Microcosmos

Microcosmos (1996) is a French nature documentary you can watch online on iFILM. Directors Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou spent three years filming the meadows and ponds of the Auvergne at distances measured in millimetres — after spending two years before that designing lenses that didn't yet exist.

What they caught on camera: a dung beetle pushing its ball up a muddy slope with the stubbornness of a marathon runner; two snails meeting on a wet leaf; a mosquito larva breaking through the surface tension and taking its first breath. Narration is sparse by design — the film runs on sound design and extreme close-up, with Jacques Perrin providing a brief scientific frame. It picked up the César for best documentary and proved that a spider building a web can be more gripping than most scripted plots. Stream Microcosmos (1996) online on iFILM.