
Tiger: Spy in the Jungle
Four tiger cubs grow up in the forests of central India, filmed by cameras mounted on the backs of elephants, animals the tigers have learned to ignore as part of the jungle furniture. The disguise gives the crew two years of access most tiger films never get: cubs tumbling out of the den, a mother carrying a straying cub back to safety in her jaws, and the slow lessons in stalking and ambush that turn playful pouncing into hunting. David Attenborough narrates, tracking the litter's survival odds as siblings scatter, injuries happen, and only some cubs make it to independence. The elephant-cam solves a real problem in tiger filmmaking, since the animals are solitary, mostly nocturnal, and camera-shy on foot, and the footage here gets close enough to see individual whisker markings and hear the cubs' contact calls to their mother. The film stays with one family rather than surveying the species, so the stakes are personal: whether these four cubs, born into shrinking habitat, live long enough to breed.