BBC Knowledge (BBC4)

A profile of one of Britain’s favourite stars, Dudley Moore, whose glittering career as an actor and comic has been tragically curtailed by terminal illness. This film follows Moore as he looks back on a life of success and struggles to come to terms with his own mortality

Documentary tracing the evolution of the cannabis debate over the last fifty years. Using archive footage, the film examines the changing reaction of the media to cannabis, from the hysterical vilification of the drug in the 1930s, to the punitive measures of the stop-and-search laws and prison sentences for possession, to the more considered debates now taking place - and the real possibility of a change in the law

Documentary exploring the story of coolies – Britain’s indentured Indian servants who continued to work in slave conditions well after the official abolition of the trade in the British Empire. Implicating figures at the very highest level of the establishment, the film reveals how the practice has shaped modern world demographics by leaving communities of Indians across four continents.

Documentary charting the rise and fall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, a man who went to extraordinary lengths to construct his cult of personality and produced an endless stream of showy propaganda in an attempt to cover up Romania’s plummeting economy and standards of living

Documentary about American racing driver and car designer Carroll Shelby. In 1959 at Le Mans, little known Shelby won the most prestigious event in motor racing at his first attempt and was acclaimed as one of the best drivers in the world. But Shelby had a secret that was to prevent him ever driving again. The film tells the comeback story of a man driven by the desire to beat the world on the race track and specifically to beat the might of motor racing, Ferrari. From his base in California with only a team of hot rodders for support, in three years Shelby put together a car that would take on the world and win. The Shelby Cobra, as it was known, is still an automotive icon today. Featuring a great 60s soundtrack and using true-to-the-period split screen effects

In November 1980, Welsh boxer Johnny Owen lost his battle for life after lying in a coma for over 6 weeks. He had been knocked out by Mexican world champion Lupe Pintor. This programme follows Johnny’s father Richard on his journey to meet Pintor 22 years later, and Pintor’s visit to Merthyr Tydfil to unveil Owen’s statue

The story of the then world’s biggest industrial merger between Mercedes and Chrysler in May 1998

Recently disclosed Soviet and Cuban archive materials and accounts from some of the two countries’ major protagonists tell the story of the Caribbean Crisis as documented in Russian history