Browse documentary series in US
Dive into the world of documentary series in US. 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!
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Richard Hammond's Crash Course is an original series made for BBC America, presented by Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond. The show's first season premiered on April 16, 2012. The show follows Hammond, as in each episode, he is given three days to learn how to operate various pieces of heavy equipment across the United States. A trailer for the series was posted on BBC America's official website on March 19, 2012. The series' first season began airing on BBC2 in the United Kingdom on September 2, 2012.
Richard Hammond's Crash Course (2012 )
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Bizarre Foods America is an American television series, and a spin-off of Bizarre Foods, this time focusing on the United States rather than international travel. Andrew Zimmern travels to various cities throughout the country and samples local cuisines and ways of life. The format is similar to Bizarre Foods. The show premiered Monday January 23, 2012 at 9:00 ET on Travel Channel. Much like the popular Bizarre Foods, Andrew heads to some of the most unique food hubs in the country. Once there he meets with locals and local chefs to gain a better understanding of American cuisine and to see how America has developed its reputation as a melting pot of cultures and foods and what sort of unusual foods people in America might have in their own cities and not realize.
Bizarre Foods America (2012 )
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A high testosterone action adventure series on the edge of aviation’s final frontier, starring the daring mavericks who risk their lives in the high-danger, no-holds-barred, high-stress business of aircraft delivery.
Dangerous Flights (2012 )
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When marriages fall apart, divorce can turn ugly - even deadly. From blushing brides turned cold-blooded killers to smitten grooms with shocking dark sides, the criminal psychology behind deadly divorces is examined. Guiding viewers through actual stories of love gone wrong are psychotherapist Stacy Kaiser and forensic psychologist Dr. Brian Russell, who analyze each couple to better understand how the marriage turned from flawed to fatal. .
Fatal Vows (2012 )
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Follows designers, welders and mechanics as they ideate, build, and customize one-of-a-kind recreational vehicles. Each one-hour episodes highlights three different rolling million-dollar, mega-mansions with incredible themed designs and luxurious interiors that put most real homes to shame.
Extreme RVs (2012 )
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The inner workings of a large U.S. airport, especially considering increased security measures implemented post-9/11, are prime fodder for a reality series. This Travel Channel entry presents an around-the-clock pass to one of the country's largest airports, Miami International. Its staff is charged with getting approximately 100,000 passengers through the airport safely each day, a stressful task because MIA is a prime target for terrorist threats. It is also a frequent point of entry for illegal drugs, and viewers see the ways in which smugglers attempt to disguise containers. The series concentrates on the work done by a cross-section of airport employees, among them security director Lauren Stover, operations agent Heidi Anthony and police officer Chris Rutledge.
Airport 24/7: Miami (2012 )
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What does it take to build a house totally off the grid in some of the most unforgiving terrain on the planet? We follow a cast of characters who set out to construct three incredible cabins in the obscure Alaskan wilderness. With no roads and no building supply centers, they’ll have to get creative in a new season of Building Alaska.
Building Alaska (2012 )
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In Discovery Channel's top-rated show `Gold Rush', gold miners, inexperienced as some may be, hope to strike it rich in the wilds of Alaska and beyond. Some dismal summers result, filled with injuries, malfunctioning equipment and constant fighting among the greenhorn miners, yet serious cases of gold fever always trump any talk of giving up and sometimes leads to dreams being salvaged. The companion series `The Dirt' presents the inside scoop on behind-the-scenes relationships between such miners as brash youngster Parker Schnabel and longtime Yukon resident Tony Beets, as the quest to hit the mother lode never stops.
Gold Rush: The Dirt (2012 )
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Amid the untouched backdrop of Alaska, people go missing at an eerily high rate. It’s a place where people can go to get away from everything, where you can live off the grid and hide in plain sight. For a murderer, it provides the perfect cover to commit the perfect crime. often incorrectly refer to as Alaska:ice cold killers
Ice Cold Killers (2012 )
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Scam City is a show which started airing on Travel + Escape in June 2012 which crosses the globe visiting ten of the world’s most popular cities in an effort to expose the darker side of tourism. The host, Conor Woodman, meets with questionable characters ranging from unethical cab drivers to aggressive pimps as he witnesses and experiences the travel experience of parting with personal property and money. He intentionally falls victim to these alleged scammers and says "yes" to every hooker and pocket jeweler in the city, giving up substantial quantities of cash in the process. The show aims to expose the local adaptations of common scams - from pick pockets, expensive cab fares, to bars luring people in with adult entertainment at a high cost. Scam City has also been aired on the National Geographic Channel. In Australia, Scam City is shown on subscription TV channel Nat Geo Adventure, which airs on channel 628 on the Foxtel network.
Scam City (2012 )
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Alex Polizzi sets out to wage a one woman campaign to save Britain's family businesses.
Alex Polizzi: The Fixer (2012 )
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Descending is an exciting new weekly TV show now airing on Canada’s Outdoor Life Network, and featuring some stunning underwater video from around the world. Host Scott Wilson, from Brantford, Ontario, though fairly new to scuba, jumps right in to explore some of this planet’s “most remote locations” in the one-hour weekly show. Noting that so much of planet Earth is underwater and so few people get to see this realm firsthand, he said, “We knew it was important to shoot spectacular footage.” Wilson’s co-host is New Zealand diver Ellis Emmett, author, adventurer and friend. Emmett has penned five adventure books and is the owner of a New Zealand river rafting company. “I want people to be inspired, educated and enlightened, and have a laugh or two along the way,” he said. This year the hosts explore the underwater world on scuba, wearing full-face masks and dry suits. As post-production work continues on episodes scheduled to air in the coming weeks, they’re planning a switch to rebreathers, and even the occasional use of mixed gases in season two, officially not a go yet, but they’re hopeful! With government backing and the support of the Outdoor Life Network, Descending joins a long list of Canadian made underwater TV series that have found strong audience support.
Descending (2012 )
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Mankind The Story of All of Us is an epic 12-hour television event about the greatest adventure of all time—the history of the human race. It takes 10 billion years for the ideal planet to form and 3 billion more for the right conditions to emerge before it finally happens: mankind begins. From there unfolds a fast-paced story told here through key turning points—stepping stones in our journey from hunter-gatherer to global citizen. It’s a tale of connections—why some ideas take hold and spread around the globe, and how the lives of people in one part of the world are shaped by events in another.
Mankind: The Story of All of Us (2012 )
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Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Henry ford – their names are synonymous with innovation, big business and the American Dream. These leaders sparked incredible advances in technology while struggling to consolidate their industries and rise to the top of the business world. The Men Who Built AmericaTM chronicles the connections between these iconic businessmen and explores the way they shaped the country, transforming the U.S. into a global superpower in just 50 years.
History Classroom: The Men Who Built America (2012 )
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Historian Dr Helen Castor explores the lives of seven English queens who challenged male power, the fierce reactions they provoked and whether the term 'she-wolves' was deserved.
She-Wolves: England's Early Queens (2012 )
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Noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been helping people discover long-lost relatives hidden for generations within the branches of their family trees. Professor Gates utilizes a team of genealogists to reconstruct the paper trail left behind by our ancestors and the world’s leading geneticists to decode our DNA and help us travel thousands of years into the past to discover the origins of our earliest forebears.
Finding Your Roots (2012 )
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Professor Mary Beard looks beyond the stories of emperors, armies, guts and gore to meet the everyday people at the heart of Ancient Rome's vast empire.
Meet the Romans with Mary Beard (2012 )
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Uncovers the extraordinary truth behind some of the Mafia's most notorious outlaws, and reveals how the FBI and law enforcement developed the techniques to crack the organization and bring it to justice. This is the story of the rise and fall of the Mafia, told by the people who brought it down.
Mafia's Greatest Hits (2012 )
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Christianity slowly emerged from being a persecuted minority to the state religion of the Roman Empire. This episode is a history of the ways believers grappled with a way to depict Jesus. Simple symbolic meaning developed into splendid art and churches.
The Dark Ages: An Age of Light (2012 )
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Serial Killer Earth brings together compelling footage and eyewitness accounts of recent natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan, in an attempt to understand and explain what happened during these events and how they compare with disasters of the past.
Serial Killer Earth (2012 )
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Battleground is a mockumentary comedy-drama television series created by J. D. Walsh streamed on Hulu. The show follows a group of political campaign staffers working to elect a dark horse candidate to the U.S. Senate in the battleground state of Wisconsin. Walsh serves as executive producer alongside Hagai Shaham and Marc Webb. The show marks Hulu's first foray into original scripted programming. It premiered online on February 14, 2012.
Battleground (2012 )
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Islands can be home to the most extreme examples of life and the some of the most dramatic landscapes. Natural selection fuels evolution in the most extraordinary way. Isolated for hundreds of thousands of years, pockets of individuals survive, thrive and adapt to fill all available niches fuelling a rapid development of new species. Wildest Islands, a stunning five-part series featuring the world’s most spectacular island locations. Dive into the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean; journey through the lush forests of Zanzibar; discover the unspoilt environs of the Hebrides; and uncover the enduring wonders of the Galapagos Islands as Wildest Islands investigates the rich history of these pristine paradises.
Wildest Islands (2012 )
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Those who knew them best describe the sensational lives and premature deaths of iconic actors and musicians whose passing left a void in pop culture.
Too Young to Die (2012 )
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A two part series on an inside look at a maximum security prison in Texas featuring interviews with death row inmates.
On Death Row (2012 )
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Dive into the mysteries of some of NASA’s most curious missions and explore stories of engineering achievement and human endurance. Each episode offers first hand testimony from astronauts, NASA mission footage, plus beautifully rendered CGI to bring to life these voyages that reveal unexplained sightings that have dogged many of NASA’s most famous missions.
NASA's Unexplained Files (2012 )
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Channeling sibling rivalries and deadly childhood pacts, this series follows true-crime mysteries surrounding cases of these double-duty archetypes.
Evil Twins (2012 )
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Through beautiful photography and the extraordinary stories of the animals and people that live there, this series celebrates Latin America's most iconic and dramatic locations. Trek across the mountainous peaks and volcanic slopes of the Andes; explore the windswept plains of the Patagonian wilderness; journey into the teeming forests of the Amazon, and wade through the giant swamps of Venezuela, as this beautiful five- part series celebrates the region's most iconic and dramatic locations.
Wildest Latin America (2012 )
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Stephen Hawking draws on 40 years of research to answer some of life's most compelling questions.
Stephen Hawking's Grand Design (2012 )
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A seven-episode TV series that focuses on the production of The Art of Flight. We follow the crew through locations including Patagonia, Jackson Hole, Alaska and Revelstoke.
Art of Flight: The Series (2012 )
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From the outside, families seem like harmonious units in loving homes. But you don't necessarily know what secrets families are hiding from the outside world. Narrated by actress Brenda Strong, the voice of Desperate Housewives character Mary Alice Young, this series explores families hiding the most extreme of family secrets: murder. Each episode explores a death in a family, unravelling the motives of the family members, all of whom are potential suspects - and potential victims.
Blood Relatives (2012 )
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Whether it's a love triangle that violently collapses or a workplace affair that implodes, the re-enactments -- two per episode -- allow viewers to knock down closed bedroom doors, navigate secret trysts, and witness salacious liaisons. Hosted by Emmy-winning actress Susan Lucci, who's been a part of a few steamy scandals and deadly dalliances in her daytime soap career.
Deadly Affairs (2012 )
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This soon-to-be classic documentary mini-series traces the causes, courses as well as the major events and personalities of the American Civil War. Between 1861 and 1865, this epic American story of struggle and survival was written in blood, and in this series is told mostly from first-hand accounts and in the spoken words of the participants themselves, through their diaries, letters, and memoirs. The series concludes with Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House and the surrender of the western Confederate Army to Sherman in North Carolina in the spring of 1865. It then explores the legacy of slavery and the consequences and meaning of a war that transformed the country forever.
The Ultimate Civil War Series (2012 )
