2014-03-14
4.2
6.7Morgan Spurlock subjects himself to a diet based only on McDonald's fast food three times a day for thirty days without exercising to try to prove why so many Americans are fat or obese. He submits himself to a complete check-up by three doctors, comparing his weight along the way, resulting in a scary conclusion.
6.9When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s "all in her head." Determined to live, she sets out on a virtual journey to document her story—and four other families' stories—fighting a disease medicine forgot.
7.7Industrial food production has provided the public with an abundance of food at very low prices. But with obesity and diabetes at record levels in Europe, there is clearly a problem with the food we eat. This documentary puts the spotlight on the agri-food industry and reveals how low-cost ultra-processed foods are really made.
7.6A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.
6.7A look at the state of the global environment including visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystems. Featuring ongoing dialogues of experts from all over the world, including former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolse
0.0Blue Whales: Return of the Giants 3D takes viewers on a journey of a lifetime to explore the world of the magnificent blue whale, a species rebounding from the brink of extinction. Following two scientific expeditions—one to find a missing population of blues off the exotic Seychelles Islands, the other to chronicle whale families in Mexico’s stunning Gulf of California—the film is an inspirational story that transforms our understanding of the largest animal ever to have lived.
6.0The drought in the American West is predicted to be the worst in 1,000 years. Join five Academy Award-winning filmmakers as they explore the environmental crisis of our time and how to fix it before it's too late.
With increasing damage to ecosystems from the climate crisis and growing mental and physical damage to billions of people, This Good Earth offers answers to how change can happen and points the finger at those standing in the way.
8.0This first co-production between the GDR and Great Britain is intended to contribute to an understanding of the situation and attitudes of millions of working people in opposing social orders. Using the example of shipyard workers, fishermen, the brigade and family of a trade union active cook and unemployed person of various ages and professions in Newcastle on the one hand and a brigade of crane operators of the Warnowwerft and fishermen of the Warnemünde cooperative on the other hand, insights into the way of life and attitudes of people of our time are to be conveyed.
0.0Just two generations removed from sharecropping, Dr. Tomekia White redefines agriculture for the black community in Arkansas as she develops farming practices that protect a dwindling water supply.
8.0The loss of biodiversity is highly alarming: our planet is currently experiencing the greatest extinction since the age of the dinosaurs. This film documents the extinction of species currently happening around the world. But it also highlights hopeful initiatives as committed men and women on every continent fight to save endangered species and work towards improving biodiversity.
0.0Documentary looking at both burger chains and how they have grown to become world-dominating fast food brands.
6.8Take a fascinating journey inside the bizarre world of a living human being with this compelling documentary from National Geographic, where microscopic cameras and other state-of-the-art technologies reveal perspectives that will blow your mind. Tracking the body of a female from infancy to old age, viewers will observe the digestion of a meal, the development of the cardiac system and other mesmerizing aspects of the body's inner workings.
7.2Many geneticists and archaeologists have long surmised that human life began in Africa. Dr. Spencer Wells, one of a group of scientists studying the origin of human life, offers evidence and theories to support such a thesis in this PBS special. He claims that Africa was populated by only a few thousand people that some deserted their homeland in a conquest that has resulted in global domination.
7.2Travel alongside the astronauts as they deploy and repair the Hubble Space Telescope, soar above Venus and Mars, and find proof of new planets and the possibility of other life forming around distant stars.
5.6In 1858 Charles Darwin struggles to publish one of the most controversial scientific theories ever conceived, while he and his wife Emma confront family tragedy.
0.0The last wild rivers of the Alps are under threat. In the Tyrolean Alps, a chain of new hydroelectric plants is planned, including the controversial damming of the pristine Platzertal valley. This documentary by filmmaker Harry Putz captures the fragile beauty of these untouched alpine ecosystems and explores what’s at stake — not just for the environment, but for local communities and future generations. Through interviews with residents, scientists, and activists, Down To The Last Drop reveals the high environmental cost of outdated energy policies in the face of the global biodiversity and climate crisis.
8.0"A Home On The Range" tells the little-known story of Jews who fled the pogroms and hardships of Eastern Europe and traveled to California to become chicken ranchers. Even in the sweatshops of New York they heard about Petaluma where the Jews were not the shopkeepers and the professionals, they were the farmers. Meet this fractious, idealistic, intrepid group of Eastern European Jews and their descendants as they confront obstacles of language and culture on their journey towards becoming Americans. Jack London, California vigilantes, McCarthyism, the Cold War and agribusiness all come to life in this quintessentially American story of how a group of immigrants found their new home, a home on the range.
7.0Bacteria, viruses, but also fungi, algae, pollen, and even insects: micro-organisms thrive and circulate constantly in our sky. How can so many living beings find their way into the air and circulate? How do they survive? And what influence do they have on our lives and the living world? Biodiversity, health, climate: it is only recently that scientists have begun to understand how this discreet aerial "plankton" affects our lives and our ecosystem. But despite their many virtues, some of these micro-organisms are now threatened by human activities. With the help of experts and 3D models, this scientific investigation plunges us into the heart of a still mysterious world, and reveals the diversity and fragility of the air we breathe.
7.7Sheds light on an alternative approach to farming called “regenerative agriculture” that could balance our climate, replenish our vast water supplies, and feed the world.
7.6The successes and failures of a couple determined to live in harmony with nature on a farm outside of Los Angeles are lovingly chronicled by filmmaking farmer John Chester, in this inspiring documentary.
7.8An unlikely team of activists and innovators hatches a bold mission to save endangered species.
7.5David Attenborough and scientist Johan Rockström examine Earth's biodiversity collapse and how this crisis can still be averted.
7.1Through revealing interviews with experts and victims' families, this gripping documentary examines the problem of deadly foodborne illness in the US.
6.8Filmmaker Kip Andersen uncovers the secret to preventing and even reversing chronic diseases, and he investigates why the nation's leading health organizations doesn't want people to know about it.
6.7A look at the state of the global environment including visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystems. Featuring ongoing dialogues of experts from all over the world, including former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolse
6.6An investigation into the ongoing threat caused by the phenomenon of “fake news” in the U.S., focusing on the real-life consequences that disinformation, conspiracy theories and false news stories have on the average citizen.
7.7A look at how climate change affects our environment and what society can do to prevent the demise of endangered species, ecosystems, and native communities across the planet.
6.6A decade after An Inconvenient Truth brought climate change into the heart of popular culture comes the riveting and rousing follow-up that shows just how close we are to a real energy revolution. Vice President Al Gore continues his tireless fight, traveling around the world training an army of climate champions and influencing international climate policy. Cameras follow him behind the scenes—in moments private and public, funny and poignant—as he pursues the empowering notion that while the stakes have never been higher, the perils of climate change can be overcome with human ingenuity and passion.
7.0Muckraking filmmaker Morgan Spurlock reignites his battle with the food industry — this time from behind the register — as he opens his own fast food restaurant.
7.1An investigation of "disaster capitalism", based on Naomi Klein's proposition that neo-liberal capitalism feeds on natural disasters, war and terror to establish its dominance.
6.5Interviews with leading authors, philosophers and scientists, with an in-depth discussion of the Law of Attraction. The audience is shown how they can learn and use 'The Secret' in their everyday lives.
7.5Hollywood veteran Bing Russell creates the only independent baseball team in the country—alarming the baseball establishment and sparking the meteoric rise of the 1970s Portland Mavericks.
7.6Follow the shocking, yet humorous, journey of an aspiring environmentalist, as he daringly seeks to find the real solution to the most pressing environmental issues and true path to sustainability.
7.4Documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner examines how mammoth corporations have taken over all aspects of the food chain in the United States, from the farms where our food is grown to the chain restaurants and supermarkets where it's sold. Narrated by author and activist Eric Schlosser, the film features interviews with average Americans about their dietary habits, commentary from food experts like Michael Pollan and unsettling footage shot inside large-scale animal processing plants.
7.2By the mid-1980s, the fabled animation studios of Walt Disney had fallen on hard times. The artists were polarized between newcomers hungry to innovate and old timers not yet ready to relinquish control. These conditions produced a series of box-office flops and pessimistic forecasts: maybe the best days of animation were over. Maybe the public didn't care. Only a miracle or a magic spell could produce a happy ending. Waking Sleeping Beauty is no fairy tale. It's the true story of how Disney regained its magic with a staggering output of hits - "Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast ," "Aladdin," "The Lion King," and more - over a 10-year period.
7.3Humanity’s ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, “A Short History Of Progress” inspired “Surviving Progress”, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by “progress traps”—alluring technologies and belief systems that serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. As pressure on the world’s resources accelerates and financial elites bankrupt nations, can our globally-entwined civilization escape a final, catastrophic progress trap? With potent images and illuminating insights from thinkers who have probed our genes, our brains, and our social behaviour, this requiem to progress-as-usual also poses a challenge: to prove that making apes smarter isn’t an evolutionary dead-end.
6.8One man's journey to discover the bitter truth about sugar. Damon Gameau embarks on a unique experiment to document the effects of a high sugar diet on a healthy body, consuming only foods that are commonly perceived as 'healthy'. Through this entertaining and informative journey, Damon highlights some of the issues that plague the sugar industry, and where sugar lurks on supermarket shelves.
6.5A journey inside the world of real life caped crusaders. From all over America, these self-proclaimed crime fighters, don masks, homemade costumes and elaborate utility belts in an attempt to bring justice to evildoers everywhere.