Genre: Nature
Writing on the natural world — its landscapes, creatures, and forces, and our place within and against it.
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Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)
Werner Herzog's 2010 Chauvet Cave doc. 30,000-year-old paintings. 3D filming. Albino crocodiles coda. Herzog narrates. -
Grizzly Man (2005)
Werner Herzog's 2005 Timothy Treadwell doc. Bear researcher killed by bears. Herzog's voice-over commentary. Tape of the deaths exists. -
The Trials of Life (1990)
Attenborough's 1990 series tracking animals through twelve life stages. Births, courtships, fights, deaths. Orca-beach sequence is nature TV's bleakest. -
Life on Earth (1979)
Attenborough's 1979 thirteen-episode evolutionary survey. The series that built natural history documentary as a form. Mountain gorilla scene is the peak. -
The Living Planet (1984)
Attenborough's 1984 sequel to Life on Earth, organized by ecosystem. Twelve episodes from polar ice to ocean trench. The framework every nature series copied. -
The Private Life of Plants (1995)
Attenborough's 1995 series using time-lapse to make plants act like animals. Strangler figs, carnivorous pitchers, vines that kill their hosts. -
The Life of Birds (1998)
Attenborough's 1998 ten-episode avian survey. Mating, migration, song, flight. Bird-of-paradise courtship footage took the BBC two years to capture. -
The Blue Planet (2001)
Attenborough's 2001 eight-part ocean survey. Four years filming, 200 locations. Deep-sea life nobody had ever seen. The series that justified HD. -
The Life of Mammals (2002)
Attenborough's 2002 ten-episode series on mammalian behavior. Hunting, social order, sex, parenting. The chimp tool-use sequences still the best on film. -
Planet Earth (2006)
Attenborough's 2006 eleven-episode HD landmark. Five years, $25M, 71 cameramen. Snow leopards, great whites, lions hunting elephants. TV as cinema.