Anyone recommend some slightly educational documentaries or movies suitable for an 11yo?

[Stumpedasatree]

Thanks!

Following! X

Ds has always loved history channel documentaries.
Try Bismark for a WW2 one. That was his favourite for ages.

Does Bill Nye the science guy have videos on YouTube? Those were great! And they were fun to watch.

There's 8 days to,the moon on iPlayer. Very interesting documentary.

Anything by David Attenborough.
DD loves WW2 in Colour which is on Netflix.

We've been watching nature and history documentaries on iPlayer - they love a bit of David Attenborough! I have 2 teens and a 9 year old so not picking anything too detailed/involved. It's a nice bit of light relief

Crash courses has really fun history videos.

Try the Niel deGrasse Tyson videos for science, particularly astrophysics (www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/brand/science-now/, COSMOS)

BBC Teach on YouTube

DS is 9 and has been watching Michael Palin with DH.

Some of it is obviously out of date but he deals with difficult issues in a gentle and sensitive way.

Here are some of the shows DS11 liked.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (www.imdb.com/title/tt7533152/)

The Elephant Queen (www.imdb.com/title/tt6722976/): note parents on Common Sense Media recommend it for age 12+ (www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/the-elephant-queen)

March of the Penguins (www.imdb.com/title/tt0428803/)

Street Food (www.imdb.com/title/tt10050778/)

Nature documentaries on the BBC, especially the ones by David Attenborough

The Imitation Game (www.imdb.com/title/tt2084970/): rated 12A but DS11 loves anything WW2 and really liked this; we watched it because he was going on a school trip to Bletchley Park that week

How about the 'Back in Time for (dinner, the weekend, Christmas, the Family)' series?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_in_Time_for...

Also, we're planning to watch Amazing Grace (www.imdb.com/title/tt0454776/) once online school is over.

DH and I have seen it before and it ties in with DS's lessons about William Wilberforce and the slave trade.

This site gives a list of all the potentially disturbing events in it, if you want to check it out before watching: kids-in-mind.com/a/amazinggrace.htm

There's a brilliant series on Netflix called 'Explained'. Probably more for the inquisitive KS4 teenagers, but some topics might be interesting for younger teenagers. The best thing is they are only approx 20 mins long so hold their attention.

I thought the water crisis one was so interesting. I notice there's one called 'the next pandemic' - might help them understand what's going on.

The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. The first one of the most recent series had a zombie apocalypse and the effects of vaccination modelling bit.

www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures/watch/2019/secrets-and-lies

Not technically a documentary, but Race Across The World is fascinating for all age groups. My DD who is 8 watched the first series and loved it, and we’re now watching the second series.

The boy in the striped Pyjamas if you think he could manage it.

Planet Earth

How it's made

There's lots on BBC iplayer.

Bumping up for more suggestions please, thanks for all so far.