The 15 best David Attenborough documentaries to stream

It was a battle to the death for the top spot between all the Planet Earths, Blue Planets and Life trilogy. Ultimately, however, the stunning action movie/horror movie scene (you can see why they brought in blockbuster composer Hans Zimmer) of the baby marine iguanas outpacing the racer snakes to the sea edged out the competition and pushed the second instalment over the top. It’s like Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp vs Predator. Ten full years after the first Planet Earth series, and the 4k images, movie editing and meticulous storytelling just kept getting better.

Watch it on: BBC iPlayer

Without the three-year production schedule, a hundred-odd filming locations, more than 500 scientific advisors and the titanic ambition that went into Life on Earth, nature documentaries simply would not exist as we know them. This is the show that established Attenborough as a national treasure and convinced the entire country that biology was actually pretty interesting really. The images may have been outmatched since, but the techniques – camera people camped out for weeks waiting for the perfect shot, groundbreaking technology used to capture it, astonishing visual storytelling – remain exactly the same.

Watch it on: BBC iPlayer

The impact of Planet Earth is almost immeasurable. While its two sequels have even better camera technology, those improvements were incremental. Here, the gimbal aerial shots, incredible time-lapse photography and the ultra-exclusive access to the rarest animals on Earth all felt like a quantum leap forward. Each episode seemed to deliver a cute bit, a sheer-majesty-of-nature bit, and a heart-stopping encounter between predator and prey: particularly impressive are the floods bringing life to the Kalahari desert, the great white shark breaching in pursuit of a seal, and terrifying cordyceps parasites piloting zombie ants, which helped to inspire The Last of Us.

Watch it on: BBC iPlayer

This is a near-perfect show that only suffers in comparison to the later efforts from the same team. From the great depths of the ocean floor to the creatures that thrive around the coast, this is a glimpse into alien worlds that teem with weird, wonderful life. There’s heartbreak as a mother whale loses her calf to an orca attack, but also the grimly fascinating site of a whale carcass feeding an entire ecosystem deep below the sun. There are hundreds of hammerhead sharks swarming around a seamount, an adorable dumbo octopus bobbing along, and a courting cuttlefish showing off its frills. It’s hard to beat.

Watch it on: BBC iPlayer

At this point you can feel an element of despair at the unstoppable momentum of runaway climate change in Attenborough’s narration and the BBC Natural History Unit’s work, but there are efforts to show life adapting to the tougher conditions as well as a cri de coeur for us to do better as a species. There are also some killer jump scares (clown frogfish vs lionfish!) and the cheering sight of seals ganging up on a great white shark. Spielberg wishes he’d had those guys on hand for Jaws.

Watch it on: BBC iPlayer

Ever wanted to see a national treasure standing right next to an active volcano? This is the show for you. This ambitious effort aims to explain the ways that the geological life of the planet shapes the biology of those who live on it, and how that the planet itself has transformed over aeons. Lighter on animals and heavy on the sort of location that sci-fi writers dream of, this is a fascinating romp through the Earth’s own history, with animal life and ourselves as literal hangers on. 

Watch it on: DVD only

Only the ferocious struggle for survival at the top of the list has pushed this Attenborough masterclass so far down this list. By any normal standard, we’d be raving about the sight of snailfish at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, or a family of whales mourning the death of a calf poisoned by microplastics, or octopuses hunting cooperatively with trout. This is the show credited with killing the plastic straw in the UK, after it highlighted the effects of single-use plastic waste on sea life. Such is the power of Attenborough.

Watch it on: BBC iPlayer

David Attenborough travelled an estimated quarter of a million miles over the three-and-a-half years it took to make this epic look at animal behaviour and interaction. The series pioneered new camera techniques, like medical endoscope cameras being used to film ants, and captured extraordinary images of orcas beaching themselves in pursuit of sea lions. This is also the one where Attenborough crawled inside a termite mound, so it’s not all glamour in this business.

Watch it on: BBC iPlayer

If you think that plants can’t offer the excitement, drama and thrilling struggles for survival you’re used to seeing in these docs, well, think again. Thanks to time-lapse photography and clever location work, The Green Planet gets just the same jump scares and delight from flora as David Attenborough’s fauna-based series. Predatory lilies are a particular highlight, but the underground fungal networks and exploding seed pods make plants seem anything but boring. Attenborough’s lifelong capacity for surprise and delight comes through in his locations work here – particularly with those exploding pods.

Watch it on: BBC iPlayer

Parts of the long-running Zoo Quest series, which originally ran from 1954 to 1963, survive in this one-hour documentary from 2016, but it’s enough to see how groundbreaking the footage then was. Attenborough stepped in at the last minute to present after pushing the series into being, and the footage from his first expedition to west Africa launched his career. This gets bonus points for the handsomeness of the young Attenborough, but loses some for what the older Attenborough acknowledges was animal-collecting behaviour that would never fly nowadays. Still it shows that his enthusiasm for natural science, and the transmission of that enthusiasm to a general audience, dates back a very long way.

Watch it on: BBC iPlayer

Attenborough has been our gateway to the wonders of the natural world for nearly 70 years, and he uses that fact here to highlight just how much the Earth has changed in that time. The result is not just a hagiography of an unproblematic fave, but a clear-eyed presentation of the evidence of man-made climate change and environmental devastation. Attenborough returns – or the camera does – to some of his old haunts, and finds heartbreaking absence where vibrant life should be. It’s a cast-iron argument for the simple, achievable steps that could save the planet.

Watch it on: Netflix

A series focusing solely on the planet’s polar and mountain regions inevitably has to face the reality of climate change: even in the ten years between the original Frozen Planet and this sequel the issue has only become more pressing. But there are still wonders to be found there, from a snow petrel living deep in the interior of Antarctica and projectile-vomiting to mark their territory, to Japanese macaques struggling to survive avalanche conditions.

Watch it on: BBC iPlayer

Written and presented by Sir David and available on Netflix, this has the lovely imagery you’d expect given its title. Attenborough looks at the way animals use colour for defence and attack, for camouflage and courtship, and to distinguish the food that is good to eat. But it’s so centred around the relatively narrow theme that it can’t help but feel less exciting than the bigger, more ambitious shows he’s made elsewhere. That said, there’s no such thing as too many birds of paradise, eh?

Watch it on: BBC iPlayer

The title makes it sound like a poignant goodbye between Attenborough and a number of reptilian species just before the latter goes off to war, but this is in fact a reconstruction of the final days of the dinosaurs. It’s based on evidence gathered at the extraordinary Tanis fossil site in Hell’s Creek, North Dakota, which was formed 66 million years ago when the meteor that killed the dinosaurs fell. It’s obviously a mostly CG creation, but expertly reconstructed and fascinatingly specific with it.

Watch it on: BBC iPlayer

The work of three years and 145 separate locations across Britain and Ireland, this five-parter represents an emotional broadcasting sign-off for Attenborough on home soil (and water). And it’s one in the eye for anyone who sniffs that British wildlife is a bit low-key, with spectacular footage of swooping eagles, killer whales gobbling down seals, baby badgers doing baby badger things, and lots of microvisuals of the gentle and more dramatic ecosystems that adorn the unique British isles. And who needs Top Gun: Maverick when the great man can offer you golden eagles and barnacle gooses locked in aerial combat? 

Watch it on: BBC iPlayer