
01 Jan 2013

The Spy Who Went Into the Cold
A documentary about Kim Philby, a British member of MI6 who was in reality a spy and defected to the U.S.S.R.
As good as any Dickens novel, this is the triumphant and tragic story of the greatest architectural dynasty of the 19th century. Dan Cruickshank charts the rise of Sir George Gilbert Scott to the very heights of success, the fall of his son George Junior and the rise again of his grandson Giles. It is a story of architects bent on a mission to rebuild Britain. From the Romantic heights of the Midland Hotel at St Pancras station to the modern image of Bankside power station (now Tate Modern), this is the story of a family that shaped the Victorian age and left a giant legacy.
Presenter
01 Jan 2013
A documentary about Kim Philby, a British member of MI6 who was in reality a spy and defected to the U.S.S.R.
02 May 2021
Death and the devil, nudity and eroticism, horror in blazing colours, Gothic art cast a spell over people 500 years ago. In these image-poor times, art deliberately and skilfully played with the emotions of the viewer, triggering fear, devotion, but also rapture. Art documentary on German gothic art of the late-middle ages.
20 Jul 2015
Documentary to mark the WI's centenary. Lucy Worsley goes beyond the stereotypes of jam and Jerusalem to reveal the surprisingly radical side of this Great British institution.
01 Jan 1952
No overview found
31 Dec 1950
Documentary film about Gothic painting and its representatives.
01 Jan 1987
Guyanese painter Aubrey Williams (1926-1990) returns to his homeland on a “journey to the source of his inspiration” in this vivid Arts Council documentary, filmed towards the end of his life. The title comes from the indigenous Arawak word ‘timehri’ - the mark of the hand of man - which Williams equates to art itself. Timehri was also then the name of the international airport at Georgetown, Guyana's capital, where Williams stops off to restore an earlier mural. The film offers a rare insight into life beyond Georgetown, what Williams calls “the real Guyana.” Before moving to England in 1952 he had been sent to work on a sugar plantation in the jungle; this is his first chance to revisit the region and the Warao Indians - formative influences on his work - in four decades. Challenging the ill-treatment of indigenous Guyanese, Williams explored the potential of art to change attitudes. By venturing beyond his British studio, this film puts his work into vibrant context.
05 May 2017
At the demise of empire, City of London financial interests created a web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and hid it behind obscure financial structures in a web of offshore islands. Today, up to half of global offshore wealth may be hidden in British offshore jurisdictions and Britain and its offshore jurisdictions are the largest global players in the world of international finance. How did this come about, and what impact does it have on the world today? This is what the Spider's Web sets out to investigate.
05 May 2025
Documentary looking back at a Britain during the darkest days of WWII using stunning new archived footage and interviews with people who lived through it.
30 Jan 2017
After 200 years under lock and key, all the personal papers of one of our most important monarchs are for the first time seeing the light of day. In the first documentary to gain extensive access to the Royal Archives, Robert Hardman sheds fascinating new light on George III, Britain's longest reigning king. George III may be chiefly remembered for his madness, but these private documents reveal a monarch who was a political micromanager and a restless patron of science and the arts, an obsessive traveller who never left southern England yet toured the world in his mind and a man who was driven (sometimes to distraction) by his sense of duty to his family and his country. Featuring Simon Callow and Sian Thomas as the voices of King George and Queen Charlotte.
12 Aug 1979
Haunting music there, from the album The End, from Nico
30 Aug 2010
A documentary analyzing the furore which so-called "video nasties" caused in Britain during the 1980s.
24 Apr 1999
Shown as part of the BBC's Modern Times series. Think of England shows Parr talking to the many people he encountered in the summer of 1999. He innocently asked people what it took to be English, and this simple question provided many revealing answers.
19 Jan 2012
Augustus Northmore Welby Pugin is far from being a household name, yet he designed the iconic clock tower of Big Ben as well as much of the Palace of Westminster. The 19th-century Gothic revival that Pugin inspired, with its medieval influences and soaring church spires, established an image of Britain which still defines the nation. Richard Taylor charts Pugin's extraordinary life story and discovers how his work continues to influence Britain today.
20 Jun 1944
Actual footage by the United States Signal Corps of the landing and attack on Arawe Beach, Cape Glouster, New Britain island in 1943 in the South Pacific theatre of World War Two, and the handicaps of the wild jungle in addition to the Japanese snipers and pill-box emplacements.
12 Apr 2014
In 1963 in the countryside in England, fifteen men pulled off 'The Great Train Robbery' netting today's equivalent of $85million. This incredible film features Gordon Goody, one of the instigators of the crime, for the first time ever, revealing the identity of the missing mastermind behind Britain's most famous heist- the elusive and mysterious 'Ulsterman'.
03 Nov 2012
Born from the ashes of punk, the goth tribe has been evolving rapidly for 30 years. This subculture, initially niche, has grown into a social phenomenon that is flourishing around the world. In Europe, the community includes tens of thousands of people. Marilyn Manson fills concert halls, Jean-Paul Gaultier draws inspiration from gothic aesthetics for his collections, Tim Burton incorporates the movement's codes into his films... Yet the goth community remains relatively unknown. Media coverage of the phenomenon has often been content to perpetuate clichés, without revealing its richness. For over a year, the directors of this documentary traveled to Paris, Strasbourg, and across the Rhine to meet with goths. Over the past decade, Germany has become the center of gravity for this movement.
13 Dec 2012
Timeshift turns back the clock to a time when villains wore silver capes, grannies swooned at the sight of bulky men in latex and the most masculine man in the country was called Shirley. In its heyday, British professional wrestling attracted huge TV audiences and made household names of generations of wrestlers from Mick McManus and Jackie 'Mr TV' Pallo to Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy. With contributions from inside the world of wrestling and surprising fans such as artist Peter Blake, this is an affectionate and lively portrait of a lost era of simpler pleasures, both in and out of the ring.
01 Jan 1951
An historical account looking at how Britain's canals were used, and declining, in 1951.
19 May 2009
An analysis of the gothic movement, which emerged in the late 1970s in the United Kingdom, through its history, codes, favorite themes, and sources of inspiration, the clichés it is subject to, and the different tribes that comprise it. Alternating commentary on factual images of the scene (concerts, nightclubs, specialty shops, etc.) with interviews with goths, including Olivier, leader of the band ROSA CRUX, Patrick Eudeline, rock journalist, François Darmigny, fashion photographer, and the president of Miviludes, the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and Combating Sectarian Aberrations.
03 Sep 2020
Hogwood: A Modern Horror Story takes you beyond the factory farm walls and follows an intrepid group of undercover investigators as they enter some of Britain's biggest factory farms for the very first time.