Real Stories

The channel features Oscar, Emmy and BAFTA winners, showcases world-class investigative journalism, contains captivating true-crime stories as well as medical miracles, ventures inside hidden worlds, meets some of the planet’s most idiosyncratic people, and takes viewers to countries ranging from Afghanistan to North Korea to Iraq.

On Real Stories you’ll find films presented by famous faces like Sir Trevor McDonald, Anita Rani, Reggie Yates and Stephen Fry and be able to watch documentaries about everyone from Michael Jackson to ‘Tiger King’ Joe Exotic, from Muhammad Ali to Michelle Obama.

Launched in 2015, Real Stories is one of Little Dot Studios’ flagship channels, with 5m subscribers and 1.2 billion total views on YouTube, publishing four full-length documentaries per week, made by some of the world’s best documentary producers and directors.

The channel’s Facebook page, which publishes cutdown versions of the full-length films, has more than 5 million followers and, with 220,000 devotees on TikTok, Real Stories is a growing presence across social media.

If you want stories from the street or tales of prison life, whether you’re fascinated by the fringes of society or can’t resist uncovering the truth behind a scandal, if you want to experience intimate and emotional journeys or engage in society’s biggest issues, whether you want to step inside a life of luxury or take a trip to the seedy underbelly, you’ll love Real Stories. 

Most of our content is sourced from the world’s leading production companies and distributors, including ITV Global Studios and All3Media. We also have a growing catalogue of Real Stories Indie Docs (documentaries made by independent producers) and Real Stories Originals, films we commissioned and co-produced especially for the channel in collaboration with talented directors across the world.

Among Real Stories Originals documentaries is 2019’s BAFTA-winning documentary, Missed Call, directed by Victoria Mapplebeck. Premiered as a YouTube-first production, Missed Call explores in-depth the confusion and complication in a young boy's life as he seeks to reconnect with his father after a decade apart. Shot on an iPhone X, it explores the many ways in which our lives are lived and captured through the phones we hold so close.

With the CBC we co-produced Take Me To Prom, which won a 2020 Canadian Screen Award, as well as Take Me To Roxham, a 2020 DOC NYC pick.

We have also launched three podcasts. The Real Stories Podcast featured interviews with the filmmakers behind our Real Stories Originals. The Doc Exchange, presented by June Jennings, interviewed A-list directors and producers about their own favourite documentaries and welcomed the people behind, among others, Crip Camp, Dick Johnson Is Dead, Amy and Man On Wire. And Real Stories Tapes: True-Crime, hosted by Stephanie Bauer, turned some of the channel’s most popular tales of murder and robbery into a podcast and has accumulated almost 100,000 listens.

One of the newest launches from the Real Stories team is the YouTube channel Real Stories Shorts, which provides snippets of content for those who are interested in the weird and wonderful stories of people in our world, but may have less time to sit down and digest an entire episode. 

Head over to both Real Stories and Real Stories Short to subscribe and make sure you don’t miss out! 

Real Stories is part of the Little Dot Studios Network. To get in touch please email owned-enquiries@littledotstudios.com.