Walking with Cavemen (2003)

This BBC series is a docudrama rather than a straight documentary: actors in heavy prosthetic makeup, not computer animation, play our ancestors in reconstructed scenes, from Lucy, the famous upright ape, to modern humans. Robert Winston presents the British version; the US version uses narration by Alec Baldwin instead. Seeing the early species played by people is exactly what sets off the best questions about where we came from. Be ready for a few unsettling moments: Lucy dies in a fight over territory, a troop leader's death is kept mostly off screen, and the earlier species appear unclothed. Much of the behavior shown is educated guesswork, which is worth pointing out to older kids.