Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown (2026)

SERIES

20261 Season44m episodes8.7

Documentary

TMDB8.7

Votes5

Your rating

Runtime: 44m episodes
Genre: Documentary
Certificate: TV-14
Origin: GB

About

Featuring revealing interviews with survivors speaking publicly for the first time, alongside rare insight into the CIA and Soviet responses, this series exposes a web of secrecy, miscalculation, and human cost. Astonishing new footage from inside the nuclear exclusion zone reveals how this scarred landscape is once again under siege as war encroaches on one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

Where to watch

Region

Not available to stream in United States yet.

Details

Status: Ended
First aired: Apr 19, 2026
Network: National Geographic
Studio: CNN Original Series, Windfall Films

Time to finish

3 hrs

4 episodes. About 1 week at an hour a night.

View on IMDb ↗

Cast

Adam Higginbotham

Self

Galia Ackerman

Self

Wyatt Andrews

Self

Olena Mokhnyk

Self

Karena Kalmbach

Self

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SERIES

20261 Season44m episodes8.7

Documentary

TMDB8.7

Votes5

Your rating

Runtime: 44m episodes
Genre: Documentary
Certificate: TV-14
Origin: GB

About

Where to watch

Region

Not available to stream in United States yet.

Episodes

0 of 0 watched

E1 · Airs Apr 19, 2026 · 43m · ★ 8.0
Inferno
Survivors recount the terrifying first 24-hours of the worst nuclear accident in history. After a reactor explodes during a safety test at a power plant in Ukraine, firefighters rush to the scene, unaware of the lethal levels of radiation. Soviet authorities try to cover up the disaster as a cloud of radiation begins to circle the world.
E2 · Airs Apr 19, 2026 · 44m · ★ 8.0
Cover-Up
Two days after the explosion, the world wakes up to a terrifying global disaster. At the power plant, helicopter pilots try to put out a fire in the reactor core, braving plumes of highly radioactive smoke. Soviet authorities eventually begin to evacuate 50,000 people from the local area, while still trying to conceal the scale of the accident.
E3 · Airs Apr 20, 2026 · 44m · ★ 8.5
Sacrifice
Workers begin to clean-up the deadly radioactive fallout from the explosion. After troops establish an exclusion zone, Gorbachev orders the construction of a vast concrete sarcophagus to cover the destroyed nuclear reactor. In Vienna the world finally hears the Soviet explanation of what went wrong - but are they telling the truth?
E4 · Airs Apr 20, 2026 · 44m · ★ 8.0
Truth
14 months after the disaster, plant operators face a Soviet show trial. At the reactor, scientists hunt for the deadly remains of the radioactive fuel. As the USSR crumbles, an independent investigation reveals the true cause of the accident, and the full scale of the cover up. 40 years later, the nuclear exclusion zone turns into a war zone.

Details

Status: Ended
First aired: Apr 19, 2026
Network: National Geographic
Studio: CNN Original Series, Windfall Films

Time to finish

3 hrs

4 episodes. About 1 week at an hour a night.

View on IMDb ↗

Cast

Adam Higginbotham

Self

Galia Ackerman

Self

Wyatt Andrews

Self

Olena Mokhnyk

Self

Karena Kalmbach

Self

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20226.4

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