Cold War (1998)

Jeremy Isaacs, who produced The World at War, came back for the sequel the century needed: 24 episodes running from the end of the Second World War to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He co-produced it with Pat Mitchell for CNN, Kenneth Branagh narrates, and each episode pairs archive footage with interviews from significant figures. Historians argued about it at the time, with Richard Pipes, Robert Conquest and John Lewis Gaddis debating its accuracy, which is worth knowing as you watch. No other series covers the whole conflict at this depth.