Anime Like NOVA
If you loved NOVA's Documentary storytelling, these anime deliver a similar experience — selected for art style, narrative depth, and emotional impact. Each includes where to stream it now.
★ Top Picks

Natural World
Natural World is a nature documentary television series broadcast annually on BBC Two and regarded by the BBC as its flagship natural history brand. It is currently the longest-running series in its genre on British television, with more than 400 episodes broadcast since its inception in 1983. Natural World is produced by the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol, but individual programmes can be in-house productions, collaborative productions with other broadcasters or films made and distributed by independent production companies and purchased by the BBC. Natural World programmes are often broadcast as PBS Nature episodes in the USA. Since 2008, most Natural World programmes have been shot and broadcast in high definition.

Planet Earth
David Attenborough celebrates the amazing variety of the natural world in this epic documentary series, filmed over four years across 64 different countries.

Nature
Consistently stunning documentaries transport viewers to far-flung locations ranging from the torrid African plains to the chilly splendours of icy Antarctica. The show's primary focus is on animals and ecosystems around the world. A comic book based on the show, meant to be used an as educational tool for kids, was briefly distributed to museums and schools at no cost in the mid-2000s.

Night on Earth
This nature series’ new technology lifts night’s veil to reveal the hidden lives of the world’s creatures, from lions on the hunt to bats on the wing.

Our Planet
Experience our planet's natural beauty and examine how climate change impacts all living creatures in this ambitious documentary of spectacular scope.

Animal
This immersive series follows the world's most magnificent creatures, capturing never-before-seen moments from the heartwarming to the outrageous.

Planet Earth II
David Attenborough presents a documentary series exploring how animals meet the challenges of surviving in the most iconic habitats on earth.

Great Migrations
Shot from land and air, in trees and cliff-blinds, on ice floes and underwater, this documentary tells the powerful stories of many of the planet's species and their movements, while revealing new scientific insights with breathtaking high-definition clarity and emotional impact. The beauty of these stories is underscored by a new focus into these species; fragile existence and their life-and-death quest for survival in an ever-changing world.
More Anime Like NOVA

Our Living World
This stunning nature series narrated by Cate Blanchett explores the intelligence, resourcefulness and interconnectedness of life on our planet.

Earth at Night in Colour
Filmed across six continents, this docuseries uses cutting-edge camera technology to capture animals' nocturnal lives, revealing new behaviours filmed in full color like never before.

Science of Stupid
This show combines cold hard science with some of the craziest, most spectacular and painful user generated clips ever recorded. Richard Hammond introduces all manner of mishaps featuring brave, if misguided individuals from around the world and then explains the science behind their failure and humiliation with the use of bespoke animations and super slo-mo cinematography. Every episode features between 50 and 60 clips of misadventure – ordinary folk making extraordinary mistakes. Each week watch stunts involving weightlifting, shooting guns or jumping over cars, that have gone wrong, paused, re-wound, and re-played and analysed to determine exactly what went wrong and why. Richard explains the physics, chemistry and biology at play, then presents forensic details to explain the stupidity that resulted in failure. He’ll look at everything including weight, volume, momentum, combustion and even how the brain operates. This is misadventure explained. This is the Science of Stupid.

A Perfect Planet
A unique fusion of blue chip natural history and earth science that explains how our living planet operates. This five-part series shows how the forces of nature drive, shape and support Earth’s great diversity of wildlife.

Welcome to Earth
Will Smith whose curiosity and wonder is positively infectious—is guided by National Geographic Explorers traveling to different corners of the world to get up close and personal with the weirdest, most unusual, dangerous and thrilling spectacles of the planet.

Through the Wormhole
Hosted by Morgan Freeman, Through the Wormhole explores the deepest mysteries of existence - the questions that have puzzled mankind for eternity. What are we made of? What was there before the beginning? Are we really alone? Is there a creator? These questions have been pondered by the most exquisite minds of the human race. Now, science has evolved to the point where hard facts and evidence may be able to provide us with answers instead of philosophical theories. Through the Wormhole brings together the brightest minds and best ideas from the very edges of science - Astrophysics, Astrobiology, Quantum Mechanics, String Theory, and more - to reveal the extraordinary truth of our Universe.

Planet Earth III
Journeying to the far reaches of our planet, this eight part series follows some of the world's most amazing species, telling extraordinary stories that are dramatic, thrilling, funny and sometimes heart-breaking, but always full of hope.

Horizon
Horizon tells amazing science stories, unravels mysteries and reveals worlds you've never seen before.

Life
David Attenborough looks at the extraordinary ends to which animals and plants go in order to survive. Featuring epic spectacles, amazing TV firsts and examples of new wildlife behaviour.

Biography
Biography is a documentary television series. It was originally a half-hour filmed series produced for CBS by David Wolper from 1961 to 1964 and hosted by Mike Wallace. The A&E Network later re-ran it and has produced new episodes since 1987. The older version featured historical figures such as Helen Keller and Mark Twain, or long-dead entertainment figures such as Will Rogers or John Barrymore. The A&E series has placed the emphasis on such people as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Plácido Domingo, Freddie Mercury, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Eric Clapton, Pope John Paul II, Gene Tierney, Selena, Diego Rivera, Mao Zedong and Queen Elizabeth II, and fictional characters like The Phantom, Superman, Hamlet, Betty Boop, and Santa Claus. The program ended up profiling enough figures that in 1999, A&E spun it off into an entire network, The Biography Channel.

Tiny World
This docuseries showcases nature's lesser-known tiny heroes. Spotlighting small creatures and the extraordinary things they do to survive, each episode is filled with surprising stories and spectacular cinematography.

Dynasties
Follow the true stories of five of the world's most celebrated, yet endangered animals; penguins, chimpanzees, lions, painted wolves and tigers. Each in a heroic struggle against rivals and against the forces of nature, these families fight for their own survival and for the future of their dynasties.
Why These Anime Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with NOVA (1974): Documentary themes, comparable animation style, and similar narrative pacing. NoBadPicks uses TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface anime most likely to resonate with fans of NOVA.
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