Movies: British history

Long treated with indifference by critics and historians, British silent cinema has only recently undergone the reevaluation it has long deserved, revealing it to be far richer than previously acknowledged. This documentary, featuring clips from a re...

A video polemic, based on Heathcote Williams' investigative poem 'Royal Babylon: The Criminal Record of the British Monarchy' - every film a crime. The collective at Handsome Dog have used the best of new media to present a video polemic based on He...

Between 1968 and 1970, J M Goodger, a lecturer at the University of Salford, made a film record of the living conditions in the slums of Ordsall, Salford, which were then in the process of being demolished. Under the title 'The Changing face of Salfo...

Built in 1923, the Flying Scotsman was the first steam locomotive to run at 100 miles an hour and to star in its own feature film. This is the untold story of the iconic Flying Scotsman-the very best in the engineering of its time....

David Olusoga opens secret government files to show how the Windrush scandal and the ‘hostile environment’ for black British immigrants has been 70 years in the making....

Broadcaster Gyles Brandreth travels to the West Yorkshire moors, known as "Bronte Country". It is an area that shaped the Bronte sisters, and they have, in turn, helped shape it. He explores some of the influences on their writing....

Professor Saul David examines Prince Albert's role in shaping British culture, governmental policy and international relations in Victorian Britain....

His opponents accused him of being homosexual. The male favorites he gathered around him during his short life gave those malevolent enemies solid arguments to do so. He would not have failed if he had proved himself to be an energetic king. But Edwa...

This Traveltalk series short visits an array of locations associated with England's heritage. Included are Runnymede, Windsor, Ascot, Lincoln, Wells, Salisbury, Glastonbury, and the ancient Stonehenge site....

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Lucy Worsley gets into bed with our past monarchs to uncover the Tales from the Royal Bedchamber. She reveals that our obsession with royal bedrooms, births and succession is nothing new. In fact, the rise and fall of their magnificent beds reflects ...

To mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Janina Ramirez tells the story of three books that defined this radical religious revolution in England....

The black death had devastating effects in centuries past, but what actually caused it and how many lives did it take? The world has not seen a disease outbreak like it before or since. This film tells the story of skeletons recently unearthed in a l...

In this special follow-up programme, the only television team with access to the dig and the scientific tests on the skeleton uses unseen footage and conducts two days of additional interviews to tell this extraordinary forensic detective story in ev...

INFINITY minus Infinity draws on several inspirations: the modernist verse of the Jamaican poet Una Marson, the alluvial invocations of the Martinican philosopher and poet Édouard Glissant, the black feminist poetics of the Brazilian philosopher Deni...

The history of Westminster Abbey and a tour of the monuments within it; accompanied by choral music and including footage of the coronation of King George VI in 1937....

Writer Broadcaster and Newsnight arts correspondent Stephen Smith finds out what it took to get ahead at the court of Richard II....

Considers how Anglo-Saxon England was built by many different peoples and cultures. Re-enacts important historical events. Shows authentic landmarks and historical materials from 1900 B C to 1066 A D....

Opera based on the story of Edward II and Piers Gaveston. Music by George Benjamin, libretto by Martin Crimp. BBC broadcast of the 2018 premiere at the Royal Opera House, the composer conducting, prefaced by commentary and interviews....

The exquisite Rosslyn Chapel is a masterpiece in stone. It used to be one of Scotland's best-kept secrets, but it became world-famous when it was featured in Dan Brown's the Da Vinci Code....