A Night at the Louvre: Leonardo da Vinci

Janina Ramirez explores the BBC archives to create a TV history of Leonardo Da Vinci, discovering what lies beneath the Mona Lisa and even how he acquired his anatomical knowledge.

Dive into a real-time investigation of the shocking daylight robbery at Paris' Louvre Museum. Former thieves, security staff, eyewitnesses and investigators piece together the crime and ongoing chase to recover France's crown jewels before it's too late.

London, England, 2008. Some of the most distinguished experts on the work of Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) gather at the National Gallery to examine a painting known as Salvator Mundi; an event that turns out to be the first act of one of the most fascinating stories in the history of art.

The world’s museums are closed. What are you missing?  Take a real-time walk through the Louvre towards the “greatest painting ever” and contemplate what it would be like to be there yourself.

Despite being closed to the public, on Tuesdays at the Louvre Museum in Paris, the day is busier than ever.

Master filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) transforms a portrait of the world-renowned museum into a magisterial, centuries-spanning reflection on the relation between art, culture and power.

In November 15, 2017, the painting Salvator Mundi, attributed to Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), was sold for an unprecedented $450 million. An examination of the dirty secrets of the art world and the surprising story of how a work of art is capable of upsetting both personal and geopolitical interests.

Director Agnès Varda and photographer/muralist JR journey through rural France and form an unlikely friendship.

Doubling as a cartography of the ever-changing city, Bill Cunningham New York portrays the secluded pioneer of street fashion with grace and heart.

People looking at the Mona Lisa in the Louvre – or are they just looking at themselves?

Lucy Jarvis -- the plucky camerawoman known for becoming the first Westerner to film inside communist China -- breaks barriers once again with this exclusive look at the world-famous Musée du Louvre, a place that previously barred access to all filmmakers. Charles Boyer is your host on this personalized tour of the museum's most prized possessions, including works by da Vinci, Michelangelo, Vermeer and Van Eyck.

An in-depth and in real time delve into the jewel heist that took place on 19 October 2025 and saw men disguised as construction workers break into the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon through a second floor window and shatter display cases, grabbing pieces of the French Crown Jewels, including tiaras, necklaces and other jewelry valued at over $100 million. The men then fled on motorbikes.

Leonardo da Vinci finds it difficult to pursue his own dreams while serving as the Duke's court artist, but young Roberto takes risks to convince the Master not to give up on his dreams. In this moving story of friendship, the Renaissance genius invents a flying machine and helps Roberto reach new heights.

On the occasion of the fourty years anniversary of François Mitterand's election, a look back to the relationship between the President and artists, from admiration to manipulation.

A portrait of the artist as a "sublime demon with the archangel's face", with an innovative musique concrète soundtrack.

Le Louvre, un musée pharaonique

Examines the history of the African kings from Kush who conquered Egypt and ruled over it for 1500 years through an exhibition at the Louvre.

"This installation or performance work puts my own earlier film of the Mona Lisa (1973) through another stage of transformation – my own irretrievable self of some 34 years ago is now also part of the subject I first saw the ‘actual’ ‘Mona Lisa’ when I was about thirteen. Of course I had seen dozens of reproductions in books and postcards by then and the popular mythology of the enigmatic smile was already well engrained in my mind. My strongest impression, as I recall, was how small and unsurprising it was – a heavily protected cultural icon – no longer really a picture – and I was much more excited by the painting of the distant landscape than by the face. My own ‘version’ of ‘la Giaconda’ was never an homage, nor like Marcel Duchamp’s ‘L.H.O.O.Q’, an attack on its cultural power. Instead it came from a fascination with change and transformation – maybe also with arbitrary appropriation." Malcolm Le Grice

This rare film tells the strange, disquieting and protracted story of the restoration of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous masterpiece, The Last Supper. Some say the results of the restoration are glorious. Others have called them tragic. Da Vinci’s famously fragile fresco was always going to be a challenge for its secretive Italian restorers. No one, however, could have foreseen how problematic and strange their task would become. Marked by a series of extraordinary mishaps, mistakes, and miscalculations, the incredible restoration is hilarious to watch but may have resulted in the loss of a masterpiece.

Chambord, the most impressive castle in the Loire Valley, in France, a truly Renaissance treasure, has always been an enigma to generations of historians. Why did King Francis I (1494-1547), who commissioned it, embark on this epic project in the heart of the marshlands in 1519? What significance did he want the castle to have? What role did his friend, Italian genius Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) play? Was he the architect or who was?