Robert Kenner, Food, Inc., Magnolia Pictures, 2008

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• Release date: September 7, 2008.
• Running time: 94 minutes.
• Tagline: You’ll never look at dinner the same way again.
• Narrated by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser.

• Food, Inc. (2008)
• Official Food, Inc. Movie website

Ken Burns, Mark Twain, PBS, 2001

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• Original air date: 2001.
• Running time: 212 minutes (2 parts).
• Narrated by Keith David.

• Mark Twain (2001)
• PBS: Mark Twain

Davis Guggenheim, An Inconvenient Truth, Paramount Classics, 2006

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• Release date: May 24, 2006.
• Running time: 94 minutes.
• Tagline: We’re all on thin ice.
• Melissa Etheridge won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. For the song I Need To Wake Up.
• Davis Guggenheim won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

• An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

Ken Burns, Thomas Jefferson, PBS, 1997

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• Original air date: 1997.
• Running time: 180 minutes.
• Narrated by Ossie Davis.

• Thomas Jefferson (1997)
• PBS: Thomas Jefferson

Adrian Pennick, The Ascent of Money, Channel 4, 2008

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• Original air date: 2008.
• Running time: 6 x 50 minutes.
• Presented by Niall Ferguson. Based on his book of the same name.
• Episode list:
  1. Dreams of Avarice
  2. Human Bondage
  3. Blowing Bubbles
  4. Risky Business
  5. Safe As Houses
  6. Chimerica

• The Ascent of Money (2008)
• PBS: The Ascent of Money
• BBC: The Ascent of Money

Michael Schwarz, The Botany of Desire, PBS, 2009

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• Original air date: October 28, 2009.
• Running time: 120 minutes.
• Featuring Michael Pollan and based on his best-selling book of the same name.
• Narrated by Frances McDormand.
• How four familiar plant species — the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato — evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control.

• The Botany of Desire (2009)
• PBS: The Botany of Desire

Ken Burns, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, PBS, 2009

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• Original air date: September 27, 2009.
• Running time: 12 hours (6 episodes of 2 hours each).
• Narrated by Peter Coyote.
• Episodes:
  1. “The Scripture of Nature” (1851–1890)
  2. “The Last Refuge” (1890–1915)
  3. “The Empire of Grandeur” (1915–1919)
  4. “Going Home” (1920–1933)
  5. “Great Nature” (1933–1945)
  6. “The Morning of Creation” (1946–1980)

• The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (2009)
• PBS: The National Parks

Ken Burns, The Statue of Liberty, PBS, 1985

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• Original air date: October 28, 1985.
• Running time: 60 minutes.
• Narrated by historian David McCullough.

• The Statue of Liberty (1985)
• PBS: The Statue of Liberty

Ken Burns, The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God, PBS, 1984

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• Original air date: 1984.
• Running time: 58 minutes.
• Narrated by David McCullough.

• The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God (1984)
• PBS: The Shakers

Ken Burns, Brooklyn Bridge, PBS, 1981

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• Original air date: November, 1981.
• Running time: 58 minutes.
• Ken Burns’s first film.
• Narrated by David McCullough.
• Chronicles the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.

• Brooklyn Bridge (1981)
• PBS: Brooklyn Bridge

American Eats, History Channel, 2006

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• Original air date: June 29, 2006 – November 23, 2006 (15 episodes).
• Running time: 50 minutes each.
• Each episode details the particular foods’ origins, key innovators, history, and evolution into modern cuisine. The series is subtitled “The Food That Built America” due to its reverence for food’s place in American history and its impact on culture.
• Episodes Listing:

1. Soda
2. Salty Snacks
3. Hotdogs
4. Canned Foods
5. History on a Bun
6. Ice Cream
7. Cookies
8. Chocolate
9. Condiments
10. Barbecue
11. Beer
12. Cereal: History in a Bowl
13. Pizza
14. Holiday Foods
15. More American Eats

• American Eats (2006)

Expedition Alaska, Discovery Communications, 2008

Rating: 3/5 Buy

• Original air date: April 20, 2008.
• Running time: 86 minutes.
• A team of scientists, naturalists and wildlife filmmakers explore remote Alaska to document the impact of global warming on the landscape and the wildlife.

• Expedition Alaska (2008)

Michael Wood, The Story of India, BBC, 2007

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• Original air date: August and September 2007 (UK).
• Running time: Six episodes of ~55 minutes each.
• Episodes:
  1. Beginnings
  2. The Power of Ideas
  3. Spice Routes and Silk Roads
  4. Ages of Gold
  5. The Meeting of Two Oceans
  6. Freedom and Liberation

• The Story of India (2007)
• PBS: The Story of India
• BBC: The Story of India
• The Hindu: An interview with Michael Wood

Engineering an Empire, The History Channel, 2005-2006

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• Original air date: September 13, 2005 – January 8, 2006.
• Running time: 44 minutes each.
• Explores the engineering feats that made some of the greatest societies on earth possible.
• Hosted by Peter Weller.
• Episode list:
  1. Rome
  2. Egypt
  3. Greece
  4. Greece: Age of Alexander
  5. The Aztecs
  6. Carthage
  7. The Maya: Death Empire
  8. Russia
  9. Britain: Blood and Steel
  10. The Persians
  11. China
  12. Napoleon: Steel Monster
  13. The Byzantines
  14. Da Vinci’s World

• The History Channel: Engineering an Empire

Melvyn Bragg, The Adventure of English, ITV, 2002

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• This television series on the history of the English Language was first released in the UK in 2002.
• Running time: 45 – 52 minutes per episode.
• Melvyn Bragg travels through Britain to tell the story of how an insignificant German dialect, which only arrived in the country in the fifth century, evolved into a language which is now spoken and understood by more people than any other around the world.
• Episode Listing:

1. 1. Birth of a Language: The language’s humble beginning; how successive invasions introduced and then threatened to destroy the language.
   2. English Goes Underground: English during the Norman Conquest; how the language survived and fought back; Chaucer.
   3. The Battle for the Language of the Bible: The Reformation; printing; Henry VIII.
   4. This Earth, This Realm, This England: Queen Elizabeth I; foreign trade; scholarship in Latin; Shakespeare.
   5. English in America: The language of America; influences of immigrants, slaves, and modern vernacular.
   6. Speaking Proper: The Age of Reason; British Civil War; self-appointed authorities; science; dictionaries; the Industrial Age.
   7. The Language of Empire: The language spreads and evolves via British interests abroad.
   8. Many Tongues Called English, One World Language: Esperanto is invented with a dream of providing an artificial second-language for all people worldwide; English becomes history’s most successful global language.

• The Adventure of English (2002)
• The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language by Melvyn Bragg

David Attenborough, Planet Earth, BBC Warner, 2007

Rating: 4/5 Buy

• First broadcast in the UK in 2006. First broadcast in the USA in 2007 narrated by Sigourney Weaver.
• The 11-part (each 50 minutes) BBC series is narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

• Episode Listing:
  1. “From Pole to Pole”
  2. “Mountains”
  3. “Fresh Water”
  4. “Caves”
  5. “Deserts”
  6. “Ice Worlds”
  7. “Great Plains”
  8. “Jungles”
  9. “Shallow Seas”
  10. “Seasonal Forests”
  11. “Ocean Deep”
• Planet Earth: The Future episodes:
  1. “Saving Species”
  2. “Into the Wilderness”
     
  3. “Living Together”

• BBC’s Planet Earth website
• Planet Earth (2006)