An exploration of the phenomenal popularity of L Frank Baum's famous children's story 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz', written in 1900. About 20 film versions of the story have been made (including a 1925 one with Oliver Hardy), and the programme features clips from a selection of these, including the first TV showing of Baum's own 1908 film, plus missing footage from the Judy Garland movie. Distinguished devotees to Baum's magical land include writers Gore Vidal, Ray Bradbury, and Salman Rushdie, and filmmaker Nora Ephron.

In the 1980s Vladimir Pozner, once dubbed "Ivan the Telegenic", became the second-most celebrated communist in the west. Carrying Gorbachev's message to western television screens, he intrigued and troubled millions of viewers. But who is he, this unrepentant propagandist and ex-Soviet correspondent, who is now a talk-show host in America? Arena follows him over a dramatic year and explores the contradictions in his extraordinary life.

The new stars of ragga and gangster rap - Shabba Ranks, Ice Cube, Public Enemy, Buju Banton - have become as notorious as they are successful. They command huge audiences and record sales, but they have been accused of hating women, inciting violence against gays, and encouraging the use of guns. Award-winning film maker Isaac Julien is gay and black, and he confronts them. With contributions from Michael Manley and Cornel West.

For centuries, bare-knuckle boxing has been going on behind closed doors. Nigel Finch's unusual film investigates this illegal activity by following one hopeful as he prepares for a fight against the "Cyclone", the Northern Ireland bare-knuckle boxing champion (unlicensed).

During the 1970s and 1980s Derek Jarman kept a Super-8 film diary, chronicling the cultural high life and low life of London. The footage ranges from William Burroughs reading aloud at the nightclub Heaven, to candid behind-the-scenes footage of his most controversial feature films including 'Jubilee' and 'Sebastiane'. The original music is written by his long term collaborator Brian Eno. 'Glitterbug', his last film, was shown as a tribute to Jarman who died on 19 February 1994.

In 1960 an American film called 'Primary' changed the notion of what a documentary could be, using techniques never before seen on TV. It was made by Robert Drew, whose role in the movement that has become known as cinéma vérité has gone largely unrecognised. Tonight's programme tells his story.

Seventy million Kalashnikov (or AK-47) guns are scattered across the world. It was the Russians' Cold War weapon, and is still the first choice of terrorists, guerrillas and mercenaries. Through the story of Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, Arena asks whether the AK-47 is a cultural icon or just a killing machine.

On 1 April 1984, former Motown star Marvin Gaye provoked his father once too often and was shot dead in his bedroom. It was the tragic finale to an extraordinary series of events in the life of one of the major talents of pop music in the 70s. From being down and out in London in 1980 he had been restored to tentative health, far away from drug dealers, in the Belgian port of Ostend. Video footage of this calm period forms the basis of this bleak documentary - bleak, because all along we know that his final hit 'Sexual Healing' will draw him back to America and death.

The idea that power exists in the remains of heroes and the things they leave behind is the focus of an Arena trilogy, introduced by this programme. Religious devotion is not the only source of modern-day relics. Pop stars and politicians achieve cult status, with fans paying huge sums for their memorabilia. Tonight's programme attempts to establish the notion of what a relic is.

"Move Albert Einstein," declares Japanese professor Kenji Sugimoto at the start of a bizarre journey in search of the great one's missing brain. Sugimoto would not look out of place in a Pink Panther film as he grunts and mutters his way across America on his curious mission. Einstein's brain was apparently removed for medical study after his death, but the owner failed to carry out the research and was subsequently sacked. The brain went with him. Sugimoto, whose deep regret is that he never met the scientist, has long dreamed of the next best thing - making contact with his grey cells. The result is a farcical series of encounters with a curious cast of experts, policemen and relatives.

A film drama set against civil war in Peru. When Ortiz, a professional grave robber, stumbles across the huge golden disc of the ancient sun god Atahualpa lost for years, he sets off for Lima where he hopes to sell it for a high price. Chained to the shield, he looks like a giant firebeetle as he crosses the dramatic mountains in Peru pursued by characters with a special interest in the shield. Spurred on by greed, Ortiz's fate becomes inextricably linked to that of the sun god.

In 1978 Charlie Chaplin's coffin was stolen from his grave in Vevey, Switzerland, and a large ransom was demanded of his widow Oona. This fictional film inspired by those events follows the east European characters responsible.

The author of the stories behind 'Blade Runner' and 'Total Recall' grew up in California at a time when an agricultural idyll was fast being replaced by motorways, shopping stores and junk culture. Philip K Dick drew inspiration for his 42 science-fiction novels and countless short stories from the neighbourhood growing up around him and the advertisements on television. This documentary goes on an imaginative tour from the Colorado grave where Dick is buried to the suburbs of California where he lived and worked. Features interviews with his ex-wives, friends and biographers.

Nelson Mandela and his fellow ex-prisoners recall their incarceration on South Africa's Robben Island. For three decades, the island housed not only political prisoners but convicts, lepers and the mentally ill. Yet amidst the hopelessness, Nelson Mandela and his comrades devised strategies and subterfuges with which they transformed life on the island, while the vision of a new South Africa began to take shape.

Using herself as the model, American artist Cindy Sherman has produced hundreds of photographs exploring the use of female stereotypes. Most recently she has addressed the theme of sexuality and Aids. Renowned for her secrecy - this is the first documentary on her work - Sherman talks about her influences and reveals her working methods through her video diaries.

Brazil's major slave-trading port for nearly three centuries, Bahia has a black population of over 80 per cent, which maintains the legacy of African tradition at every level of daily life. Jana Bokova's vivid film portrait captures the spirit of the Bahian people, their music, their culture, and most of all their religion - Candomblé - a fusion of Catholic and African religious beliefs. The film culminates in the annual celebration of carnival.

Sandra Bernhard's outrageous one-woman show deals with many normally taboo subjects, and controversy runs through her personal life: she was once Madonna's lover and is a lesbian pin-up, but she also posed for 'Playboy'. In this country, however, she is perhaps best known as the bisexual Nancy in the Channel 4 comedy 'Roseanne'. Bringing together archive clips, footage of her sell-out New York show and interviews, this sometimes explicit film explores how Bernhard has become a cult icon of female sexual power.

This Arena special profiles sculptor Louise Bourgeois, who has suddenly become fashionable at the age of 84, and has been chosen to represent America at the Venice Biennale, the world's most prestigious art exhibition.