The Best TV Shows on National Geographic

Every National Geographic Show Ranked From Best To Worst

Premiering in 1985 and 1997, Explorer and Monkey Business are among National Geographic’s most celebrated shows. With its programming history stretching from 1985 to 2025, National Geographic offers an impressive lineup of over 20 shows. Explore our list of the top rated shows up to date from November 2025 that includes over 20 unique series.

  • Underdogs
    Underdogs (2025)8.8

    Follow the story of the heroic underdogs of the natural world – the good, the bad and the frankly ugly. From their hidden talents to their bold hygiene choices, unsavory courtship rituals, devious camouflage techniques and “tough love” parenting skills, Underdogs will celebrate and champion the unique and unpredictable behaviors of a little known and surprising cast of animal characters.

  • Cosmos
    Cosmos (2014)8.5

    Famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson provides clarity for the vision of the cosmos as he voyages across the universe with never-before-told stories that delve into the scientific concepts of the laws of gravity and the origins of space and time.

  • A Small Light
    A Small Light (2023)7.9

    Twentysomething Miep Gies didn't hesitate when her boss Otto Frank came to her and asked her to hide his family from the Nazis during World War II. For the next two years, Miep, her husband Jan, and the other helpers watched over the eight souls in hiding in the Secret Annex. And it was Miep who found Anne’s Diary and kept it safe so Otto, the only one of the eight who survived, could later share it with the world as one of the most powerful accounts of the Holocaust.

  • Queens
    Queens (2024)7.9

    In six remote and beautiful places on our planet are queendoms run by the most powerful leaders in the animal world. These queens are sisters, single mothers, grandmothers. This documentary series tells their stories of resilience, strength, love and loss for the first time.

  • Genius
    Genius (2017)7.6

    The life stories of history's greatest minds. From their days as young adults to their final years we see their discoveries, loves, relationships, causes, flaws and genius.

  • Monkey Business
    Monkey Business (1997)7.5

    Monkey Business is a long-running TV series about the exploits of various primates who reside at Monkey World, a rescue centre and sanctuary for primates in Dorset, United Kingdom. The series features Jim and Dr. Alison Cronin, directors of Monkey World, as they travel around the world rescuing primates from lives of abuse, and returning them to Monkey World. Their goal is to rehabilitate the rescued primates and allow them to live in as natural a habitat as possible, being part of a group and living with friends of their own kind.

  • MegaStructures
    MegaStructures (2004)7.5

    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.

  • Brain Games
    Brain Games (2011)7.5

    Get ready to have your mind messed with! "Brain Games" is a groundbreaking series that uses interactive experiments, misdirection and tricks to demonstrate how our brains create the illusion of seamless reality through our memory, through our sensory perception, and how we focus our attention.

  • Life Below Zero
    Life Below Zero (2013)7.3

    Viewers go deep into an Alaskan winter to meet six tough and resilient residents as they try to stay one step ahead of storms and man-eating beasts to make it through to spring. The closest neighbor to Sue Aikens is more than 300 miles away. Eric Salitan subsists solely on what he hunts and forages. Chip and Agnes Hailstone catch fish for currency in bartering for supplies, and Andy and Kate Bassich use their pack of sled dogs for transportation.

  • Seconds From Disaster
    Seconds From Disaster (2005)7.2

    Seconds from Disaster is a US/UK-produced documentary television programme that investigates historically relevant man-made and natural disasters of the 20th century. Each episode aims to explain a single incidental by analyzing the causes and circumstances that ultimately effected the disaster. The program uses re-enactments, interviews, testimonies, and CGI to analyze the sequence of events second-by-second for the audience. Narrators for the show are Ashton Smith, Richard Vaughan and Peter Guinness.

  • The Hot Zone
    The Hot Zone (2019)7.1

    In this anthology series, heroic scientists risk all to deal with deadly outbreaks.

  • Lost Treasures of Egypt
    Lost Treasures of Egypt (2019)7.1

    An immersive, action-packed and discovery-led series following International teams of Egyptologists as they unearth the world's richest seam of ancient archaeology - Egypt's Valley of the Kings.

  • Mars
    Mars (2016)7.0

    The maiden crew of the Daedalus spacecraft must push itself to the brink of human capability in order to successfully establish the first sustainable colony on Mars. Set both in the future and in the present day, this series blends scripted elements set in the future with documentary vérité interviews with today’s best and brightest minds in modern science and innovation, illuminating how research and development is creating the space technology that will enable our first attempt at a mission to Mars.

  • Drain the Oceans
    Drain the Oceans (2018)7.0

    Maritime mysteries—old and new—come to life in this series, combining scientific data and digital re-creations to reveal shipwrecks, treasures, and sunken cities on the bottom of lakes, seas and oceans around the world.

  • Pirates: Behind the Legends
    Pirates: Behind the Legends (2024)7.0

    From legendary John Ward, immortalized in fiction as Jack Sparrow, and English explorer Francis Drake; branded Pirates by their enemies but heroes by their comrades, to the notorious Pirates of the Caribbean shrouded in myth.

  • Running Wild with Bear Grylls
    Running Wild with Bear Grylls (2014)6.8

    The famed survivalist takes A-list celebrities on journeys into the wildest locations around the world, forcing the stars to push their bodies and minds to the limit to successfully complete the adventure of a lifetime.

  • Wicked Tuna
    Wicked Tuna (2012)6.7

    Fishing is a hard life, and harder with bluefin stocks depleted. In Gloucester, Massachusetts, there's a special breed of fishermen. For generations they've used rod and reel to catch the elusive bluefin tuna. They depend on these fish for their livelihood, and the competition is brutal. Over the next 10 weeks, the most skilled fishermen will set out in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic in hopes of catching the valuable bluefin tuna. When one bluefin can bring in as much as $20,000—they'll do whatever it takes to hook up.

  • Running Wild with Bear Grylls: The Challenge
    Running Wild with Bear Grylls: The Challenge (2022)6.7

    Bear Grylls is taking it up a level by teaching his celebrity guests essential survival skills that they'll have to master and then prove they can use in a high stress situation.

  • Dog Whisperer
    Dog Whisperer (2004)6.6

    Cesar Millan has been called the Dr. Phil for Dogs. With an uncanny ability to rehabilitate problem dogs of all shapes and sizes. Each episode of the Dog Whisperer documents the remarkable transformations that take place under Cesar's guidance and teaching, helping dogs and their owners live happier lives together.

  • Explorer
    Explorer (1985)5.9

    National Geographic's Explorer gives viewers special access to the issues of the day.