NHU filmography

This subarticle is kept separate from the main article, BBC Natural History Unit, due to size or style considerations.

This is a chronological list of selected television programmes and feature films produced or co-produced by the BBC Natural History Unit since its inception in 1957. It is not intended to be exhaustive given the large amount of material the Unit has produced in its history, but it does capture all the major TV series and films for which it has gained recognition. A brief synopsis of pre-1957 radio and television programmes on a natural history theme made by the BBC is given in the History section of the main BBC Natural History Unit article.

The following abbreviations are used in the filmography table:

• intr = introduced by
• narr = narrator
• pres = presenter
• prod = producer
• dir = director

Selected NHU television productions

Series Title	Year(s) Broadcast	Subject	Contributors
Look	1955–1969	Weekly magazine show	Peter Scott (intr) Desmond Hawkins (prod) Tony Soper (prod) Jeffery Boswall (prod)
Faraway Look	1957	Wildlife of Australasia	Peter and Philippa Scott (pres)
On Safari	1957–1965	Filming animals in East Africa	Armand and Michaela Denis (pres)
Undersea World of Adventure/Adventure	1958–1960	Sea life	Hans and Lotte Hass (pres) Tony Soper (prod)
Animal Magic	1962–1983	Weekly magazine show for children	Johnny Morris (pres)
Private Lives	1967–1970	Series on individual species including kingfisher, cuckoo and fox	Jeffery Boswall (prod)
The World About Us	1967–1983	Weekly blue-chip documentary strand	Various (often independent productions)
Eastwards with Attenborough	1973	Expedition to South East Asia	David Attenborough (pres)
Wildlife on One	1977–2005	Weekly series profiling different animals	David Attenborough (narr)
Life on Earth	1979	The evolution of life	David Attenborough (pres)
Natural World	1983–present	Weekly blue-chip documentary strand	Various (often independent productions)
The Living Planet	1984	How organisms adapt to their environment	David Attenborough (pres)
The Living Isles	1985	British wildlife	Julian Pettifer (pres) and Peter Crawford (prod)
The Really Wild Show	1986–2006	Weekly magazine show for children	Terry Nutkins (pres), Chris Packham (pres), Michaela Strachan (pres) and others
Supersense	1988	Sensory perception in animals	Andrew Sachs (narr)
The Trials of Life	1990	Animal behaviour	David Attenborough (pres)
Land of the Eagle	1991	The colonisation of North America	Alan Ereira (narr) and Peter Crawford (prod)
Realms of the Russian Bear	1992	Natural history of the former USSR states	Nikolai Drozdov (pres)
Sea Trek	1992	Exploration of dive sites	Martha Holmes (pres) and Mike deGruy (pres)
Life in the Freezer	1993	Natural history of Antarctica	David Attenborough (pres) and Alastair Fothergill (prod)
The Private Life of Plants	1995	A study of the plants	David Attenborough (pres)
The Wildlife Specials	1995–2007	One-off profiles of individual species	David Attenborough (narr)
Alien Empire	1996	A series looking at the world of the insects	John Shrapnel (narr)
Big Cat Diary	1996–2008	Family lives of the Masai Mara's lions, leopards and cheetahs	Jonathan Scott (pres), Simon King (pres) and Saba Douglas-Hamilton (pres)
Birding with Bill Oddie	1997–2000	Birdwatching in the UK and abroad	Bill Oddie (pres)
Land of the Tiger	1997	Natural history of the Indian subcontinent	Valmik Thapar (pres)
Incredible Journeys	1998	Animal migration	Geoffrey Palmer (narr) and Nigel Marven (prod)
The Life of Birds	1998	A natural history of birds	David Attenborough (pres)
Living Britain	1999	British natural history	Peter Crawford (prod)
Walking with Dinosaurs/Beasts/Monsters	1999–2005	CGI reconstruction of prehistoric creatures	Kenneth Branagh (narr) and Tim Haines (prod)
Andes to Amazon	2000	A portrait of South American landscapes and wildlife	Fergal Keane (narr)
Cousins	2000	Primates	Charlotte Uhlenbroek (pres)
State of the Planet	2000	The impact of humans on the natural world	David Attenborough (pres)
The Blue Planet	2001	A natural history of the oceans	David Attenborough (narr) and Alastair Fothergill (prod)
Ultimate Killers	2001	Hunting techniques of predators	Steve Leonard (pres)
Wild Africa	2001	A portrait of Africa's landscapes and wildlife	Fergal Keane (narr)
Congo	2001	A portrait of the great central African river's forests and wildlife
Talking with Animals	2001	Animal communication	Charlotte Uhlenbroek (narr)
Bill Oddie Goes Wild	2001–2003	Watching British wildlife	Bill Oddie (pres)
The Life of Mammals	2002	A natural history of mammals	David Attenborough (pres)
Wild Battlefields	2002–2003	How lions, polar bears, tiger sharks and wolves hunt their prey	Sanjeev Bhaskar (narr)
Abyss, Amazon Abyss and Pacific Abyss	2002–2008	Expeditions exploring the deep oceans, the Amazon and the seas of Micronesia	Kate Humble (pres) and Mike deGruy (pres)
Wild In Your Garden	2003	Garden wildlife	Bill Oddie (pres), Kate Humble (pres) and Simon King (pres)
Wild Down Under	2003	A portrait of Australasia's landscapes and wildlife	Matt Day (narr)
Jungle	2003	Wildlife of the world's rainforests	Charlotte Uhlenbroek (pres)
Britain Goes Wild	2004	The coming of spring in Britain	Bill Oddie (pres), Kate Humble (pres) and Simon King (pres)
British Isles - A Natural History	2004	The natural history of the British Isles	Alan Titchmarsh (pres)
Life in the Undergrowth	2005	A study of terrestrial invertebrates	David Attenborough (pres)
Europe: A Natural History	2005	A history of changing landscape and evoluting natural life of Europe through the ages with an eye towards the future	Sean Pertwee (narr)
Bill Oddie's How to Watch Wildlife	2005–2006	Watching British wildlife	Bill Oddie (pres)
Coast	2005–2007	Journeying around Britain's coastline (additional material by the NHU)	Nicholas Crane (pres) and Neil Oliver (pres)
Springwatch	2005–2008	Observing British wildlife in spring	Bill Oddie (pres), Kate Humble (pres) and Simon King (pres)
Planet Earth	2006	A portrait of Earth's wildernesses and wildlife spectacles	David Attenborough (narr) and Alastair Fothergill (prod)
Autumnwatch	2006–2008	Observing British wildlife autumn	Bill Oddie (pres), Kate Humble (pres) and Simon King (pres)
Galápagos	2006	A natural history of the Pacific islands	Tilda Swinton (narr)
Wild Caribbean	2007	A natural history of the Caribbean islands and Sea	Steve Toussaint (narr)
Saving Planet Earth season	2007	A season of programmes dedicated to wildlife conservation	David Attenborough (pres, "Sharing Planet Earth") and Alan Titchmarsh (pres, live fundraising evening)
Ganges	2007	A journey along the sacred river from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal	Sudha Bhuchar (narr)
The Nature of Britain	2007	Showcase of British wildlife and habitats	Alan Titchmarsh (pres)
Life in Cold Blood	2008	A series dedicated to reptiles and amphibians	David Attenborough (pres)
Wild China	2008	The first-ever comprehensive natural history of China	Bernard Hill (narr)
Lost Land of the Jaguar	2008	An expedition team records life in Guyana's remote rainforest	Steve Backshall (pres), Gordon Buchanan (pres), Justine Evans (pres) and George McGavin (pres)
Nature's Great Events	2009	An intimate look at some of the millions of animals whose lives are affected by seasonal changes	David Attenborough (narr)
Yellowstone	2009	A year in the life of the animals of Yellowstone National Park	Peter Firth (narr)
South Pacific	2009	Natural history of the islands of the South Pacific	Benedict Cumberbatch (narr)
Lost Land of the Volcano	2009	An expedition team records life in Mount Bosavi, an extinct volcano in New Guinea.	Steve Backshall (pres), Gordon Buchanan (pres), and George McGavin (pres)
Life	2009	Blue-chip series looking at extraordinary animal behaviour from all parts of the natural world.	David Attenborough (narr)
The Great Rift: Africa's Wild Heart	2010	A series looking at flora, fauna, and people of the Great Rift Valley.	Hugh Quarshie (narr)
Mountain Gorilla	2010	Intimate footage of Africa's last mountain gorillas	Patrick Stewart (narr)
Lost Land of the Tiger	2010	An expedition team records life in Bhutan and searches for a reported population of tigers close to the Himalayas.	Gordon Buchanan (pres), Steve Backshall (pres), and George McGavin (pres)
Human Planet	2011	Mankind's incredible relationship with nature in the world today.	John Hurt (narr)
Madagascar	2011	A natural history of Madagascar.	David Attenborough (pres)

Feature film productions

Title	Release Year	Subject	Contributors
Deep Blue	2003	Feature-length version of The Blue Planet TV series	Michael Gambon (narr), Alastair Fothergill (dir)
Earth	2007	Feature-length version of the Planet Earth TV series	Patrick Stewart (narr), Alastair Fothergill (dir), Mark Linfield (dir)
The Meerkats	2008	Follows the daily struggles for survival of a meerkat clan in the Kalahari Desert	Paul Newman (narr), James Honeyborne (dir)

See also

• Nature documentary
• BBC Atlas of the Natural World, a 2006-07 DVD compilation series for North America

References

The material for this article has largely been drawn from the following sources:

• Parsons, C. (1982) True to Nature: 25 Years of Wildlife Filming with the BBC Natural History Unit. Patrick Stephens Limited. ISBN 0-85059-530-4
• BBC/2entertain Great Wildlife Moments DVD (2003). Bonus Feature: NHU Filmography
• BBC Programme Catalogue website
• BBC Science & Nature: TV & Radio Follow-up