Beyond The Edge

This 2013 documentary follows Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary’s historical ascent of Mount Everest in 1953.

Between real footage and reenactments, you follow Norgay and Hillary through their expedition, with a narration from the expedition leader John Hunt.

If you’re into learning about the technical aspects of mountaineering, then you’ll love this documentary, with all parts of the couple’s success explained in great detail.

If you’re not so bothered about the nitty gritty of it all, sit back and soak up the amazing way that through family accounts, dramatisation and news reels from the time, this awesome story from the past is brought back to life.

 The Summit

The story of the world’s deadliest mountain and the K2 disaster in which eleven climbers disappeared and died in a very short time.

The footage was originally filmed by Swedish mountaineer Fredrik Sträng, but his film fell through when he failed to reach the summit. The footage was then given to another team to piece together a story on the events that took place.

A really interesting film on one of the weirs events in mountaineering history, and a film that poses as many questions about K2 as it answers…

Planet Earth: The Complete Collection

Who doesn’t remember when Planet Earth was first released?

Like no other nature documentary before it, this series captured the imagination of a whole generation of young people and made them fascinated with the animal kingdom through high resolution film making, up and personal footage and of course, the genius of David Attenborough.

Each episode in the series features a global overview of a different biome or habitat on Earth, with a special mini doc at the end of each of these explaining how the crew managed to film it.

Series two is finally just around the corner, so until it lands we’re going to be watching old episodes and reminding ourselves why Planet Earth is just so, so good.

Surfwise

One of the weirdest, but most interesting surf documentaries out there that isn’t primarily on the art of surfing itself. Surfwise tells the story of  11-member Doc Paskowitz family and 85 year old Dos’ life as a holisitic doctor, sex guru and surfer.

All nine children in the Paskowitz family were home schooled and raised by their parents in a campervan by the sea, adhering to a strict diet and lifestyle of wild animals, as the family ran itself now famous surf school.

This bizarre film is one to catch, whether you’re interested in surfing or not!

 Steep

Steep is a film for extreme skiers.

Filmed on location in Alaska, France, Canada and Iceland, the film takes you on Bill Briggs first descent down the Grand Teton.

Steep does take itself seriously, there’s no getting around that. Sometimes you will wish that they would shake it up and have some fun (it is just sliding around on two planks at the end of the day) but it is undeniably sublime and awe inspiring.

Love skiing? Watch it now. Don’t love skiing? Definitely still put it on the list to watch at some point this Autumn!

Ocean Wonders

We’re a little bit in love with the ocean. We’re not sure whether its the size of it, the animals that live there, or the fact that we know so little about it still, but there’s just something that makes it super fascinating.

This documentary is all the good parts of documentary filmmaking in one place, a great narrative, interesting facts by the second and above all, incredible footage.

This is one of those shows that makes a night in lazing around feel like a valuable use of your time!

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