The Blue Planet (Season 1)

The Blue Planet (2001) is a BBC natural history documentary series you can watch online on iFILM, narrated by Sir David Attenborough. The eight-episode series moves through every major ocean environment — open seas, coral reefs, polar waters, the deep — covering creatures from blue whales to organisms that live around hydrothermal vents where sunlight has never reached.

Director Alastair Fothergill and his team spent five years in production, deploying specialist deep-sea submersibles to capture footage that had never been filmed before: sperm whales hunting giant squid, killer whales working in coordinated attacks, mass spawning events on the reef. The technology used for the deep-water sequences set a new benchmark for the genre.

BBC Natural History Unit built something that changed what audiences expected from wildlife television. The ocean sequences are genuinely astonishing — less comfortable than a nature film about land animals, and more honest about what goes on in the water. Stream all episodes of The Blue Planet online on iFILM.