Michelangelo Infinito

To produce one of the world's great masterpieces is impressive. To create three is truly astonishing - but this is exactly what Michelangelo did five hundred years ago.

Arguably the world's most famous work of art, millions of people visit it every year. Until now however nobody has been able to explain exactly what the Sistine Chapel's ceiling is actually trying to tell us. Though important and timely the film (airing as it does to celebrate the 500th birthday of the work) it is also the product of the detective work and obsessive scholarship by art critic Waldemar Januszczak which spans the last 30 years. During this time he has been trying to unlock the secrets of Sistine Chapel's complex pictorial codes and sumptuous iconography.

A joint BBC/British Museum production about the drawings of Michelangelo and the way that they illuminate his life, his artistic development, his religion and his inner torments. The film is presented Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, and is filmed on location in Florence and in the Sistine Chapel.

In 1970, Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni was asked to return to his roots as a documentarian for this profile of China, fully sanctioned by the government of the People's Republic. In a detached, distant style, the director and his crew pick up snatches of life in and around Bejing, including: kids at an elementary school; a hospital where a woman is giving a cesarean birth; and a cotton mill and its workers. Despite Antonioni's efforts, China denounced the finished film, and as such, it has gone relatively unseen in most parts of the world, including the United States.

Art historian Antonio Forcellino investigates whether Michelangelo was part of the Spirituali, an influential theological group within the Catholic church that tried to bring reforms to the Vatican and avoid the war with the Protestants.

A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing. Then he meets a mysterious beauty, and also notices something frightfully suspicious on one of his photographs of her taken in a park. The fact that he may have photographed a murder does not occur to him until he studies and then blows up his negatives, uncovering details, blowing up smaller and smaller elements, and finally putting the puzzle together.

This award-winning series reveals the full and fascinating stories behind famous works of art, not just how they were created, but also how they influenced others and came to have a life of their own in the modern world.

Great Artists with Tim Marlow: The Collection contains all 26 episodes of the Great Artists This major 26-part series takes a fresh look at the most important artworks of some of the greatest artists in history. Shot on location in over fifty museums, churches and palaces throughout Europe and the United States, this series is a comprehensive survey of the history of Western art.