David Attenborough

The documentary was originally released in 2023 but is now available on HBO Max, NOW and more. It’s left many fews with “goosebumps” after watching the “haunting” ending

It can be tricky deciding which documentaries to devote your time to, especially with so much choice on offer. But an “unforgettable” documentary has earned praise for its emotional depth and “haunting”, chilling conclusion that lingers with audiences long after the final credits.

There’s an abundance of thought-provoking, powerful and compelling documentaries available across numerous streaming services like NOW, Disney+, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and beyond. Those seeking greater insight into our world and the cosmos can indulge in the various David Attenborough-led programmes like Life on Earth, Planet Earth and countless others.

True crime devotees have no shortage of options, with the likes of Making a Murderer, Girl in the Picture, Fred & Rose West: A British Horror Story, and plenty more capturing global audiences.

But for those yearning for something slightly different, a 2023 documentary currently streaming on HBO Max might prove the ideal solution.

Lots of telly fans head to social media while searching for their next marathon viewing session and popular TikTok content creator Luke Ecclestone, who shares content online as Eccy Reviews, has emerged as a trusted resource for many audiences.

Luke has accumulated hundreds of thousands of followers across social media where he offers his thoughts and analysis on various films and television programmes.

What is 2023’s Daniel about?

In a recent video uploaded to TikTok, he highlighted the 2023 documentary, Daniel, which chronicles the life of Daniel Northcott, who started filming his life from just seven after acquiring his dad’s video camera.

Luke began: “You need to cancel whatever you [were] planning on watching tonight because I’ve just gone and found you the perfect documentary to go and watch.

“It is emotional, it will send shivers down your spine, and you genuinely never will forget the ending.”

He continued: “The documentary you need to see is called Daniel. Now, this is available on HBO Max and if you’re someone who’s seen it, you’ll know exactly why I’m talking about it.

“[This documentary] follows Daniel, who at a young age is given a film camera. He begins to document his whole entire life into his 20s, when he begins to explore the whole world.”

However, circumstances soon shifted dramatically for Daniel.

Luke explained: “He becomes a teacher in Asia until one day, he goes into this Mayan cave, where he is drawn to this rock.

“He decides he wants to take it home, but he is advised not to because of the bad spirits, etc, etc. However, after the warnings, he begins to take the rock home.

“And three months later, he is diagnosed with leukaemia. Now, he begins to document his journey with cancer.

“It is very emotional, it is very personal, it will definitely bring a tear to your eye. When he begins to remember about this rock, he cannot find it – and it becomes a documentary that is super entertaining, but emotional.

“Genuinely, when you get towards the end of this documentary, you will never, ever forget what happens. So make sure you go and head over to HBO Max – go and check out Daniel.”

How did viewers react to Daniel?

In the comments section, fellow TikTok users were eager to voice their opinions. One person said: “It’s absolutely brilliant but very haunting.” Another said: “Best documentary.”

A third commented: “Just watched it on Sky Docs, wow! One of the most powerful documentaries I’ve seen for a long time, good shout.” While a fourth said: “Daniel documentary absolutely broke me and [I] get goosebumps every time I think of that ending.”

Someone else shared: “This was such a bittersweet watch.” And another viewer added: “I can confirm, the ending gave me the shivers. Wow!”

Daniel is available to stream on HBO Max via NOW.

It’s been four years in the making, now a staggering ‘real life’ Lion King tells the story of how one cub makes it all the way to the top

When the makers of National Geographic’s Lion started out on their four-year mission to tell the story of a pride of lions in the Masai Mara, they did not think they get the real-life version of The Lion King.

But after 52 shoots over 1400 filming days in Kenya and 1,000 hours of footage, they ended up focusing on the journey undertaken by eight-week old male Kio – the first natural history series to follow a lion throughout their full journey from a tiny cub to a king.

The four-part series is the brainchild of The Lion King director Jon Favreau and BBC Studios executive producer Mike Gunton, and has a score by renowned composer Hans Zimmer. Series producer Jane Atkins said it had been a rollercoaster of emotion. “We poured so much love into the project, so I just hope that passion comes through with the way audiences receive it. We want to make films that transport people.”

Lions have a high infant mortality rate, with more than 50% not making it past their second year – and male lions are notoriously hard to follow because they are always wandering off. Jane initially thought the main story would be about a female matriarch but she soon knew that Kio, who was incredibly close to his experienced mother Summer, had potential to become the main star. “I knew it was risky, because of all the statistics, but I was backing that story quite early on. To not have a clue right at the beginning what our end story was going to be was terrifying. But we thought we must be bold, ambitious and able to shift if we don’t get the story that we want. We were playing a very kind of high-stakes gamble the whole time.”

Mike said that when he pitched the project to National Geographic all those years ago, he could only do so in the vaguest terms. “My pitch was not to tell the Lion King, it was to tell the story of a lion pride,” he explained. “None of us knew that it would end up being a male but relatively quickly this male started to stand out as a potential character. But you’d be foolish to just follow him. We were following some adult females, we were following many other lions but as time went on, he became more and more a key character.

“As time goes on, it gets increasingly risky, because you’ve invested more and more in that individual, both emotionally and in terms of footage. As you get closer and closer to the end – which is when you run out of time and money – every day, you think, please don’t die, please don’t die.”

Across the four episodes Kio not only loses important family members, he also loses his home. But over time he proves himself an equal among his older brothers, becoming strong enough to fight rival males and together he and the brotherhood take over a new pride of females, and finally take control of a new kingdom.

Jane said she has found the filming process pulled at the heartstrings in more ways than one. “We were so in love with the characters, by the end I felt really emotional, not just because I was so proud of the team, but also – this sounds strange – I was so proud of this little cub who had made it. He had become this incredible adult male, and it’s like seeing my 14-year-old son, over those years, kind of become a man.”

She said the male lions had to fight hard to succeed, which wasn’t always easy to watch. “You feel incredibly protective, so it is like having your own son, and having to sort of let go of them a little bit.” She could only relax after three and a half years of filming. “We lived and breathed every second of it,” she said. “Jon Favreau was so nervous, he’d say ‘every time you phone me, I feel like you’re about to say something terrible’. His first question was always, ‘is Kio alive?’

At one point, one of the big characters does die and director of photography Sophie Darlington had to overcome her grief to carry on filming. “The way she died was incredibly sad,” Jane said. “We had meetings straight away in the office, and people were crying and there was a lot of upset, and then we had to ask Sophie to go back out to film the aftermath of what happened on Kio and the boys.”

Mike told the Mirror that it was nerve-wracking to make a drama featuring a cast over which they had no control with one of the biggest challenges simply keeping tabs on them. “They’re not collared so we rely on the guides to find them. Every morning before dawn you’d go to where you saw them last, and hope they’re there. If they’re not you drive around and hope that you can find them.”

He said the only script was the one that “nature has written” and explained: “Our job is to just gather and pick the moments of relevant excitement.”

He said the skills of those on the ground were phenomenal. “You are spending 90% of the time with nothing, and then, bang, something will happen almost out of the blue. That’s why the skills of the trackers and the camera teams are extraordinary, they know it’s coming, they’ve got that sixth sense.”

One shocking storyline involves Kio’s mother. “Viewers are going to be shocked by Summer’s story,” Mike warns. “We knew what happened, and it was an interesting filmmaking challenge, how you tell that story without the actual imagery. But you also have to be quite careful politically about how you frame that story.”

Mike found that while it was extremely challenging – it was also incredibly rewarding. “It’s been one of the most joyful things I’ve ever worked on. I say that because it all worked ou,” he laughed. “Imagine if after three and a half years they all died – I would probably be having a very different conversation.”

Mike, who works on many of the David Attenborough series for the BBC, added: “I know epic gets overused, but it does feel, genuinely, like an epic story. I think it’s a real privilege to do something that is this epic.”

In order to know precisely what they were filming, the team gave each lion its own identification card and quickly becoming expert at identifying up to 50 lions from different prides by name and family relationships.

The four episodes will be voiced by actor OJ Lynch – because Favreau wanted the series to use a “storyteller’s voice,” as if the audience was sitting around a campfire with an elder. Lynch previously played Mufasa in the West End version of The Lion King – and also used to work at BBC Studios’ Natural History Unit. “I knew him when he was a postboy about 40 years ago,” Mike says. “I just thought his voice was fantastic. I wanted a voice that wasn’t a famous voice but could be anybody from that part of the world, and Jon felt the same. We felt this was a story that could have been told at any time – 10 years ago, 100 years ago, a thousand years ago. It’s a story of all time.”

– Lion airs on National Geographic as a double bill from Thursday 20 August at 8pm and 9pm, and also streams on Disney +