
09 Jan 2016

Elton John: A Singular Man
An in-depth portrait of British composer, pianist and singer Elton John, pop star and myth of modern culture.
A fascinating insight into the role of the bicycle in the First World War - from reconnaissance to transporting ammunition, historian and cycling enthusiast Jeremy Banning explores stories from the battlefield. Ollie Bridgewood discovers the role cycle scouts played in the Army Cycling Corp and rides the original bikes used in the conflict. Mark Beaumont meets the grandson of a WW1 soldier who rode for the Highland Cyclist Battalion and survived brutal combat on the front line.
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09 Jan 2016
An in-depth portrait of British composer, pianist and singer Elton John, pop star and myth of modern culture.
01 Jan 1996
An overview of one of the greatest disasters of the first World War WWI - the Dardanelles Campaign at Gallipoli, Turkey.
22 Jul 2014
Before Lance Armstrong, there was Greg LeMond, who is now the first and only American to win the Tour de France. In this engrossing documentary, LeMond looks back at the pivotal 1986 Tour, and his increasingly vicious rivalry with friend, teammate, and mentor Bernard Hinault. The reigning Tour champion and brutal competitor known as “The Badger,” Hinault ‘promised’ to help LeMond to his first victory, in return for LeMond supporting him in the previous year. But in a sport that purports to reward teamwork, it’s really every man for himself.
10 Jun 2018
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, is remembered as the instigator of the October Revolution of 1917 and, therefore, as one of the men who changed the shape of the world at that time and forever, but perhaps the actual events happened in a way different from that narrated in the history books…
06 Mar 2025
CHARBON depicts how Europe was built on fossil fuels over the past 100 years. And how it was torn apart by wars that were the result of these same fossil fuels. During 3 trips to Ukraine, Italy and Iraq, filmmaker Manu Riche explains how he and his French-German family are inseparably connected to the fate of the Iraqi filmmaker and refugee Hayder Helo.
30 Aug 1988
In 1988, Tilda Swinton toured round the Berlin Wall on a bicycle - starting and ending at the Brandenburg Gate - accompanied by filmmaker Cynthia Beatt. As Swinton travels through fields and historic neighborhoods, past lakes and massive concrete apartment buildings, the Wall is a constant presence.
28 Feb 2014
Professor Niall Ferguson argues that Britain's decision to enter the First World War was a catastrophic error that unleashed an era of totalitarianism and genocide.
26 Apr 2005
This program provides, through 1st hand accounts & contemporary films & photographs, a rare insight into what really happened. Together with meticulously researched stories, it provides a unique analysis of the Gallipoli campaign, including never-seen before interviews with the last 10 Gallipoli Anzacs, rare film footage showing the beach & trenches at Gallipoli.
18 Mar 2005
The Gallipoli campaign of World War I was so controversial & devastating, it changed the face of battle forever. Using diaries, letters, photographs and memoirs, acclaimed director, Tolga Ornek, traces the personal journeys of Australian, New Zealand, British and Turkish soldiers, from innocence and patriotism to hardship and heartbreak.
22 Sep 2011
When the heavy scent of autumn starts filling the air, the falling leaves and inevitable showers announce one of the toughest cycling classics. With its winding roads and steep slopes of 14% maximum, the Giro di Lombardia also known as the 'classic of the falling leaves' is pro cycling season's grand finale. The century-old race in the Italian hills surrounding Lake Como has been won by Italian cycling heroes Coppi, Bartali and Moser. And also legends like Merckx, Hinault and Kelly made it to the podium. The 1962 edition is by far the toughest in the history of the race and was won by Dutchman Jo de Roo. Still every year Dutch pro cyclists participate to be a part of this great cycling tradition and in the end to gain victory. Just with one simple camera Dutch director Johannes Sigmond and producer Robert Jan van Noort visited the race from 2006 to 2010. They filmed and talked to Dutch participants in an effort to capture the soul of this legendary Italian bike race.
10 Jul 2016
Esther Johnson’s film uses local archive footage to convey the story of Sunderland's involvement in the First World War, from the men who fought in the fields to those who stayed behind to work in the region’s shipyards and munitions factories.
01 Oct 2016
The adventures and exploits of Jean-Baptiste Charcot (1867-1936), an intrepid scientist and explorer who laid the foundations of modern oceanography.
25 Feb 1977
A chronology of the 1976 Paris-Roubaix bicycle race from the perspective of participants, organizers and spectators.
03 Oct 2023
GCN presenter and ex-professional cyclist Conor Dunne heads to Midwest America to take on the infamous UNBOUND 200. Alongside 100 pro riders and more than 1000 amateurs, this is the biggest gravel race in the world. Across 330 km of unforgiving Kansas landscape, Conor must battle tyre-slashing flint, thick mud, and crippling heat exhaustion in a fight to make it to the finish. Conor is joined by former World Tour road pros Nathan Haas and Larry Warbasse, up-and coming gravel racer Anna Yamauchi, and 2022 Unbound champion Ivar Slik in this up close and personal, no-holds barred look at what it takes to survive this brutal event.
20 May 2015
Neil Oliver describes the worst ever railway accident in the UK, which happened a hundred years ago on 22 May 1915, in which three trains collided at Quintinshill near Gretna Green. One of the trains was a troop train taking soldiers to fight in World War I at the Battle of Gallipoli: many of the dead were in this train which caught fire due to escaped gas from the archaic gas lighting in the carriages. The cause of the crash was attributed to a catastrophic signalman's error, but Neil examines whether there were other contributory factors and whether there was a cover-up to prevent investigation of them, making convenient scapegoats of the signalmen.
01 Jan 2013
Documentary on the atrocities the germans committed at the start of WW I in Dinant.
22 Mar 2017
A sociological portrait of the United Kingdom after the historic Brexit vote of 2016. A funny, sometimes terrifying and non-judgemental look at the new populist politics sweeping western democracies.
06 Jul 2014
Documentary looking at a century of cycling. Commissioned to mark the arrival of the 2014 Tour de France in Yorkshire, the film makes full use of stunning British Film Institute footage to transport the audience on a journey from the invention of the modern bike, through the rise of recreational cycling, to gruelling competitive races. Award-winning director Daisy Asquith artfully combines the richly-diverse archive with a hypnotic soundtrack from cult composer Bill Nelson in a joyful, absorbing watch for both cycling and archive fans.
21 Jan 2019
Between January 1st and 31 December 2017, 768 people died as a result of murder or manslaughter in Britain - approximately 14 people a week. This powerful and original film tells the stories of some of those cases, exploring the human cost of murder - the ordinary people whose lives are changed forever and the communities left to wrestle with the consequences. Filmed over 12 months, it follows families and friends from the immediate aftermath of the crime, through the court process, and as they try to rebuild their lives. These stories are shown alongside statistical analysis of homicide figures for Britain since the Millennium, which reveal that so far this century, the pattern of homicides has remained strikingly similar in terms of the profiles of victims and the circumstances of the killing. This urgent, unflinching and intimate film goes beyond individual incidents to ask what the patterns of murder in our time say about the state of Britain.
16 Sep 2010
Zurich-born Hugo Koblet was the first international cycling star of the post-war period. He was a stylist on the bicycle and in life, and a huge heartthrob. Koblet had a meteoric rise and won the Giro d'Italia in 1950. Once he had reached the zenith of his career, Koblet was put under pressure by overly ambitious officials and ended up ruining his health with drugs. In 1954, he married a well-known model and they became a celebrity dream couple. After his athletic career ended, Koblet began to lose his footing. Threatened by bankruptcy, he crashed his Alfa into a tree.