Best movies & TV Shows like Civilisation

In this historical adventure based on traditional legend concerning Leif Ericsson and the first Viking settlers to reach North America by sea, Norse half-brothers vie for a throne and for the same woman.

The story of Benvenuto Cellinin (1500-1571), a soldier and one of the most important craftsmen and artists of Renaissance Italy whose life was marked by many achievements and adventures, but also crimes. There is also the mini-series version consisted of three 90 minutes episodes, broadcasted by RaiDue.

The newly elected Pope suffers a panic attack just as he is about to greet the faithful who have gathered to see him. His advisors, unable to convince him he is the right man for the job, call on a renowned therapist who also happens to be an atheist. But the Pope's fear of his newfound responsibility is one he must face alone. Winner Best Film at the Italian Golden Globes.

An American fugitive flees to Rome and tries to elude capture by masquerading as a priest.

During the Italian Renaissance, Pope Julius II contracts the influential artist Michelangelo to sculpt 40 statues for his tomb. When the pope changes his mind and asks the sculptor to paint a mural in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo doubts his painting skills and abandons the project. Divine inspiration returns Michelangelo to the mural, but his artistic vision clashes with the pope's demanding personality and threatens the success of the historic painting.

The American architect Kracklite arrives in Italy, supervising an exhibiton for a French architect, Boullée, famous for his oval structures. Tirelessly dedicated to the project, Kracklite's marriage quickly dissolves along with his health.

During the early 16th Century idealistic German monk Martin Luther, disgusted by the materialism in the church, begins the dialogue that will lead to the Protestant Reformation.

A 9th century woman of English extraction born in the German city of Ingelheim disguises herself as a man and rises through the Vatican ranks.

The life of Michelangelo Buonarroti.

This heroic story follows the life of Karol Wojtyla, a Polish Roman catholic who ascends the throne of St. Peter as Pope John Paul II. As a young boy, Karol is a bright and talented student. Archbishop Sapieha recognizes the very special, moving qualities Karol possesses and encourages him to consider the priesthood. Although determined to study Polish literature, Karol turns to the church; he is ordained and studies in Italy, France, and Belgium. Torn by fear and repression in post-Stalin Eastern Europe, Karol becomes a poisonous thorn in the communists' side. His deer reverence and commitment return him to Poland as Pope John Paul II.

In 1867, with Garibaldi's forces close to bringing Rome into the Italian kingdom, Monsignor Colombo da Priverno, a world-weary judge on the papal court, wants to resign, disgusted by the violence to which the papacy resorts to hold secular power.

After studying literature at Cairo University, Dunia, 23 years old, wants to become a professional dancer. She attends audition for an oriental dance contest where she recites Arabian poetry without any body movement. She explain to the perplexed jury that a woman can't move her body or evoke act of love when society ask women to hide their femininity. She is selected and meet Beshir, an intellectual and activist who will supervise her thesis on ecstasy in Sufi love poetry. Their attraction is mutual. This could be liberation for Dunia but the constraints on women in Egyptian society goes deeper than she suspects.

Challenged by a new student, tutor and theorist Galileo co-opts emerging telescope technology and discovers irrefutable proof of the heretical notion that the earth is not the center of the universe. But in a rigid society ruled by an uneasy alliance of aristocracy and clergy already undermined by the Plague and the Reformation, science is a threat and enlightenment is a luxury. Faced with either death at the hands of the Inquisition or recantation to a hypocritical but all-powerful Papacy, Galileo must choose between his own life and the restless scientific curiosity that he has spurned family, friends, and wealth to pursue.

Learn how one man reluctantly took on the most powerful institution of his day and won. Martin Luther is credited with expounding a new vision of man's relationship with God and, by extension, a redefinition of man's relationship with authority. Filmed across Europe -- from the rustic rural Germany to the opulence of the Vatican City -- you'll witness the collapse of the medieval world and the birth of the modern age.

What started as a simple tomb became over a 2,000 years history the universal seat of Christendom and is today one of the most visited museum in the world with invaluable collections of Arts, Manuscripts, Maps. Using spectacular 3D modelisation and CGI to give viewers as never before a true understanding of the history of this architectural masterpiece and its extensions, the film will also use animation to tell relevant historical events. This heritage site reveals new untold secrets with the help of historians deciphering the Vatican’s rich archives and manuscripts collection and following the restorations at work (newly discovered frescoes by Raphael) and recent excavations. A story where Religion, Politics, Arts and Science meet to assert religious authority and serve as a spiritual benchmark.

Invisible Women sheds light on ground-breaking women artists and their thousands of little-known works. It's a public television special where rediscovery and restoration are the guiding forces behind an extraordinary quest: rescuing art Florence's 'forgotten' women artists.

The history of the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus, an opera house located in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, whose construction, between 1884 and 1896, depended on the labor exploitation of the local indigenous populations, provides an insight into the cultural, social and political situation in Brazil.

Sir John Betjeman visits and explains the architecture of various churches in the Diocese of Norwich. Among those visited: Sandringham church on the Queen's private estate, the Holy House of Our Lady of Walsingham and Norwich Cathedral.

He is considered the greatest European poet of the Middle Ages and his work unfolds the whole panopticon of occidental education – theology, philosophy, sciences, politics and literature. But who has really read it, the “Divine Comedy”? Who knows more of its creator Dante Alighieri than that he had an eagle-like profile and was in love with a woman named Beatrice? 700 years after Dante’s death, the filmmaker Adolfo Conti travels through Italy with Dante’s words in mind and eyes to see the world as Dante did. As the film encounters the beauty of arts and the Tuscan landscape, the forces of nature, a dramatic life story is unfolded.

Caustic satire on bureaucracy of the Vatican authority and a simple Italian who wants to achieve the audience with the Pope.

Pope Francis responds to questions from around the world, discussing topics including ecology, immigration, consumerism and social justice.

The name Borgia stands for betrayal, intrigue and corruption in the Vatican, which was the center of the world during the Renaissance.

A a serial in ten parts on the lives of one of the most intriguing families in history.

Set in 15th century Italy at the height of the Renaissance, The Borgias chronicles the corrupt rise of patriarch Rodrigo Borgia to the papacy, where he proceeds to commit every sin in the book to amass and retain power, influence and enormous wealth for himself and his family.

The story of the Medici family of Florence, their ascent from simple merchants to power brokers sparking an economic and cultural revolution. Along the way, they also accrue a long list of powerful enemies.

Lenny Belardo, the youngest and first American Pope in the history of the Church, must establish his new papacy and navigate the power struggles of the closed, secretive Vatican.

The Joy of Painting was an American television show hosted by painter Bob Ross that taught its viewers techniques for landscape oil painting. Although Ross could complete a painting in half an hour, the intent of the show was not to teach viewers "speed painting". Rather, he intended for viewers to learn certain techniques within the time that the show was allotted. The show began on January 11, 1983, and lasted until May 17, 1994, a year before Ross' death.

In an absorbing study, Andrew Graham-Dixon tells the story of a national art that conveys passion, precision, hope and renewal. He juxtaposes escapism with control and a deep affinity with nature against love for the machine. The fascinating story takes us from the towering cathedral of Cologne, the woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer and paintings of Grünewald to the gothic fairytale Neuschwanstein Castle, the Baltic landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich and the industrialisation lent expression of Adolph Menzel and Käthe Kollwitz. As the series progresses, it presents a rare focus on the cultural impact of Hitler's obsession with visual art, reveals how art became an arena for the Cold War and examines the redemptive work of the "visionary" Joseph Beuys – the most influential artist of modern times.

A worldwide guided tour of the greatest movies ever made and the story of international cinema through the history of cinematic innovation.

The Germanic, Britannic and other barbarian tribal wars with Rome ultimately led to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. This series is centered on the campaigns and battles with the barbarian tribes and extensive examinations of the reigns of little known Roman emperors and generals.

The renowned definitive eight part series on the rise and fall of the modern art movement presented by Australian art critic Robert Hughes.

John Berger's Ways of Seeing changed the way people think about painting and art criticism. This watershed work shows, through word and image, how what we see is always influenced by a whole host of assumptions concerning the nature of beauty, truth, civilization, form, taste, class and gender. Exploring the layers of meaning within oil paintings, photographs and graphic art, Berger argues that when we see, we are not just looking - we are reading the language of images.

From a small Italian community in 15th Century Florence, the Medici family would rise to become one of the most powerful dynasties in Europe. Using charm, patronage, skill, duplicity and ruthlessness, they would amass unparalleled wealth and unprecedented power. They would use this power to help ignite the most important cultural and artistic revolution in Western history – the Renaissance. DaVinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Galileo – all received Medici patronage. But the forces of change the Medici helped unleash would one day topple their ordered world.

Andrew Marr's History of the World is a 2012 BBC documentary television series presented by Andrew Marr that covers 70,000 years of world history from the beginning of human civilisation, as African nomadic peoples spread out around the world and settled down to become the first farmers, up to the twentieth century.

Christianity slowly emerged from being a persecuted minority to the state religion of the Roman Empire. This episode is a history of the ways believers grappled with a way to depict Jesus. Simple symbolic meaning developed into splendid art and churches.

First broadcast on October 2, 1989, these 18 original 30-minute episodes provide a panorama of 2000 years of architecture, painting and sculpture, and studies the art masterpieces as reflections of the Western culture that produced them.

This six-part series tells the story of the birth and flourishing of civilisation in the Middle East and its huge influence on the West. From the foundation of science, monotheism, commerce, justice, civil rights and artistic expression - look Eastward. The series contends that history that starts from an ancient Greek perspective distorts the true path of civilisation. For crucial phases in world history, the political, economic and cultural centre was the Middle East.

Three-part documentary series in which anthropologist professor Alice Roberts and archaeologist Neil Oliver go in search of the Celts - one of the world's most mysterious ancient civilisations.

This 8-part drama brings high romance, low treachery and magical adventure via a host of legendary characters: wise old Merlin, brave Sir Lancelot, King Arthur, ruler of all Britain and master of the Knights of the Round Table, the beguiling Queen Guinevere and her nemesis Morgan la Fay. Dark Ages wizard Merlin (Robert Eddison), weary of the barbarism around him, creates a new order of enlightenment and justice with a youthful Arthur (Andrew Burt) at its head. Merlin gifts Arthur with the magic legendary sword Excalibur to help him defeat the nobles who oppose his rule. But Arthur must also beware his half-sister Morgan (Maureen O'Brien), a sorceress who has sworn to kill him to avenge her father's death. As Morgan intensifies her plans to get revenge, she uses magic to draw Lancelot (David Robb) and Guinevere (Felicity Dean) into a passionate affair. But it is the still more traitorous Mordred (Steve Hodson) who will fatally halt Arthur's rule.

The story of art from the dawn of human history to the present day—for the first time on a global scale. Inspired by Civilisation, Kenneth Clark’s acclaimed landmark 1969 series about Western art, this series broadens the canvas to reveal the role art and the creative imagination have played across multiple cultures and civilizations.

500 years ago, a revolutionary priest named Martin Luther changed the face of Christendom and the path of European civilization forever.

As Pope Pius XIII hangs between life and death in a coma, charming and sophisticated moderate English aristocrat Sir John Brannox is placed on the papal throne and adopts the name John Paul III. A sequel series to “The Young Pope.”

Decades after the assassination of African American leader Malcolm X, an activist embarks on a complex mission seeking truth in the name of justice.

Grayson Perry, one of Britain's leading artists, brings the nation together through art, making new works and hosting masterclasses set to unleash our collective creativity during lockdown.

Guided Tour is a television and radio program about the treasures of the Portuguese cultural heritage. Treasures with recognized universal value, pieces that any western country would be proud to integrate into its heritage, and little known to the Portuguese. From a silver goblet with Mozarabic decoration and a thousand years old to a cloister that is referred to as a masterpiece of European Renaissance, passing through a collection of African art classified as one of the best in the world, the nature of objects, their context geographic location and historical time vary from episode to episode.

The largest art museum in the Americas prepares to celebrate its 150th birthday with a treasure trove of landmark exhibitions. When COVID-19 strikes, the world shuts down and, for the first time in its history, the Met closes its doors. Then comes another crisis: in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, there are urgent demands for social justice.

Formerly the palace of Czars, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg is now one of the world's largest museums, drawing three and a half million visitors per year. This superbly mastered DVD series is a guided tour of the works in the galleries as well as a compelling lesson in art history. The 540 minute series examines some of the sculptures, paintings, tapestries, and glassware pieces found within the four pavillions, as well as the impressive European-style architecture of the museum itself. Researched and authenticated by the Hermitage Museum and lavishly photographed, the series covers such styles as Classical, Neo-Classical, Baroque, Gothic, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Cubism. As well, it showcases works by such masters as Rodin, Goya, Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso. Be captivated by the history and culture of this breath taking collection of visual art masterpieces.

When the Duke of Milan is brutally murdered, the Assassin Giovanni Auditore is dispatched to investigate. What he uncovers implicates Italy's most powerful families reaching all the way back to the Vatican itself. As Giovanni draws closer to the truth, he becomes hunted himself. He must expose the conspirators before he joins their ever-growing list of victims. Three short films based on the Assassin's Creed II video game.

The riveting life and times of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) and his soaring masterpiece "The Divine Comedy" – one of the greatest achievements in the history of Western literature.

American Masters is a PBS television series which produces biographies on enduring writers, musicians, visual and performing artists, dramatists, filmmakers, and others who have left an indelible impression on the cultural landscape of the United States.