Voted by TV executives in Broadcast magazine as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time, it has produced more than six hundred episodes directed by, among others, Frederick Baker, Jana Boková, Jonathan Demme, Nigel Finch, Mary Harron, Vikram Jayanti, Vivian Kubrick, Paul Lee, Adam Low, Bernard MacMahon, James Marsh, Leslie Megahey, Volker Schlondorff, Martin Scorsese, Julien Temple, Anthony Wall, Leslie Woodhead, and Alan Yentob.
Hits from 1979 included Who Is Poly Styrene?,[2] La Dame Aux Gladiolas,[3] a portrait of Edna Everage, and most notably the groundbreaking My Way,[4] an examination of the appeal of the song, by Finch and Wall.
It was the first of their collaborations, which developed a new kind of arts film, taking an unlikely subject and building a poetic meditation on its various aspects - further examples include The Chelsea Hotel (1981),[5] The Private Life of the Ford Cortina (1982),[6] Desert Island Discs (1982).
Since then Arena has won numerous awards with regular screenings at the BFI Southbank and has continued to cover the arts and culture at the highest level, with films on Bob Dylan, Harold Pinter, The National Theatre and Spitting Image, to name but a few.
[30] Now and Then - Anthony Green My Way Making The Shining The Comic Strip Hero Chelsea Hotel Brixton to Barbados The Orson Welles Story L. Megahey Burroughs Borges and I Old Kent Road Saint Genet C. Chabot C. L. R. James' First Cricket XI The Confessions of Robert Crumb Evelyn Waugh Trilogy Stop Making Sense Kapuściński The Other Graham Greene Slim Gaillard's Civilisation (Episode 1) - "A Traveller's Tale"[31] Slim Gaillard's Civilisation (Episode 2) - "How High The Moon"[32] Slim Gaillard's Civilisation (Episode 3) - "My Dinner With Dizzy"[33] Slim Gaillard's Civilisation (Episode 4) - "Everything's OK in the UK"[34] Paris is Burning Nigel Finch Miller Meets Mandela Nigel Finch Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon The Human Face[35] Michael Coulson Edward Said T. May The Last Soviet Citizen Kalashnikov[36] Marvin Gaye Punk and the Pistols Stonewall Stories My Country Told Me: The Meaning of Nationhood - Eric Hobsbawn and Slovakian Nationalism[37] Stories My Country Told Me: The Meaning of Nationhood - Desmond Tutu and the Rainbow Nation[37] Stories My Country Told Me: The Meaning of Nationhood - Eqbal Ahmad on the Grand Trunk Road[37] The Burger & the King: The Life & Cuisine of Elvis Presley I Shot Andy Warhol The Football Men Cuba Night J. Shinner Salman Rushdie Looking for the Iron Curtain Wisconsin Death Trip Clint Eastwood B. Ricker Salgado: Spectre of Hope Kurosawa Harold Pinter Season at the BBC Nigel Williams Martin Rosenbaum Imagine Imagine Dylan Thomas: Grave to Cradle Pavarotti: The Last Tenor Shadowing the Third Man Painting the Clouds: A Portrait of Dennis Potter Nigel Williams Calling Hedy Lamarr Bacon's Arena No Direction Home: Bob Dylan The Princess and Panorama Pete Doherty Underground Bob Marley's Exodus '77 Encountering Bergman Bergman and the Cinema V.S.
Naipaul: The Strange Luck Of... Phil Spector T. S. Eliot Brian Eno: Another Green World Harold: A Celebration Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way Produced by George Martin George Harrison: Living in the Material World Dickens On Film Sonny Rollins: This is Who I Am The Dreams of William Golding Jonathan Miller Amy Winehouse: The Day She Came to Dingle The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour Revisited Screen Goddesses Sister Wendy and the Art of the Gospels AKA Norman Parkinson The National Theatre Whatever Happened to Spitting Image?