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The 20 Best Science Documentaries of All Time

By YPB Team

From cosmic voyages and ocean deeps to melting glaciers and the hunt for the Higgs boson, these films turned hard science into unforgettable spectacle. Which one blew your mind? Cast your vote!

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage — ranked #11
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
Carl Sagan's landmark 1980 PBS series exploring the universe and humanity's place within it.
1000pts
Planet Earth — ranked #22
Planet Earth
BBC's 2006 David Attenborough series that redefined nature filmmaking with high-definition footage of Earth's wildest places.
889pts
My Octopus Teacher — ranked #33
My Octopus Teacher
The 2020 Academy Award winner about a filmmaker's year-long bond with a wild octopus.
889pts
Chasing Coral — ranked #44
Chasing Coral
The 2017 Netflix documentary capturing the alarming disappearance of the world's coral reefs.
790pts
The Blue Planet — ranked #55
The Blue Planet
BBC's 2001 landmark exploration of the world's oceans narrated by David Attenborough.
745pts
Chasing Ice — ranked #66
Chasing Ice
The 2012 film following photographer James Balog as he documents rapidly melting glaciers.
745pts
A Brief History of Time — ranked #77
A Brief History of Time
Errol Morris's 1991 documentary on the life and cosmology of Stephen Hawking.
692pts
Particle Fever — ranked #88
Particle Fever
The 2013 film chronicling the Large Hadron Collider's search for the Higgs boson.
691pts
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey — ranked #99
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
Neil deGrasse Tyson's 2014 reboot of Sagan's series, blending astrophysics with sweeping visuals.
691pts
Life — ranked #1010
Life
The 2009 BBC series documenting the extraordinary survival strategies of living things across the planet.
691pts
The Elegant Universe — ranked #1111
The Elegant Universe
The 2003 NOVA series in which physicist Brian Greene explains string theory for a general audience.
629pts
Blue Planet II — ranked #1212
Blue Planet II
The 2017 follow-up praised as one of the greatest nature series the BBC has ever produced.
629pts
Our Planet — ranked #1313
Our Planet
The 2019 Netflix series pairing Attenborough's narration with an urgent conservation message.
629pts
Planet Earth II — ranked #1414
Planet Earth II
The 2016 sequel that pushed camera technology further to capture animal behavior in stunning intimacy.
553pts
An Inconvenient Truth — ranked #1515
An Inconvenient Truth
Al Gore's 2006 Oscar-winning film that brought climate change to a mass audience.
553pts
March of the Penguins — ranked #1616
March of the Penguins
The 2005 Oscar-winning documentary following emperor penguins' grueling Antarctic breeding journey.
553pts
Apollo 11 — ranked #1717
Apollo 11
The 2019 documentary built entirely from restored archival footage of the first Moon landing.
553pts
Racing Extinction — ranked #1818
Racing Extinction
The 2015 documentary exposing the human-driven mass extinction of species.
461pts
Fantastic Fungi — ranked #1919
Fantastic Fungi
The 2019 time-lapse exploration of the hidden world of mushrooms and mycelial networks.
461pts
The Farthest — ranked #2020
The Farthest
The 2017 documentary telling the story of NASA's Voyager interstellar spacecraft.
461pts
#nature#science#documentary#space

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