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The Best Episodes of Nature

Every episode of Nature ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Nature!

Consistently stunning documentaries transport viewers to far-flung locations ranging from the torrid African plains to the chilly splendours of icy Antarctica. The show's primary focus...
Genres:DocumentaryFamily
Network:PBS

Top Episode Ratings Summary

"The Urban Elephant" is the best rated episode of "Nature". It scored 9.8/10 based on 14 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 11/19/2000. This episode scored 0.1 points higher than the second highest rated, "The Face of the Deep".

  • The Urban Elephant
    9.8/1014 votes
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    #1 - The Urban Elephant

    Season 19 Episode 4 - Aired 11/19/2000

    The enigmatic subjects of NATURE: The Urban Elephant, Asian elephants are losing territory to the inevitable process of deforestation. Industrialization all over Asia has hurt the mahouts, or elephant drivers, so that the trained elephants and their riders are being driven into major cities such as Bangkok to earn a meager living receiving donations and food from curious tourists.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Face of the Deep
    9.7/1010 votes
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    #2 - The Face of the Deep

    Season 3 Episode 5 - Aired 10/28/1984

    Examines the variety of plants and animals living in the Sargasso Sea, a gigantic floating bed of seaweed near Bermuda.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Leopard: A Darkness in the Grass
    9.6/1028 votes
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    #3 - Leopard: A Darkness in the Grass

    Season 5 Episode 8 - Aired 12/14/1986

    The activities of an elusive female leopard are traced over a two-day period on the hot plains of Africa.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Toothwalkers: Giants of the Arctic Ice
    9.6/1012 votes
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    #4 - Toothwalkers: Giants of the Arctic Ice

    Season 16 Episode 1 - Aired 10/12/1997

    TOOTHWALKERS presents extremely rare under-the-ice footage that reveals a complex and potentially dangerous side to this huge and often mysterious mammal.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • From the Heart of the World: the Elder Brothers' Warning
    9.5/1020 votes
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    #5 - From the Heart of the World: the Elder Brothers' Warning

    Season 10 Episode 1 - Aired 9/28/1991

    This program features the Kogi tribe who live in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Columbia. They are pre-Columbian peoples, and consider themselves as the elder brothers of humankind. They insist that it is the modern world, the younger brothers, who are destroying the harmony of life on earth.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: Alan Ereira

  • Triumph of Life: The Four Billion Year War
    9.5/1021 votes
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    #6 - Triumph of Life: The Four Billion Year War

    Season 19 Episode 7 - Aired 1/15/2001

    THE FOUR BILLION YEAR WAR explains how both conflict and cooperation have helped shape the species that today populate our world. And it profiles the winners and losers in this epic evolutionary contest — from the massive dinosaurs who disappeared long ago to the humble bacteria that have survived for billions of years virtually unchanged.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Africa: Desert Odyssey
    9.5/1018 votes
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    #7 - Africa: Desert Odyssey

    Season 20 Episode 2 - Aired 9/16/2001

    For centuries, the Tuareg people have braved the brutal Sahara to trade in salt, a precious cargo once worth its weight in gold. In this episode of AFRICA, Adam Ilius,salt production a young boy of nine, crosses hundreds of miles of desolate and dangerous desert on his first trans-Saharan salt caravan. After months of traveling, will Adam make it to Bilma, Niger to sell the caravan's salt for necessary food and clothing? Or will the shifting sands of the desert spell disaster for this tenacious group?

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Cheetahs in the Land of Lions
    9.4/108 votes
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    #8 - Cheetahs in the Land of Lions

    Season 11 Episode 11 - Aired 1/24/1993

    A study of cheetah behavior follows a mother and her cubs on the Serengeti plains.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Gorilla: King of the Congo
    9.4/109 votes
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    #9 - Gorilla: King of the Congo

    Season 11 Episode 12 - Aired 2/14/1993

    A gorilla orphanage and a proposed forest reserve may save the lowland gorilla.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Obsession with Orchids
    9.3/1010 votes
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    #10 - Obsession with Orchids

    Season 18 Episode 13 - Aired 4/16/2000

    No flowering plant has captured the attention of humans, or stirred their passions, in quite the way that orchids have.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Underdogs
    9.3/1014 votes
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    #11 - Underdogs

    Season 24 Episode 7 - Aired 1/29/2006

    Underdogs tells the poignant story of two misfit dogs whose lives were turned around by people who saw their potential for greatness.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Nature of Sex: The Sex Contract
    9.2/1012 votes
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    #12 - The Nature of Sex: The Sex Contract

    Season 12 Episode 6 - Aired 11/23/1993

    Explores the selection process among different species for choosing a mate, whether it’s for life or just for the day.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Extraordinary Cats
    9.2/1018 votes
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    #13 - Extraordinary Cats

    Season 17 Episode 14 - Aired 2/21/1999

    Cats command our attention and our devotion. These fascinating creatures have been perplexing people for thousands of years.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Triumph of Life: The Eternal Arms Race
    9.2/1010 votes
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    #14 - Triumph of Life: The Eternal Arms Race

    Season 19 Episode 9 - Aired 1/28/2001

    For billions of years, life on Earth has been engaged in its own ETERNAL ARMS RACE, the subject of Part 3 of NATURE’s TRIUMPH OF LIFE. As predators became better hunters, their prey also evolved better defenses.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Australia's Little Assassins
    9.2/1016 votes
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    #15 - Australia's Little Assassins

    Season 19 Episode 16 - Aired 5/20/2001

    When animals are the subject, most people associate Australia with lovable koalas and leaping kangaroos. But an even more distinctive aspect of Australian wildlife is its abundance of animals -- from snakes and spiders to a host of marine life forms and at least one mammal -- that use venom to defend themselves, attack prey, and in some cases help digest food.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Queen of Trees
    9.2/1045 votes
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    #16 - The Queen of Trees

    Season 24 Episode 11 - Aired 4/9/2006

    Patricia Clarkson narrates this look at the relationship between the sycamore fig tree and the tiny fig wasp, which is so small it could fly through the eye of a needle. The trees, which flourish in Kenya, produce fruit that provides nourishment to more wildlife than any other tree in Africa, but without the pollination the wasp provides, that might not occur. The documentary also examines other creatures that make the trees their homes, including gray hornbills (one of Africa's largest birds).

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Crime Scene Creatures
    9.2/1018 votes
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    #17 - Crime Scene Creatures

    Season 24 Episode 13 - Aired 5/7/2006

    They are among the most reliable witnesses to a crime — expert in their testimony and bulletproof in their account. Yet they never utter a single word. They are the animals, plants, and insects that are being recruited by a special breed of forensic scientists to solve the most seemingly impenetrable of crimes.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Jaguar: Year of the Cat
    9.1/1015 votes
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    #18 - Jaguar: Year of the Cat

    Season 14 Episode 1 - Aired 10/8/1995

    "Jaguar: Year of the Cat" follows the predator in its native rain forests of Belize. Included: a pair stalk turtles, peccaries and armadillos; scenes of the habits of their animal neighbors, including toucans and ocelots.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Hippo Beach
    9.1/1025 votes
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    #19 - Hippo Beach

    Season 22 Episode 1 - Aired 10/19/2003

    A chronicle of hippopotamus life along the banks of Zambia's Luangwa River includes footage of males fighting over territory; females protecting their young; the hippo's importance to river ecology; and societal rituals involving the head male of the pod. Mark Hamill narrates.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Venom Cure
    9.1/1015 votes
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    #20 - The Venom Cure

    Season 23 Episode 9 - Aired 4/3/2005

    Scientists have discovered that natural poisons and venoms contain chemicals that can be used to create drugs for treating everything from chronic pain to cancer.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Seedy Side of Plants
    9.0/1012 votes
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    #21 - The Seedy Side of Plants

    Season 17 Episode 15 - Aired 5/23/1999

    How does such a seemingly passive life form accomplish the complex task of reproduction?

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies
    9.0/1030 votes
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    #22 - Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies

    Season 20 Episode 9 - Aired 11/4/2001

    Filmed in the mountains of Montana, this poignant, engrossing chronicle focuses on an extraordinary stallion, whose life has been recorded since his birth in the wild in 1995 by Emmy-winning filmmaker Ginger Kathrens.

    Director: Ginger Kathrens

    Writer: Ginger Kathrens

  • The Real Macaw
    9.0/109 votes
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    #23 - The Real Macaw

    Season 22 Episode 8 - Aired 2/15/2004

    Everyone loves macaws. Playful, intelligent, beautiful, they are the stars of parrot parks and zoos, and the cherished pets of devoted owners around the world. All of which makes them prime targets for poachers, who can make enormous profits from illegal sales of the birds. Thousands are smuggled from the wild each year, and many die in the process. In the forests of South America, several species of macaw are severely endangered. But there is hope on the horizon. Dr. Charlie Munn, a wealthy American who is also a leading ornithologist and world expert on parrots, has begun a campaign to promote eco-tourism as a means of saving the birds. Employing former poachers as conservationists, and providing locals with the means to start and maintain a trade in tourism instead of smuggling, he’s betting that instead of buying birds, their fans will pay to see them in the wild.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Earthflight
    9.0/1012 votes
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    #24 - Earthflight

    Season 32 Episode 6 - Aired 10/9/2013

    No description available

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Joy of Pigs
    8.9/1012 votes
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    #25 - The Joy of Pigs

    Season 15 Episode 4 - Aired 11/17/1996

    Exploring pigs, described by host George Page as “the world's most cosmopolitan characters,” with a focus on their adaptability to a variety of environments. Included: pigs as pets; hunters stalking a “bearded” pig in Borneo.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A