The Fifties

Corleone: A History of la Cosa Nostra

How, from 1974 to 1993, Totò Riina (1930-2017), supreme boss of the Corleone family, ruled by blood and terror over the Sicilian Mafia. An implacable account, based on the testimony of his men and those who fought against them.

The Great Smog: Winter of '52

Dr Xand Van Tulleken and Raksha Dave investigate the Great Smog of 1952 - the deadliest environmental disaster ever recorded and one of the world's worst peacetime catastrophes. Lasting just over four days, the Great Smog plunged London into a terrifyingly murky gloom - the acrid pollution seeping into homes, leaving Londoners gasping for breath, shutting down transport and emergency services, and overwhelming hospitals and undertakers alike.

Gulag, the Story

A major political, historical, human and economic fact of the 20th century, the Gulag, the extremely punitive Soviet concentration camp system, remains largely unknown.

Spain: The 20th Century in Color

Through the birth of cinema and the first images recorded in Spain, this series takes viewers on a journey from the late 19th century to the 1970s across 6 hour-long episodes. An exclusive journey through Spain's history featuring stunning footage colorized for the first time and enhanced with realistic sound design to bring out their vividness and spectacular nature. A captivating yet educational series with lively and emotional narration that offers viewers a new way to experience the past.

Fifties Features - The Women behind the Pictures

A three part series about women working in the British film industry during the 1950s.

Del Miño al Bidasoa

The Vietnam War

An immersive 360-degree narrative telling the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film. Featuring testimony from nearly 80 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides.

At War for Algeria

North Africa, 1954. The Algerian war of independence begins, a traumatic and extremely violent catastrophe that for eight long years will shake and finally overthrow the foundations of the colonial regime established by France in 1830.

Red Forest

A drama about the national resistance movement in Latvia after the Soviet occupation. Events take place in 1949 when the British intelligence service MI6 tries to find out about the situation in the Baltic States occupied by the Soviet Union. Wittold (Jekabs Reinis), together with other Latvians, works hard in his daily work, and Velta (Agnese Cirule) is a nurse. They dream of going to the United States, saving money, planning a wedding and arranging the necessary documents because the US carefully selects emigrants. But Wittold decides to take part in the Mission, and the hope of changing history changes his life.

Masters of Sex

William Masters and Virginia Johnson are real-life pioneers of the science of human sexuality. Their research touched off the sexual revolution and took them from a midwestern teaching hospital to the cover of Time magazine and multiple appearances on Johnny Carson's couch. He is a brilliant scientist out of touch with his own feelings, and she is a single working mother ahead of her time. The series chronicles their unusual lives, romance, and unlikely pop culture trajectory.

In Cold Blood

At the end of the 1950s, in a more innocent America, the brutal, meaningless slaying of a Midwestern family horrified the nation. This film is based on Truman Capote's hauntingly detailed, psychologically penetrating nonfiction novel. While in prison, Dick Hickock, 20, hears a cell-mate's story about $10,000 in cash kept in a home safe by a prosperous rancher. When he's paroled, Dick persuades ex-con Perry Smith, also 20, to join him in going after the stash. On a November night in 1959, Dick and Perry break into the Holcomb, Kansas, house of Herb Clutter. Enraged at finding no safe, they wake the sleeping family and brutally kill them all. The bodies are found by two friends who come by before Sunday church. The murders shock the small Great Plains town, where doors are routinely left unlocked. Detective Alvin Dewey of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation heads the case, but there are no clues, no apparent motive and no suspects...

Laverne & Shirley

Best friends, roommates, and polar opposites, Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney work together at the Shotz Brewery in Milwaukee and keep each other's spirits up at home.

Get Some In!

Get Some In! is a British comedy series set in the 1950's that focused on the Royal Air Force National Service. The show was broadcast between 1975 and 1978 by Thames Television. Scripts were by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, the team behind the BBC TV sitcom The Good Life. The programme drew its inspiration from late 1950s/early 1960s National Service situation-comedy The Army Game, and from nostalgic BBC TV sitcom Dad's Army, but the RAF setting gave it enough originality not to seem formulaic. Thirty-four half-hour episodes were made. The series has never been repeated in full on terrestrial TV, although the UKTV Gold cable channel has aired the episodes uncut.

Happy Days

In 1950s Milwaukee the Cunningham family must contend with Fonzie, a motorcycle riding Casanova.

Velvet

In 1950s Spain, the heir to a fashion house romances a beautiful seamstress who works for the company, despite the objections of his family.

Lord of the Flies

After a plane crash, a group of schoolboys find themselves stranded on a tropical island without adults. Ralph is elected leader and, with the help of the intelligent Piggy, strives to maintain order and civilization. Jack, responsible for the signal fire, becomes increasingly focused on hunting and power struggles. This leads to tensions within the group, gradually pushing the boys from hope and structure into chaos and tragedy.

The Darling Buds of May

An idyllic picture of 1950's rural England as seen through the lives of the Larkins, a farm family living in Kent. The show revolves around Pa Larkin, a man of a kind and mischievous nature with a penchant for getting into scrapes and talking his way out of them with equal equanimity; and his daughters, as they deal with growing up and discovering the joys and sorrows of young love.

Hi-de-Hi!

Hi-de-Hi! is a British sitcom set in Maplins, a fictional holiday camp, during 1959 and 1960, and was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, who also wrote Dad's Army and It Ain't Half Hot Mum amongst others. It aired on the BBC from 1980 to 1988. The series revolved around the lives of the camp's management and entertainers, most of them struggling actors or has-beens. The inspiration was the experience of writers Perry and Croft: after being demobilised from the army, Perry was a Redcoat at Butlin's, Pwllheli during the holiday season. The series gained large audiences and won a BAFTA as Best Comedy Series in 1984. In 2004, it came 40th in Britain's Best Sitcom and in a 2008 poll on Channel 4, 'Hi-de-Hi!" was voted the 35th most popular comedy catchphrase.

The New Force

An understaffed police district in 1950s Sweden launches a bold experiment to introduce its first group of female officers.

The Doctor Blake Mysteries

Dr Lucien Blake left Ballarat as a young man. But now he finds himself returning to take over not only his dead father's medical practice, but also his on-call role as the town's police surgeon, only to find change is afoot, nothing is sacred, and no one is safe.