The big cats of Africa have always been favored subjects of wildlife filmmakers
As little as 15 years ago, no one had captured the unforgettable image of a leopard in its ghostly nocturnal stalk. Viewers had never seen intimate portrayals of the sleek and elusive serval, or witnessed the nighttime romps of the beautiful black-eared caracal. The team of Owen Newman and Amanda Barrett filled those gaps with a series of spectacular breakthrough films in the 1990s. Among the first to apply infrared light and night vision goggles to wildlife studies, they combined technology with intrepid determination and a strong dose of luck, illuminating the cats we hardly knew, and giving us fresh insights into those we only thought we knew, such as lions and cheetahs
Narrator (voice)
02 Dec 2018
Follow two males lions who swam across the river from Namibia, and joined up with two females in Selinda. This union resulted in six cubs as they grow, learn to hunt, and ultimately, become the first pride in Selinda in many years
05 May 2009
Documentary following Olly Williams and Suzi Winstanley, two unique wildlife artists who simultaneously work on the same painting of exotic and endangered animals while on location in the wildest corners of the world. The film shows how they work and why what they do is so important.
01 Jun 2021
Lions - the most feared, most iconic predator in Africa but a lion is not just a lion. Each is very different to the other. Different parts of Africa demand specific things from lions to survive. The secret is to be highly adaptable. At the end of the day, the livelihood of the pride rests on the female's shoulders. She's the one who must excel. Follow three lionesses from different parts of the continent to see how they respond to win?
20 Feb 2012
Two rare 6-week-old clouded leopard cubs are given to a filmmaker, giving him the opportunity of a lifetime to examine the secret lives of big cats.
02 Feb 2017
David Attenborough narrates this astonishing story of a wild cheetah family. Known for being fast, captivating and extremely elusive, cameraman Kim Wolhuter offers a new insight into their remarkable lives. For nearly two years, he walked alongside a wild cheetah mother and her young family to unravel in intimate detail what it takes to turn tiny cubs into accomplished predators
31 Mar 1994
The equation of life on the Serengeti is simple: carnivores eat plants, herbivores eat carnivores. Africa: The Serengeti takes you on an extraordinary journey to view a spectacle few humans have ever witnessed. The Great Migration. Journey with more than two million wildebeests, zebras and antelopes in their annual 500 mile trek across the Serengeti plains
22 Aug 2007
Lazy relatives. Jealous neighbors. Runaway kids. The everyday troubles of one family - except this family is a pride of lions. Shot over three years during the most extreme seasonal changes in Africa, the film follows Mfumu - the pride's leader - as he struggles to defend his turf, and his mate Chipazuwa as she tries to produce offspring. Among the threats: a river infested with crocodiles that have taken every litter of cubs -- and a rival male, bent on taking over the pride.
27 Sep 1996
The true story of the birth, growth and coming of age of a leopard cub in Africa's Serengeti plain. The journey of "The Leopard Son" begins at his mother's side where he discovers, through play, essential skills for survival in the wild. As it is with humans, there inevitably comes the day when a child must leave his mother to go out on his own.
01 Jan 2013
A haunting call echoes across the Liuwa Plain. There is no answer, there hasn't been for years. She has no pride, no support - she alone must safeguard her own survival. Her name is Lady Liuwa, and she is the Last Lioness. Isolated by a scourge of illegal trophy hunting that wiped out the rest of her species in the region, Lady Liuwa is the only known resident lion surviving on Zambia's Liuwa Plain. For four years, cameraman Herbert Brauer watched her lonely life unfold, until, in her solitude, she reached out to him for companionship. But Herbert knows he is not the companion this lonely lioness needs - she should be amongst her own kind. Now, in May of 2009, plans for a male lion translocation have come through, and there is hope for ending her isolation. For the first time in more than five years, Lady Liuwa will no longer be the Last Lioness This is just a re-titled version of "The Last Lioness"
03 Oct 1997
Errol Morris’s Fast, Cheap & Out of Control interweaves the stories of four men, each driven to create eccentric worlds from their unique obsessions, all of which involve animals. There’s a lion tamer who shares his theories on the mental processes of wild animals; a topiary gardener who has devoted a lifetime to shaping bears and giraffes out of hedges and trees; a man fascinated with hairless mole rats; and an MIT scientist who has designed complex, autonomous robots that can crawl like bugs.
10 Dec 1997
In this documentary produced by the BBC, Sir David Attenborough leads us through an examination of the lives of two leopards living in Zambia’s Luangwa Valley.
01 Jan 2005
On the northern bank of the Sand River in the Mala-Mala Game Reserve in South Africa, seven magnificent creatures reside in an area the size of Manhattan Island. Tracking them for 24 hours reveals a never-ending daily drama.
01 Jan 1995
The grasslands of Africa are a banquet spread for feline predators. Explore the hunting and nurturing habits of lions, leopards, and cheetahs of the African savannah, as well as the overlooked grasses that lay the foundation for the amazing array of wildlife flourishing among its leaves.
01 Jan 1988
Cameraman John Varty spent five years making this documentary about Africa's elusive, silent hunter, the leopard. Included is footage of leopards mating at night, raising a litter of cubs, interacting with hyenas and going for the kill.
01 Jan 1990
This documentary examines the threatened habitats and the three great predators: the jaguar, the leopard and the cheetah, of the great South American jungle, the Masai Mara grasslands of Kenya and the bushland of South Africa.
01 Jan 2000
For generations lions have ruled over the Londolozi region of Mpumalanga but one brotherhood reigns supreme: a coalition of two brothers descendent from a long dynasty. To get to the top they have hunted, fought and won many battles. This film follows this Brotherhood as they conquer prides, kill rivals and continue their bloodline guaranteeing their genes are firmly entrenched in future generations to come.
20 Jan 2010
Jonathan Scott narrates the extraordinary story of the leopard - the one big cat that still survives across half the world while tigers, cheetahs and lions are all struggling. By following the lives of leopard mothers and their cubs in East Africa the film investigates what it is about the natural history of these cats that makes them born survivors. Perhaps the most extraordinary revelation is that leopards are living undercover on farms and even in cities across Africa and Asia.
01 Jan 2015
From extreme speed to bone crushing bites, big cats are some of the most impressive predators on the planet. Each of them is an incredible animal, with its own unique and special set of skills. In Big Cat Games, we will challenge ferocious felines against each other in a series of trials that will determine once and for all who is king of the cats. In the wild they are confident, dominant, and fearless—but they have never had to face anything like this before. Lions, cheetahs and tigers will be pushed to the limits of their natural athletic abilities
Every year in Tanzania, the dry season hits the Ruaha reserve hard. To survive, animal populations come down from the high plateaus to reach the Ruaha river, where a troupe of lionesses waits patiently, poised for combat
01 Jan 2010
The Swamp Pride is on its knees. Its mighty male was killed by poachers, leaving three mothers and their cubs defenseless in one of the toughest landscapes for a lion in Africa. Busanga Swamp is a quagmire, even in the dry season. Hunting in shoulder-deep water is all but impossible, and deadly hippos and crocodiles patrol the ever-present waters. Keeping cubs alive here is hard work, but for these lionesses it just got even harder: two massive young male lions are hunting them down. The males want to claim the Swamp Pride and its territory as their own, but to take over a pride they must kill its cubs. The mothers must fight tooth and claw to make sure that doesn't happen