documentaries in the manner of Kenneth Clark's 1969 series Civilisation, the series received acclaim for Bronowski's highly informed but eloquently simple analysis, his long unscripted monologues and its extensive location shoots.

Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention, Connections explores an "Alternative View of Change" that rejects the conventional linear and teleological view of historical progress. To demonstrate this view, Burke begins each episode with a particular event or innovation in the past (usually ancient or medieval) and traces a path from that event through a series of connections to a fundamental and essential aspect of the modern world.

Miniseries dramatizing the life of the Italian Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci.

The Richard Dimbleby Lecture was founded in the memory of Richard Dimbleby, the BBC broadcaster. It has been delivered by an influential business or political figure almost every year since 1972.

In this astonishing twelve-part project for and about television — the title of which refers to a 19th-century French primer Le tour de la France par deux enfants — Godard and Miéville take a detour through the everyday lives of two children in contemporary France.

MARC was a British television series presented by T. Rex lead singer Marc Bolan. It was produced in Manchester by Granada Television for the ITV network. The last episode featured Bolan duetting with his friend David Bowie. Before the song had reached its end, Bolan tripped over a microphone cable and fell off the stage. Bowie is said to have called out "Could we have a wooden box for Marc [to stand on]?". The final show was recorded on 7 September 1977, but not broadcast until after Bolan's funeral on, which was also attended by David Bowie and Rod Stewart, among others.

Around the World in 80 Days is an animated television series that lasted one season of sixteen episodes, broadcast during the 1972-1973 season by NBC. It was the first Australian-produced cartoon to be shown on American network television. Leif Gram directed all sixteen episodes, and the stories were loosely adapted by Chester "Chet" Stover from the novel by Jules Verne.

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.

This devil of a man plunges the viewer into the very heart of the Voltaire whirlwind, that incandescent mind who shook his century. The series follows his meteoric rise, his exiles, his battles and flashes of genius, in a Europe still tightly bound by absolutism. We discover an unbowed, charming, formidable man whose pen makes ministers, kings and fanatics tremble. Between glittering salons, damp prisons and passionate loves, Voltaire crosses the Age of Enlightenment like a meteor. Each episode reveals a confrontation, a flight, a victory wrested through the sheer force of intellect. Carried by elegant direction and a sweeping, novelistic energy, the series paints a vibrant portrait of a fighter for freedom. A journey into the life of a man who never stopped thinking, loving and provoking.

"Operation Valkyrie" was the name of an official alarm plan during the Second World War. With the help of this plan, the conspirators around Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg wanted to bring about the overthrow of Germany on July 20, 1944. The events are well known: Stauffenberg's assassination attempt failed, Adolf Hitler remained alive. In addition to the purely scenic reconstruction, this two-part, documentary-style film consists of interspersed interviews and reports with eyewitnesses and survivors who were directly involved. Everything that is available in the way of authentic testimony about July 20, 1944 is examined and documented with the highest degree of realism.

A documentary television series of the Nazi-Soviet War, edited from over 3.5 million feet of film taken by Soviet camera crews from the first day of the war, 22 June 1941, to the Soviet entry into Berlin in May 1945.

The Search for the Nile is a 1971 BBC One docudrama miniseries about the 19th-century European quest to find the source of the Nile River, focusing on explorers like Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke, and David Livingstone. The acclaimed six-part series, starring Kenneth Haigh as Burton, is known for its detailed portrayal of the explorers' hardships, rivalries, and discoveries, winning a Primetime Emmy and a Peabody Award.

Documentary series taking a serious and wide-ranging look at the arts, encompassing intellectual subject matter and popular culture.

A critique of cineastes and cinephiles, including a once famous actress reduced to poverty and a man who fails miserably at running a film society with no money.

Ironic portrait of the strong men of the Chilean military dictatorship commanded by General Augusto Pinochet after September 11, 1973. As a counterpoint, the families of the victims and the missing bear witness to a different reality.

Out of Court is a British factual television series that originally premiered on BBC Two in March 1977 and ran until 1988. Hosted by presenters including Nick Ross, David Jessel, and Sue Cook, the 30-minute program examined and demystified the British legal system, consumer law, and the courts.

John Berger's Ways of Seeing changed the way people think about painting and art criticism. This watershed work shows, through word and image, how what we see is always influenced by a whole host of assumptions concerning the nature of beauty, truth, civilization, form, taste, class and gender. Exploring the layers of meaning within oil paintings, photographs and graphic art, Berger argues that when we see, we are not just looking - we are reading the language of images.

This classic series follows the events that sparked the greatest conflict of the century, capturing the drama, the excitement and the ideological juxtapositions of these crucial years. Former CBS News correspondent and commentator Eric Sevareid, one of the world's most respected figures in journalism, presents this extraordinary series featuring stunning original newsreels, soundtracks, and rare archival footage.

Blurring the boundaries between documentary and historical fiction, this twelve-part series examines and imagines man's struggle to survive, from the days of cave dwellers to modern journeys into space.

A series of six programmes about the truth behind some of the popular figures in British history.

A 17-part television documentary series on the history of modern pop music covering some of the many different genres that have fallen under the label of "popular music" between the mid-19th century and 1976, including folk, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley, vaudeville and music hall, musical theatre, country, swing, jazz, blues, R&B, rock 'n' roll and others.

L'Apocalypse des animaux is a six-part documentary series by Frédéric Rossif, broadcast in France in the early 1970s. It marks the first collaboration between filmmaker Frédéric Rossif and Greek composer-musician Vangelis.

In a school on the extreme outskirts of Rome, a young teacher, instead of neglecting his half-empty classroom, decides to tackle the problem looking for the children who do not attend classes.