The Hunt (2015) devotes seven hour-long episodes to predators and their prey, not as gore but as high-stakes strategy. Cameras follow polar bears stalking seals along breathing holes, Harris hawks cooperating to flush rabbits from desert scrub, and cheetahs gambling on a sprint that will exhaust them if it fails. Silverback Films and the BBC Natural History Unit spent three years filming across 50 countries, shooting 2,000 hours for every broadcast minute; the result is footage no previous series had captured, including a leopard dragging a kill up a tree while the tree itself is filmed from above.
David Attenborough’s narration underlines the mathematics: most hunts fail, and predators spend more time hungry than fed. The score by Steven Price amplifies tension without melodrama, pulsing under shots of orcas beaching themselves to snatch sea-lions, then letting silence take over when the hunt collapses. Executive producer Alastair Fothergill, fresh from Planet Earth, keeps the structure tight: each episode centres on a biome, from Arctic tundra to tropical forest, and ends with a reversal that awards victory to the prey.
Broadcast weekly on BBC One between 1 November and 13 December 2015, the series drew 5.7 million viewers for its Arctic episode and won BAFTAs for cinematography and sound. International roll-outs followed on BBC Earth, with regional narrators including Katsumi Chō in Japan and Nine Network airing in Australia from February 2016. A 150-minute soundtrack album appeared on Sony Classical, and the BBC released 4K Ultra-HD discs, capitalising on footage originally mastered in 8K for cinema.
Production Details
BBC One / 1 Season / 7 Episodes / 2015
Showrunner(s): Alastair Fothergill
Producer(s): Huw Cordey, Johnathan Hughes
Music: Steven Price
Main Cast
David Attenborough as Self - Narrator (voice)
