Frozen Planet (Season 1)

Frozen Planet (2011) is a BBC documentary series you can watch online on iFILM, narrated by David Attenborough. Camera crews spent two years at both poles — Arctic and Antarctic — capturing footage of animal behaviour that had never been filmed before, in temperatures that routinely destroyed equipment.

Polar bears hunting on sea ice, orca packs working in coordinated waves, penguin colonies half a million strong, brinicles growing down through the ocean floor like slow-motion stalactites of ice — the series delivers sequence after sequence of the genuinely unexpected. The later episodes shift toward climate, documenting how the polar environment has shifted over the past few decades: the contrast with archive footage is stark.

If Planet Earth set the standard for modern wildlife filmmaking, this series earns its place alongside it by going somewhere colder and stranger. Stream all episodes of Frozen Planet (2011) online on iFILM.