David Attenborough's Natural History Museum Alive (2014)

Directed by

Daniel M. Smith

Genre

documentary film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

1h 04m

Rated

PG

Rating

6.8 of 10 from 18 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

David Attenborough walks through the Natural History Museum in London. He uses CGI to bring extinct animal skeletons back to life, showing how they might have looked and moved. The documentary blends science with visual imagination.

informativeawe-inspiringwarmcuriousvisually stunninggentlefascinatinglively

What happens

David Attenborough's Natural History Museum Alive is a 2014 British documentary film. Written and presented by David Attenborough, it aired on Sky One on New Year's Day 2014. The documentary was filmed at the Natural History Museum, London, and uses CGI imagery to bring life to several of the extinct animal skeletons in the museum, including Archaeopteryx, the giant moa and Haast's eagle, Gigantopithecus (contrasting prevailing expert opinion; presented as bipedal and more hominin than pongine), the dodo, Glossotherium, Smilodon, Gigantophis, Ichthyosaurus and the London-based replica of the famous Diplodocus skeleton, Dippy. The documentary was well-received, and won a TV BAFTA in the specialist factual category. A 3D companion book for the documentary was released under the same name. 'The Making of David Attenborough's Natural History Museum Alive' was also released to accompany the documentary. An immersive iOS app called 'Museum Alive' was released to accompany the film. On February 19, 2025, 11 years after its original release, it premiered in America on PBS as part of the TV series Nature under the title “Museum Alive with David Attenborough." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur (2016)
• David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (2020)
• Dinosaurs: The Final Day with David Attenborough (2022)
• Prehistoric Planet (2022)
• Life in the Undergrowth (2005)
• Planet Earth II (2016)
• Attenborough's Life That Glows (2016)
• Our Planet (2019)