Movies by David Attenborough

Cheetahs: Growing Up Fast
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

Attenborough and the Empire of the Ants
Sir David Attenborough is in the Swiss Jura Mountains to discover the secrets of a giant. Beneath his feet lies a vast network of tunnels and chambers, home to a huge empire of ants. It is believed to be one of the largest animal societies in the world, where over a billion ants from rival colonies live in peace.

Trek - Spy on the Wildebeest
Each year over 1.2 million wildebeest travel across the vast Serengeti plains and Kenya's Masai Mara on a 1,800 kilometer circular journey, relentlessly followed by every big African predator. Revolutionary spy cams - airborne, swimming or disguised as rocks, skulls or dung - reveal the Great Wildebeest Migration from entirely new perspectives. This 2-part series focuses on the growing-up of a calf as he takes his first steps, faces his first deadly perils and tries to cross crocodile-infested rivers. It combines natural humor with exciting ...

Killer Whales: Wolves of the Sea
Do they really launch themselves onto the shore to grab a hapless snack? See for yourself, and gain a vivid appreciation for their appetites and skills. While your jaw drops at their fearsome agility, you’ll also be learning about their migratory and other behaviours from scientists who observe them daily and strive to increase our understanding of their needs for survival. In this National Geographic ‘Wildlife Special’ you’ll journey around the globe to see their extraordinary hunting techniques in action.

The Queen's Green Planet
Featuring a unique conversation between The Queen and Sir David Attenborough as they walked in the garden at Buckingham Palace last summer, a landmark documentary will explore the ambition of a remarkable new initiative - a vast network of native forests across Britain and the Commonwealth, protected forever in The Queen's name.

Desert Seas
Sir David Attenborough unveils the two stunning underwater realms of Saudi Arabia - the flamboyant Red Sea and the contrasting hot muddy Gulf, capturing for the first time the rare event of Palolo worms spawning at night.

Islands of the Vampire Birds
The story of Darwin's finches and their relationship with other creatures of the Galapagos; tracing their evolution, how the islands were formed and how it's main inhabitants got there.

Attenborough’s Journey
In honor of his 95th birthday, a look at Sir David Attenborough’s life and contributions to broadcasting and the natural world. Presented by BBC.

Attenborough's Journey
Following David Attenborough as he travels the globe to film his series, David Attenborough's First Life, in which he explores the very origins of life on Earth. David journeys to the parts of the world which have had special meaning to him during his 50 years of broadcasting. Beginning near his boyhood Leicestershire home, where he first collected fossils, he then travels to Morocco's arid deserts, the glaciers of Canada and crystal clear waters of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. As a prelude to the First Life series, Attenborough's Journ...
Kea: The Smartest Parrot
Sir David Attenborough narrates a documentary about the Kea, the world's only alpine parrot. Playful and destructive, it attacks cars, starts landslides and terrorises New Zealand ski resorts but behind the bad behaviour there's a sharp mind at work. David tries to play chess with a kea and discovers how its cheeky character is the key to its survival.

Dragons and Damsels
More beautiful than butterflies, more spectacular fliers than hummingbirds, and with intriguing behavior as complex as mammals or birds. They’ve been flying around for hundreds of millions of years, crossing paths with dinosaurs before we mammals were even a twinkle in the eye of evolution.

Attenborough's Life That Glows
Luminous beings, creatures with their own internal light, enchant and astonish us. Anyone who has seen a firefly or a glow-worm cannot help but fall under their spell. The sea at night sparkles as millions of luminous plankton reveal the shapes of dolphins in a truly magical light show. Join Sir David Attenborough and a team of the world's leading scientists and deep sea explorers on a quest to reveal the secrets of living lights.

Smart Sharks: Swimming With Roboshark
A 6-foot-long animatronic shark featuring on-board cameras, Robo Shark is designed to blend in with real sharks and capture never-before-seen wild shark behavior. Footage shown in this television special includes the deep-sea thresher shark in the Philippines; giant whale sharks feeding off the coast of Belize; and deadly hammerheads, great whites and bronze whaler sharks in South Africa.

Attenborough's Wonder of Eggs
David Attenborough has a passion for birds' eggs. These remarkable structures nurture new life, protecting it from the outside world at the same time as allowing it to breathe. They are strong enough to withstand the full weight of an incubating parent and weak enough to allow a chick to break free. But how is an egg made? Why are they the shape they are? And perhaps most importantly, why lay an egg at all? Piece by piece, from creation to hatching, David reveals the wonder behind these miracles of nature.

Attenborough's Paradise Birds
David Attenborough tells the remarkable story of how these " birds of paradise " have captivated explorers , naturalists, artists, filmmakers and even royalty.

Bears: Spy in the Woods
Attenborough's team travels the globe for up-close looks at polar bears, grizzlies, pandas and other fascinating bear species.

Fabulous Frogs
Sir David Attenborough takes us on a journey through the weird and wonderful world of frogs, shedding new light on these charismatic, colorful and frequently bizarre little animals through first-hand stories, the latest science, and cutting-edge technology. Frogs from around the world are used to demonstrate the wide variety of frog anatomy, appearance and behavior. Their amazing adaptations and survival techniques have made them the most successful of all amphibians.

Zoo Quest in Colour
Thanks to a remarkable discovery in the BBC's film vaults, the best of David Attenborough's early Zoo Quest adventures can now be seen as never before - in colour - and with it the remarkable story of how this pioneering television series was made. First broadcast in December 1954, Zoo Quest was one of the most popular television series of its time and launched the career of the young David Attenborough as a wildlife presenter. Zoo Quest completely changed how viewers saw the world - revealing wildlife and tribal communities that had never b...

The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor
Explores the story behind the discovery of an early primate fossil, Darwinius masillae, nicknamed Ida, in a shale quarry in Germany. The fossil is believed to be around 47 million years old, and is extraordinarily well-preserved. Originally unearthed in 1983, Ida lay in the hands of a private collector for 20 years before it was shown to a Norwegian paleontologist, Dr Jørn Hurum. Realising that Ida could turn out to be a significant missing link between modern primates, lemurs and lower mammals, he persuaded the Natural History Museum in Osl...
Edwardian Insects on Film
In 1908, amateur naturalist and pioneering filmmaker Percy Smith stunned early cinema goers with his footage of the juggling fly. Hailed as the father of Natural History film, Smith was a hugely influential visual pioneer, inventing many techniques that are still used today. Being both a genius and an eccentric, we follow his life from his earliest films, to the collapse of his house from his mould experiment to his ultimate suicide. We also meet Natural History icon Sir David Attenborough, who was so amazed by Smith’s films in the 1930s tha...