The Best TV Shows on National Geographic

Every National Geographic Show Ranked From Best To Worst

Peruse our comprehensive roster of National Geographic’s top shows, encompassing over 20 distinct series as of September 2025. Among National Geographic’s finest offerings are Dog Whisperer and Brain Games, which debuted in 2004 and 2011, respectively. National Geographic has over 20 shows broadcast from as early as 2004 and as recent as 2025.

  • Photographer
    Photographer (2024)9.0

    Photographer will tell the intensely personal stories of the world’s greatest visual storytellers and artists, from how they found themselves behind a camera to how they dedicate themselves to the endless pursuit of perfecting their craft.

  • Underdogs
    Underdogs (2025)8.9

    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.

  • Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller
    Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller (2020)8.5

    A 360-degree view of the trafficking world from the point-of-view of the traffickers, law enforcement agents and those caught in the crossfire with access only National Geographic can provide.

  • 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.

  • Genius
    Genius (2017)7.7

    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.

  • One Strange Rock
    One Strange Rock (2018)7.7

    A mind-bending, thrilling journey exploring the fragility and wonder of planet Earth, one of the most peculiar, unique places in the entire universe, brought to life by the only people to have left it behind – the world’s most well known and leading astronauts.

  • 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)7.4

    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.

  • Drain the Oceans
    Drain the Oceans (2018)7.3

    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.

  • The Hot Zone
    The Hot Zone (2019)7.1

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

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • The '80s: Top Ten
    The '80s: Top Ten (2022)6.5

    Pop culture icon Rob Lowe takes viewers down memory lane with six entertaining and thought-provoking top 10 countdowns of 1980s pop culture, as voted by a panel of experts.

  • Science of Stupid
    Science of Stupid (2014)6.1

    This show combines cold hard science with some of the craziest, most spectacular and painful user generated clips ever recorded. Richard Hammond introduces all manner of mishaps featuring brave, if misguided individuals from around the world and then explains the science behind their failure and humiliation with the use of bespoke animations and super slo-mo cinematography. Every episode features between 50 and 60 clips of misadventure – ordinary folk making extraordinary mistakes. Each week watch stunts involving weightlifting, shooting guns or jumping over cars, that have gone wrong, paused, re-wound, and re-played and analysed to determine exactly what went wrong and why. Richard explains the physics, chemistry and biology at play, then presents forensic details to explain the stupidity that resulted in failure. He’ll look at everything including weight, volume, momentum, combustion and even how the brain operates. This is misadventure explained. This is the Science of Stupid.

  • Valley of the Boom
    Valley of the Boom (2019)5.8

    An adrenaline-fueled ride through the culture of speculation, innovation and disruption during Silicon Valley’s unprecedented tech boom and subsequent bust in the 1990s. This mostly scripted series weaves in select documentary elements that help tell the true inside story of the internet’s formative years.

  • Man, Woman, Dog
    Man, Woman, Dog (2021)2.0

    Humans and dogs have a long, intertwined history together. Through the eyes of each of them today, we can see the evolution of that relationship.