Catch up TV
The Trials of Oppenheimer
J Robert Oppenheimer was one of the most celebrated scientists of his generation. Shy, arrogant and brilliant, he is best known as the man that led the Manhattan Project to spectacular success.\n\nAs the years progressed he also grew into a scientific statesman, leading a government agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, which was trying to develop ways to avoid a nuclear arms race. His attempts at politics, though, were a lot less successful than his scientific endeavours. As he grew more powerful, he started to make serious enemies amongst the establishment, particularly a friend of President Truman's - Lewis Strauss.\n\nThis film tells the extraordinary story of the rise and fall of Robert Oppenheimer. David Straithairn, whose previous recreation of this era in Good Night and Good Luck was Oscar-nominated, plays Oppenheimer trying to defend himself as he was effectively put on trial for being a communist. Re-creation is mixed with expert testimony from a definitive range of commentators, ranging from Oppenheimer's Manhattan Project colleagues to academics like Martin Sherwin and Priscilla MacMillan.\n\nNarrated by Zoe Wanamaker, whose own father experienced the virulent anti-communism of McCarthyism first-hand, it weaves Oppenheimer's biography with the dramatic events of his trial and its tragic aftermath. Emotional and compelling, it is a film that, in a time when non-proliferation is firmly back on the agenda, tells us a lot about the perils of mixing science and government.
Source: BBC 4
Most recent episodes of Storyville
Storyville
Whirlybird: Live Above La
Flying high above Los Angeles in a whirling news helicopter, Marika Gerrard and Zoey Tur (then known as Bob) spent the 80s and 90s capturing the city’s most epic breaking ...
18-03-2025
BBC 4
Storyville
Eternal Spring: The Heist Of China’s Airwaves
In 2002, a group of Falun Gong practitioners in China came up with an audacious plan to hit back at the government’s crackdown on their faith. They hijacked the airwaves, ...
12-03-2025
BBC 4
Storyville
The Covid Queue At Pavilion 6
A humorous and humane snapshot of life in a Covid-19 vaccine centre. Five years after the world first locked down to limit the spread of the virus, this film serves as collectiv ...
04-03-2025
BBC 4
Storyville
The Battle For Laikipia
Shot over several years, the Battle for Laikipia charts the relationship between the Samburu people, a nomadic pastoralist community that has always grazed cattle and goats on t ...
25-02-2025
BBC 4
Storyville
Gaucho Gaucho: Argentina’s Last Ranchers
A Storyville documentary that follows the lives of Argentina’s gauchos (cowboys and cowgirls), who proudly preserve their traditions in a fast-changing world.\n\nThey trav ...
23-02-2025
BBC 4
Storyville
26.2 To Life: Inside The San Quentin Prison Marathon
Behind the walls of San Quentin State Prison in California, three men sentenced to life for murder undertake running a marathon. Training all year, their route is unconventional ...
11-02-2025
BBC 4
Storyville
Black Box Diaries
A Storyville documentary that follows 25-year-old journalist Shiori Ito’s courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in 2015 and attempt to prosecute her high-prof ...
06-02-2025
BBC 4
Storyville
Nelly And Nadine: Ravensbrück, 1944
A Storyville documentary about two women who fall in love in the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
28-01-2025
BBC 4
Storyville
Your Fat Friend
A Storyville documentary following the rise of Aubrey Gordon from anonymous blogger to best-selling author, whose aim is to promote a paradigm shift in the way we view fatness.
28-01-2025
BBC 4
Storyville
Stranded! The Andes Plane Crash Survivors
In October 1972, a student rugby team boarded a small plane in Montevideo to fly across the Andes for a long weekend of playing rugby and partying in Chile. But they never reach ...
30-12-2024
BBC 4
Most popular episodes of Storyville
Storyville
Stranded! The Andes Plane Crash Survivors
In October 1972, a student rugby team boarded a small plane in Montevideo to fly across the Andes for a long weekend of playing rugby and partying in Chile. But they never reach ...
30-12-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
The Battle For Laikipia
Shot over several years, the Battle for Laikipia charts the relationship between the Samburu people, a nomadic pastoralist community that has always grazed cattle and goats on t ...
25-02-2025
BBC 4
Storyville
The Covid Queue At Pavilion 6
A humorous and humane snapshot of life in a Covid-19 vaccine centre. Five years after the world first locked down to limit the spread of the virus, this film serves as collectiv ...
04-03-2025
BBC 4
Storyville
The Earth Is Blue As An Orange
Single mother Anna and her four children are living under siege in Ukraine in 2019. Eldest daughter Mira dreams of becoming a film-maker and so, as bombs descend on neighbouring ...
30-03-2022
BBC 4
Storyville
This Is Congo
A Storyville documentary. A raw and unfiltered insight into the bloodiest conflict since the Second World War. Over the last two decades, the mineral-rich Democratic Republic of ...
27-06-2018
BBC 4
Storyville
Gorbachev. Heaven
Mikhail Gorbachev helped to shape the 20th century, being the architect of glasnost and perestroika. His actions brought down the Berlin Wall, giving countries of the former Sov ...
17-09-2022
BBC 4
Storyville
Citizen Ashe
Documentary that tells the little-known story of sports legend Arthur Ashe off the tennis court. Known to most on account of his stellar sports career – he became the firs ...
23-06-2024
BBC 4
Storyville
Tanja: Terrorist Or Freedom Fighter?
What would make a middle-class Dutch woman want to join a revolutionary struggle thousands of miles from home? This Storyville film tells the story of Tanja Nijmeijer, the forme ...
26-09-2023
BBC 4
Storyville
Keeping It Up: The Story Of Viagra
Twenty-five years ago, Viagra kick-started the second sexual revolution and a controversy unlike any drug before it. From Wales to New York, this is the big story of the little ...
04-01-2024
BBC 4