Every season of Inside Culture ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best seasons of Inside Culture!

Mary Beard visits Stonehenge, where she meets leading creative voices, including Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller. Mary explores which cultural forms are the winners and losers of the pandemic.

Episode 1

Mary enters the glitzy world of awards and prizes. There are hundreds: not just for books and movies, but poetry, museums and gardens. How do they influence what art is created and what culture we consume? And has the pandemic helped us see beyond the glamour and red carpets and reassess what prizes are for?

Mary talks to Emmy-nominated actor Brian Cox and Bernardine Evaristo, who last year shared the Booker Prize with Margaret Atwood.

Episode 2

Mary inhabits the worlds of architecture and fashion to analyse how we live now, during a pandemic, and fulfils a 40-year-long dream of reuniting the cast of renowned 1970s BBC drama I, Claudius.

Episode 3

Mary examines what the future holds for museums post-lockdown, venturing out of her study to the British Museum to take on the role of museum guide.

Episode 4

Mary talks to award-winning filmmaker and Turner Prize winning artist Steve McQueen, discussing his views on growing up in London and his new BBC One anthology series Small Axe.

Episode 5

Mary Beard asks why we laugh and explores what laughter can tell us about ourselves, our relationships and the world we live in.

Why We Laugh

In this very special episode of Inside Culture, Mary Beard meets former US Secretary of State, First Lady, senator and presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Mary Beard asks why we are drawn to literature, theatre, TV and film that take us ‘back to school’. She meets authors Philip Pullman and Liz Pichon to discuss the enduring popularity of these stories.

Back to School

Mary Beard explores how thousands of years of stories and images stereotyping women have shaped our thinking and what this means for women who are in positions of power today.

Women on Top

Whether it’s in fashion and music or on our TV and cinema screens, the 90s are well and truly back. Shahidha Bari takes a look at the reasons why.

Back to the 90s

Mary Beard is joined by actor and screenwriter Emma Thompson to talk tears, dissecting some of Emma’s most famous on-screen weeps and explore the role that crying plays both in art and in real life.

The Art of Crying

Shahidha Bari teams up with artists, poets, comics and musicians to investigate the role that the arts can play in exploring and processing the threat to our planet from catastrophic climate change.

Can Art Save the Planet?

Mary Beard brings her trademark wit and probing curiosity to an interview with a very special guest - Booker-nominated British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak.

How does the art we consume reflect the times we live in?  A topical look at the latest film, TV, music, books and theatre - through the eyes of their creators and their audiences.

The Best Seasons of Inside Culture

The Best Seasons of Inside Culture

Season 1

Season 4

Season 5