Best documentaries on BBC iPlayer

“If I don’t tell you the hard truth, I don’t think people will fully understand what happened under the mushroom cloud that day.” These are the words of a “Hibakusha”, the name given to Japanese survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War. This landmark film helps gives voice to some of the Hibakusha before their stories are lost for ever. Their accounts are as poetic as they are harrowing (“It felt like the sun had fallen” is how one describes the moment of impact at Hiroshima), and unimaginable horrors are graphically relayed with quiet dignity: of the seaweed-like skin that had melted from bodies, and of burying the disfigured remains of friends. With a pain that has lasted a lifetime, one 99-year-old survivor tells of the injured at Nagasaki crying out to her for water. Today, she brings a glass of water to a Buddha in her home every morning and evening, “because those people’s wish for wanting some water is still soaked into my body”. This is a stunning, significant film with images and photographs so appalling that, at times, it’s hard not to turn away. It’s a sobering reminder of just how inhumane humanity can be. FRANCES TAYLOR

Margaret Thatcher’s whereabouts on the morning after the 1984 bombing of Brighton’s Grand Hotel are seared into the memories of a generation. There she stood, the picture of defiance at the Conservative Party conference, declaring that attempts to destroy democracy would fail. But the PM wasn’t alone in being resolute: equally unwavering but coming from the opposite position was Patrick Magee, the Provisional IRA volunteer involved in the planting of the bomb. As uncomfortable a prospect as this may be, the story presented here is as much Magee’s as it is Thatcher’s. And it’s in his interview that we hear of his equanimity when tasked with targeting the Tory government. Has Magee’s viewpoint altered in the decades since? For the answer, the focus shifts to Jo Berry, whose father, MP Anthony Berry, died in the blast. Her actions following Magee’s prison release were singular and courageous, and their recounting see this film take a turn for the remarkable. DAVID BROWN

A few days after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Chris Parry flew to Poland. The 27-year-old from Cornwall wanted to help in whatever way he could. He crossed into Ukraine and began working as a civilian evacuator, called in to help people (“the poor, old and stubborn”) trapped in homes near the front line, who needed to escape the fighting. The charity posted videos of rescues on social media to help raise funds. In a searing ten-minute sequence at the heart of this documentary, we see Chris’s bodycam footage as he dashes through a shattered housing complex in Bakhmut, searching amid the rubble and debris for the basement where a group of elderly people are waiting for him — all while artillery shells fall nearby. After saving around 400 people, Parry was killed in early 2023, possibly by Wagner mercenaries. The film works as a tribute to his bold selflessness, but hints at the complexities that came with that. Friends describe his urge to embrace risk and “live harder”. But he showed, his father says, that “there is an awful lot of good humanity out there.” DAVID BUTCHER

Just like the Bafta-winning Once upon a Time in Iraq (also available on iPlayer), James Bluemel’s latest series forgoes the politicians and generals to hear from citizens in a conflict zone: how life goes on and how it can be suddenly, violently, ended. He begins in 1968, a relatively stable period of Irish history about to be shattered when the brutal suppression of Catholic civil rights protests by British authorities opens the door for the revived IRA to recruit the young and disaffected. Crucially, accounts are sought from both sides, including former Paras and “the best rioter in Derry”. This first edition of five brings the story up to the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, when reconciliation became seemingly impossible. With the Good Friday Agreement once again a political football, this is another humane warning from recent history. GABRIEL TATE

It was a key flashpoint of climate protest. In 2013, Russia had deployed the Prirazlomnaya drilling platform in the Arctic and began tapping the billions of barrels of oil under the seabed. In response, Greenpeace sent a ship with a daring plan: activists would scale the rig and stop production by hanging off the rig’s helipad in a survival pod. But according to Frank Hewetson, who co-ordinated the action, “The plan, I think you could say, went to s***.” Exactly how and why is explored here in blow-by-blow detail. A six-part series uses footage filmed by the environmentalists to immerse us in the confrontation as it unfolded — as well as its frightening aftermath. Tonight’s first two episodes show how a Russian coastguard vessel shadowed the Greenpeace ship, then sent boats with men in balaclavas who rammed the Greenpeace inflatable boats, pointed guns at protesters and tried to seize their camera. We learn how, unwittingly, both coastguards and activists were caught in a high-stakes test of strength over something Vladimir Putin cared deeply about: dominating the Arctic and its wealth. DAVID BUTCHER

Several decades after the Third Reich collapsed, many Nazi war criminals still hadn’t been brought to justice. Cleverly weaving together archive footage, evocative reconstructions and lucid explanations from academics, this excellent three-part documentary series reveals how they were tirelessly hunted down. It also reminds viewers what happened to the exiled (and unrepentant) Josef Mengele, Klaus Barbie and Albert Speer. JANE RACKHAM

You rarely see science programmes that pack this kind of emotional punch. In a key scene in this Horizon episode, we see a team of Oxford scientists gather to learn results of clinical trials on a new malaria vaccine they have worked on for years. Their response brings home that these unassuming, somewhat overworked people have achieved something huge. First, the programme puts the story in perspective: things we instinctively fear, like wolves and sharks, kill around ten people a year. Malaria kills 1,000 children every day and 600,000 people a year overall. Vaccines have so far done little to alleviate that, but after 13 years of development, a new one called R21/Matrix-M (devised at the same institute that made a Covid vaccine in double-quick time) looks promising. At this point, the programme isn’t afraid to dabble in the actual science, introducing us to circumsporozoite protein and why it matters. But scenes in a Tanzanian village mean we feel the human drama, too, so the programme works as a love letter to vaccines in general, and the life-saving wonders of patient, rational science. DAVID BUTCHER

On 27 January 2023, Lancashire mortgage adviser Nikki Bulley dropped her children off at school and took her dog for a walk by the river in the village of St Michael’s on Wyre. Shortly afterwards, she went missing. The disappearance sparked intense press coverage and a storm of speculation on social media. Amateur sleuths descended on the village. Divers searched the river. The police stated there was no evidence of criminal involvement, and alluded to Bulley’s “vulnerabilities”. A few weeks later, her body was finally found in the river a mile downstream. For her family, it’s hard to imagine a worse experience. The fact that they took part in this documentary, hoping to set the record straight, shows remarkable bravery. “Only we can speak about her as a mummy, partner, daughter and sister,” they said in a statement. “In addition, if our experience of being in the eye of a media storm makes people think twice about how they act and what they say online, then we will have achieved some further good.” DAVID BUTCHER