Movies: British history

The beautiful gay erotic superstar Johan Paulik is enthusiastically celebrated in this jam-packed compendium of Johan's greatest on-screen performances, plus an exclusive interview with the charming boy himself and previously unseen out-takes which r...

This documentary from BT Sport Films celebrates the life of two-time world champion biker Barry Sheene, paying homage to his trailblazing career....

Recreating festivities from Henry VIII's era, Lucy Worsley dresses, eats, drinks, sings and parties like it is 500 years ago - discovering long-lost traditions as well as familiar customs....

When young John Wesley is miraculously saved from his family’s burning home, his mother is certain that God has a great purpose for the boy's life. John will later refer to himself as a “brand plucked from the burning.” As a man, Wesley tries to live...

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....

In this hour-long documentary, Oxford academic Janina Ramirez tours the country in search of Anglo-Saxon art treasures. Her basic thesis - and it is a plausible one - is that we should not look upon their era as a "dark age" as compared, for example,...

Using drama and documentary this film tells the remarkable story of Cromwell, one of the most important characters of British history, yet revered and hated in equal measure. Charles I has been executed and an East Anglian farmer is about to become l...

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...

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...

At its peak, The Black and White Minstrel Show was watched by a Saturday night audience of more than 20 million people. David Harewood goes on a mission to understand the roots of this strange, intensely problematic cultural form: where did the show ...

Melvyn Bragg explores the dramatic story of William Tyndale and his mission to translate the Bible into English, which made him a threat to the authority of the church and state....

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...

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Mary Berry visits Harewood House in Yorkshire as it prepares for Christmas on a grand scale, and demonstrates how to make delicious recipes inspired by festive dishes of the past....

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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The 43 Group was an English anti-fascist group set up by Jewish ex-servicemen in the immediate wake of World War II when, on their return to London, they encountered British fascist organisations such as Jeffrey Hamm’s “British League of Ex-Serviceme...

Equal parts documentary, essay, and narrative,"Captain Elliot's Circle" is mostly a poetic interaction with an obscure corner of Chinese and British history. Constructed using primary source documents about the taking of Zhoushan, Britain's first cho...

What happens when man's reason is used as a weapon to slice through the accumulated detritus of ignorant and benighted ages and into the glorious new world of Enlightenment? The old is cleared away and the space is created for the new, but at what co...

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....