Holiday binge-watching: Science edition

A selection of recent science documentaries to catch up on during this holiday season

Holiday binge-watching: Science edition

Picture a scientist

“It’s really shocking and powerful,” Cheryl Praeger.

In this documentary, leading women scientists discuss the inequalities they’ve faced as they set out to create a new formula to make STEM open to all.

2020 | 13+ | 1h 37m

Watch on Netflix


My Octopus Teacher

‘Oscar-winning ‘My Octopus Teacher’ is the antidote to our pandemic year,’ Jen Reeder for Today.

A filmmaker forges an unusual friendship with an octopus living in a South African kelp forest, learning as the animal shares the mysteries of her world.

2020 | All | 1h 25m

Watch on Netflix


Breaking Boundaries: The Science Of Our Planet

‘Johan [Rockström] has given us hope. Hope that there is a way out of this crisis. And once you too have heard it, you may never look at the world in the same way again,’ David Attenborough

Examine Earth’s biodiversity collapse and how this crisis can still be averted. The book that is subject of this documentary was co-written by Johan Rockström and Owen Gaffney, who co-founded Future Earth Media Lab – a collaboration between Future Earth, the International Science Council (ISC) and Globaïa.

2021 | 7+ | 1h 14m

Watch on Netflix


The Social Dilemma

‘Our social dilemma is that #SurveillanceCapitalism has captured our economy, our technology, and the digital future,’ Shoshana Zuboff, featured in the film.

Read our interview with Shoshana Zuboff ‘The challenge of the next decade is to make the digital century compatible with democracy’.

This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations.

2020 | 7+ | 1h 34m

Watch on Netflix


Coming soon: Once you know

Once You Know asks the disturbing questions: Are there better ways of collapsing than others? What is meaningful work on the way down?

Faced with the reality of climate change and the depletion of resources, director Emmanuel Cappellin is aware that a collapse of our industrial civilization is inevitable. But how can we continue to live with the idea that the human adventure may fail? In search of answers, he sets out to meet experts and scientists such as Pablo Servigne, Jean-Marc Jancovici, and Susanne Moser. They all call for collective and united action in order to prepare a transition that is as humane as possible.

2021 | 1h 44m

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🎞 Fifty centuries of innovation in scientific publishing

Ismail Serageldin publishing series

A new eight-part video series by ISC Patron Ismail Serageldin traces the history of scientific publishing through 50 centuries of innovation, from clay tablets to digital publishing and emerging technologies.

Watch now


Virus snowflake patterns by Ed Hutchinson / MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CC BY-4.0)

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