The '80s: Top Ten

TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.

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.

Motoring programme featuring reviews of and reports about cars of all types.

Actor Zac Efron journeys around the world with wellness expert Darin Olien in a travel show that explores healthy, sustainable ways to live.

Don Wildman unearths relics from the world's greatest institutions to reveal secrets from the past. He examines each artifact to illuminate history's most incredible triumphs, sensational crimes and bizarre encounters.

Come one, come all to The Circus. This real-time documentary series pulls back the curtain on the current political stories, revealing the intense, inspiring and infuriating stories behind the headlines. Key characters and events are presented in real time, as they are happening.

Explores the experiences of James Safechuck and Wade Robson, who were both befriended and sexually abused by singer Michael Jackson, and the complicated feelings that led them both to confront their experiences.

Steve Martin is one of the most beloved and enigmatic figures in entertainment. Dive into his extraordinary story from two distinct points of view—past and present—as Martin reflects on how his beginnings led to his unexpectedly fulfilling life today.

A British genealogy documentary series in which celebrities trace their ancestry, discovering secrets and surprises from their past.

This docuseries captures the remarkable rise and unprecedented success of one of the most dominant and iconic franchises in professional sports. Featuring exclusive access to the Buss Family and probing, revealing interviews with players, coaches, and front office execs, this series chronicles this extraordinary story from the inside – told only by the people who lived it.

Explore American cinema through the decades and the cultural, societal and political shifts that framed its evolution.

This docuseries takes an unprecedented look at the enduring and influential legacy of DC, allowing fans to rediscover the universe of characters, as well as the iconic comic book company’s origins, its evolution and its nearly nine-decade cultural impact across every artistic medium.

E! True Hollywood Story is an American documentary series on E! that deals with famous Hollywood celebrities, movies, TV shows and also well-known public figures. Among the topics covered on the program include salacious re-tellings of Hollywood secrets, show-biz scandals, celebrity murders and mysteries, porn-star biographies, and "where-are-they-now?" investigations of former child stars. It frequently features in-depth interviews, actual courtroom footage, and dramatic reenactments. When aired on the E! network, episodes will be updated to reflect the current life or status of the subject.

Tracing a century of movie and TV history, these four documentary specials explore the unparalleled global impact of Warner Bros. on art, commerce, and culture.

Utilizing the latest scientific innovations and leading-edge filmmaking technology, this documentary reveals the secret powers and super-senses of the world’s most extraordinary animals, and invites viewers to see and hear beyond normal human perception to experience the natural world as a specific species does — from seeing flowers in bee-vision to eavesdropping on a conversation between elephant seals to soaring the length of a football field with glow-in-the-dark squirrels.

Gadget Man shows the world's collection of handy gadgets throughout the ages, from today's smart devices to decades old electronics to even older mechanical devices.

MegaStructures is a documentary television series appearing on the National Geographic Channel in the United States and the United Kingdom, Channel 5 in the United Kingdom, France 5 in France, and 7mate in Australia. Each episode is an educational look of varying depth into the construction, operation, and staffing of various structures or construction projects, but not ordinary construction products. Generally containing interviews with designers and project managers, it presents the problems of construction and the methodology or techniques used to overcome obstacles. In some cases this involved the development of new materials or products that are now in general use within the construction industry. MegaStructures focuses on constructions that are extreme; in the sense that they are the biggest, tallest, longest, or deepest in the world. Alternatively, a project may appear if it had an element of novelty or are a world first. This type of project is known as a Megaproject.

Noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been helping people discover long-lost relatives hidden for generations within the branches of their family trees. Professor Gates utilizes a team of genealogists to reconstruct the paper trail left behind by our ancestors and the world’s leading geneticists to decode our DNA and help us travel thousands of years into the past to discover the origins of our earliest forebears.

Executive producer Jon Favreau invites the cast and crew of The Mandalorian to share an unprecedented look at the making of the series. Each chapter explores a different facet of the first live-action Star Wars television show through interviews, never-before-seen footage, and roundtable conversations hosted by Favreau himself.

From power struggles to global politics, an exploration of FIFA reveals the organization's checkered history — and what it takes to host a World Cup.

I Love the '80s is a decade nostalgia television program that was produced by VH1, based on the BBC series of the same name. The first episode, "I Love 1980", premiered on December 16, 2002.

True crime series which re-examines one of the most infamous crimes in recent U.S. history – the 1986 killing of Jennifer Levin at the hands of Robert Chambers.

These blockbusters brought us together and gave us the time of our lives. Meet the actors, directors and industry insiders who made them happen.

An exploration of the case of the Golden State Killer who terrorized California in the 1970s and 1980s, committing 50 sexual assaults and 10 murders, and true crime author Michelle McNamara's obsessive quest to find justice on behalf of his victims.

Using rare and never-before-seen footage, as well as one-on-one interviews, discover how the San Francisco 49ers rose from an also-ran into pro football's most glamorous franchise during the '80s and early '90s.

New York City in the 1970s was ruled with a bloody fist by five mafia families, until a group of federal agents tried the unthinkable: taking them down.

Who really laced Tylenol with cyanide? This true-crime series examines alarming theories behind the unsolved killings — and tracks down a key suspect.

I Love the '80s 3-D is the follow-up to VH1's 1980s nostalgia show I Love the '80s and its sequel I Love the '80s Strikes Back. It premiered October 24, 2005. Like its predecessors, it premiered in one hour installments, each describing the events and trends of a year between 1980 and 1989, two shows per night until Friday, October 28, 2005. The show is actually in 3D, using a process called ChromaDepth that appears in 3D when using a special pair of ChromaDepth glasses, but the process allows the show to be viewable in normal 2D. The ChromaDepth glasses for the show were available free at Best Buy stores across the United States.

In 1980, a booby-trapped bomb accompanied by a $3 million ransom note terrorises a casino in Nevada. As the FBI races against the clock, each step uncovers dark secrets and unexpected motives.

Betray your country, save the world. Spies and traitors play a dangerous game in the 1980s as the Cold War brings two superpowers to the brink of nuclear war.

The behind-the-scenes story of French television… This documentary unveils the lesser-known history of two audiovisual decades that have shaped today's television. To explain from the break up of the French broadcasting service ORTF, in 1974, to the creation of Arte, via the birth of Canal+, the life and death of La Cinq and the privatization of TF1 — the succession of political, economic and cultural decisions that have shaped what is known as the “PAF” (French Audiovisual Landscape).

The third installment from executive producers Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Mark Herzog, following in the footsteps of critically-acclaimed series THE SIXTIES and THE SEVENTIES, tackles 10 years shaped by exceptionalism and excess. Like its predecessors, THE EIGHTIES intersperses rare archival newsreel footage, interviews, and comments by historians, journalists, politicians, celebrities and others, painting a perspective-rich picture of a vibrant decade. Episodes examine the age of Reagan, the AIDS crisis, the end of the Cold War, Wall Street corruption, the evolving TV and music scene, and everything in between.

Paranormal encounters from the viewpoint of those who lived them are detailed through immersive reenactments and present-day interviews.

I Love the '80s is a BBC television mini-series that examines the pop culture of the 1980s. It was commissioned following the success of I Love the '70s and is part of the I Love... series. I Love 1980 premiered on BBC Two on 13 January 2001 and the last, I Love 1989, on 24 March 2001. Unlike with I Love the '70s, episodes were increased to 90 minutes long. The series was followed later in 2001 by I Love the '90s. The success of the series led to VH1 remaking the show for the US market: I Love the '80s USA.

The Pop Years was a British television show that reviewed pop music of a certain year from 1980 to 1999. It was first shown on Sky1 in 2003 and was later repeated on Sky3. The programme featured archive clips relating to the particular year that it was reviewing, e.g. music videos or live performances. It also featured interviews with famous singers from that year and talking heads who enjoyed that year's music. The show ran for a single series of 20 episodes and was narrated by Scott Mills and Edith Bowman.

The defining biography of a decade, as told through exclusive interviews with more than 40 icons, entertainers and innovators who shaped its identity.

“Make America great again”: Ronald Reagan coined this slogan long before Donald Trump. This three-part documentary shows how highly conservative ideas became increasingly widespread in American society during the 1960s and 1970s, leading to Reagan’s election as president in 1980.

Originally broadcast on BBC One Scotland, 8 January 1984