Browse documentary series in New Zealand
Dive into the world of documentary series in New Zealand. From timeless classics to trending hits, explore an exciting collection of titles that define the documentary genre.
Explore critically acclaimed blockbusters, hidden gems, and trending new releases that showcase the diversity and creativity of documentary storytelling. Use our filters to find top-rated titles, recent hits, or beloved classics tailored to your taste.
With Popcorn Time, uncover your next favorite series and enjoy the best of documentary entertainment. Start browsing now and bring documentary into your watchlist today!
TV Show
The show features accounts of individuals and groups caught in dangerous scenarios, presented both through interviews and dramatic reenactments. The main focus is how the survivors survived and the decisions they made that kept them alive.
I Shouldn't Be Alive (2005 )
TV Show
Meerkat Manor is a British television programme produced by Oxford Scientific Films for Animal Planet International that premiered in September 2005 and ran for four series until its cancellation in August 2008. Blending more traditional animal documentary style footage with dramatic narration, the series told the story of the Whiskers, one of more than a dozen families of meerkats in the Kalahari Desert being studied as part of the Kalahari Meerkat Project, a long-term field study into the ecological causes and evolutionary consequences of the cooperative nature of meerkats. The original programme was narrated by Bill Nighy, with the narration redubbed by Mike Goldman for the Australian airings and Sean Astin for the American broadcasts. The fourth series, subtitled The Next Generation, saw Stockard Channing replacing Astin as the narrator in the American dubbing. Meerkat Manor premiered in the United Kingdom on 12 September 2005, and the first 13-episode series concluded on 24 October 2005. With the success of the programme in the United Kingdom, Animal Planet started broadcasting it on its national channels in Australia, Canada, and the US. It has since been rebroadcast in more than 160 other countries. The fourth, and final, series aired initially in the United States from 6 June 2008 to 22 August 2008; it aired in the United Kingdom in April 2009. In August 2009, it was reported that the programme had been cancelled.
Meerkat Manor (2005 )
TV Show
Tutored by Aristotle, helpless witness to his father's assassination, and a brilliant, pioneering tactician, Alexander the Great had conquered the known world--and sealed his legacy as one of history's most remarkable rulers--by the age of 25. In the year 334 B.C., 20-year-old King Alexander of Macedonia decided to bring the farthest reaches of the world under one domain. Over the next 12 years, he led a grand army across more than 20,000 miles and eventually brought all of Asia under his control, only to perish from battle wounds at the age of 32. Incorporating dramatic onsite reenactments with high-end computer graphics and the expertise of renowned scholars, THE TRUE STORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT is a special presentation from THE HISTORY CHANNEL®, examining the life and career of this military genius, impassioned lover, and fearless leader.
The True Story of Alexander the Great (2005 )
TV Show
TransGeneration is an eight episode documentary series depicting the lives of four transgender college students during the 2004/2005 school year as they attempt to balance college, their social lives, and their struggle "to merge their internal and external selves" while gender transitioning.
TransGeneration (2005 )
TV Show
This compelling series investigates the motives and m.o. of female murderers. While males are often driven by anger, impulse and destruction, women usually have more complex, long-term reasons to kill.
Deadly Women (2005 )
TV Show
In 2004 Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman embarked on an epic challenge to bike 20,000-miles across 12 countries and 19 time zones in just 115 days. Watch as two friends ride around the world together and, against all the odds, realize their dream.
Long Way Round (2004 )
TV Show
Dr. G: Medical Examiner is a reality television series shown on TLC and Discovery Fit & Health. Dr. G, or Dr. Jan Garavaglia, is the Chief Medical Examiner with Florida's District Nine Medical Examiner's office in Orlando, Florida. This series features Dr. G working on unexplained deaths in the Orlando area, as well as similar deaths from her last position as a Medical Examiner in Bexar County, Texas. The shows feature dramatic re-enactments of the events leading up to the person's death as well as the autopsies. Also interviews of Dr. G, family members, and other people connected to the deaths are shown. The unexplained death cases that Dr. G works on can come from a variety of factors, such as undiagnosed medical conditions, accidents, or foul play. In one instance, a woman who attempted suicide died a few days after her attempt. Dr. G found that her death was actually due to another condition and was not by her own hand. Another instance dealt with human bones that had been found alongside some railroad tracks. Through an autopsy and investigative work it was discovered that the remains were those of a missing girl who had been killed by her mother. The series is produced by NY-based Atlas Media Corporation. Executive Producer is Bruce David Klein.
Dr. G: Medical Examiner (2004 )
TV Show
Monarchy is a Channel 4 British TV series, 2004-2006, by British academic David Starkey, charting the political and ideological history of the English monarchy from the Saxon period to modern times. The show also aired on PBS stations throughout the United States, courtesy of PBS-member station WNET. In Australia, all four seasons were broadcast on ABC1 from May 2005 onwards.
Monarchy (2004 )
TV Show
Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, presents a gripping courtroom thriller, offering a rare and revealing inside look at a high-profile murder trial. In 2001, author Michael Peterson was arraigned for the murder of his wife Kathleen, whose body was discovered lying in a pool of blood on the stairway of their home. Granted unusual access to Peterson's lawyers, home and immediate family, de Lestrade's cameras capture the defense team as it considers its strategic options. The series is an engrossing look at contemporary American justice that features more twists than a legal bestseller.
The Staircase (2004 )
TV Show
MegaStructures is a documentary television series appearing on the National Geographic Channel in the United States and the United Kingdom, Channel 5 in the United Kingdom, France 5 in France, and 7mate in Australia. Each episode is an educational look of varying depth into the construction, operation, and staffing of various structures or construction projects, but not ordinary construction products. Generally containing interviews with designers and project managers, it presents the problems of construction and the methodology or techniques used to overcome obstacles. In some cases this involved the development of new materials or products that are now in general use within the construction industry. MegaStructures focuses on constructions that are extreme; in the sense that they are the biggest, tallest, longest, or deepest in the world. Alternatively, a project may appear if it had an element of novelty or are a world first. This type of project is known as a Megaproject.
MegaStructures (2004 )
TV Show
Naked Science is an American documentary television series that premiered in 2004 on the National Geographic Channel. The program features various subjects related to science and technology. Some of the views expressed might be considered fringe or pseudo-science, and some of the scientists may present opinions which have not been properly peer-reviewed or are not widely accepted within their scientific communities, in particular on topics such as Bermuda Triangle or Atlantis for example.
Naked Science (2004 )
TV Show
For 30 years Oxford Scientific Films has concentrated on animals that are difficult to film and action that is often impossible to appreciate with the naked eye. In Secret Nature, we open the treasure trove of world class images that includes stunning timelapse, slow motion, high speed and macro sequences.
Secret Nature (2004 )
TV Show
John Safran vs God is an eight-part television documentary series by John Safran which was broadcast on SBS TV of Australia in 2004. It has been described in a media release as "John Safran's most audacious project yet". It had a much more serious tone than Safran's previous work Music Jamboree. The show was released by Ghost of Your Ex-Boyfriend Productions and SBS Independent, was co-written with Mark O'Toole, directed by Craig Melville, and produced by Selin Yaman. The series won the 2005 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Comedy Series. The show's opening theme is Hate Priest by the band Mozart on Crack. The opening sequence features John in a black suit breaking out of a patch of black scorched earth with his bare hands during a thunderstorm. The words "when the thousand years are over Satan will be released from his prison" are spoken in a low pseudo-ominous voice.
John Safran vs God (2004 )
TV Show
MythBusters is a science entertainment television program created and produced by Australia's Beyond Television Productions for the Discovery Channel. The show's hosts, special effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, use elements of the scientific method to test the validity of rumors, myths, movie scenes, adages, Internet videos, and news stories.
MythBusters (2003 )
TV Show
Penn & Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour is a 2003 television documentary miniseries starring Penn & Teller. The program was created by the CBC in association with Channel 4 Film. The show focuses on street magic, and the subjects of each of the three shows are China, India, and Egypt. Unusually for Penn and Teller, Teller speaks in the Egypt episode, even though part of their trademark performance is that Penn does all the speaking.
Penn & Teller's Magic & Mystery Tour (2003 )
TV Show
This DIC animated action-adventure series follows four exceptional Air Force Academy cadets and a wrongly court-martialed Stargate veteran as they travel planets through gated wormholes protecting a myst. Based on MGMs successful sci-fi franchise Stargate.
Stargate Infinity (2002 )
TV Show
Where violence and criminals strike, local law enforcement responds, but sometimes help is required. This is when they bring in the specialists - the CIRG. FBI Critical Incident covers the crisis negotiation unit in action with three edge of the seat one-hour case studies:
FBI: Critical Incident (2001 )
TV Show
Closer to Truth is a continuing television series on PBS & public television originally created, produced and hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn. The first premiere series aired in 2000 for 2 seasons, followed by a second series aired in 2003 for a single season. The current / third series of the program, Closer to Truth: Cosmos. Consciousness. God., launched in 2008, with 12 full seasons to date. Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator, executive producer, writer and presenter of the series. Peter Getzels is the co-creator and producer / director. The show is centered on on-camera conversations with leading scientists, philosophers, theologians, and scholars, covering a diverse range of topics or questions from the size and nature of the universe, to the existence and essence of God, to the mystery of consciousness and the notion of free will.
Closer to Truth (2000 )
TV Show
A respected small-town physician has brutally killed his wife, thus ending a four-year martyrdom from which he could not escape by any other means...
Crime Stories (1999 )
TV Show
Ancient Inventions was a BBC historical documentary series released in 1998. It was presented by ex-Monty Python member Terry Jones and looked at great inventions of the ancient world. The series is split into 3 episodes, namely City Life, Sex and Love, and War and Conflicts, all around 50 min long.
Ancient Inventions (1998 )
TV Show
In the documentary series produced by the BBC, The Life of Birds, Sir David Attenborough unveils a new investigation into the behaviour of birds, perfectly adapted animals that conquer the air. This ten-part series reveals the secret of the birds' great success, their remarkable strategies for finding food, their complex social systems, and their ingenious and often bizarre ways of mating and breeding. From the high speed of large airborne hunters to long distance migrations or the bright colors of nectar feeding hummingbirds, this is the ultimate bird series that every ornithologist should not miss.
The Life of Birds (1998 )
TV Show
Can you tell the difference between fact and fiction? Several stories of strange, mysterious and incredible occurrences are chronicled during each episode. It is up to the viewer to decide which stories actually happened and which were completely fabricated by the show’s writers. The answer is revealed by Jonathan Frakes at the conclusion of each episode.
Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction (1997 )
TV Show
Through one-on-one interviews, this series captures the cold-blooded crimes of Ted Bundy and Henry Lee Lucas, as well as other murderers.
The Serial Killers (1994 )
TV Show
Ancient Warriors is a 1994 20-part documentary series from the Discovery Channel. Each half-hour episode looks at a major fighting people or force and charts the reasons for their rise to dominance and subsequent fall. The show explores the motivations of ancient soldiers, as well as how they lived, fought, trained, died, and changed the world. It also uses battle re-enactments and computer graphics to demonstrate military strategy.
Ancient Warriors (1994 )
TV Show
The history of the sport of baseball in America, told through archival photos, film footage, and the words of those who contributed to the game in each era. Writers, historians, players, baseball personnel, and fans review key events and the significance of the game in America's history.
Baseball (1994 )
TV Show
This critically acclaimed television and video series from the National Museum of American History is a sweeping and compelling look at the war's military, political and social history. Each episode features dramatic reenactments of important campaigns; first-hand accounts of eyewitnesses and participants read by distinguished actors; period photographs, paintings and artifacts; intriguing expert challenges to traditional historical thinking; original contemporary illustrations; computer enhanced maps; and music of the time.
Smithsonian's Great Battles of the Civil War (1994 )
TV Show
Mini-series investigating three significant Canadian battles in World War II.
The Valour and the Horror (1992 )
TV Show
If there is one genre of art that seems to have played a greater role than any other, it is the nude. For at least 30,000 years, humans have represented the naked form in a variety of ways. From the ideal to the real, the Romantic to the Surrealist, there have been almost no end of works devoted to the unclothed human body. This series - presented by writer and broadcaster Tim Marlow - will examine those artworks, the societies that produced them and the artists that made them.
The Nude In Art with Tim Marlow
Kill it, Cut it, Use it
TV Show
Welcome to Heathrow Airport's Animal Reception Centre: a unit that's equipped to deal with almost any species and which receives around 200,000 animals each year.
Animal Airport
