Who directed the 1992 BBC documentary series Pandora’s Box?

Adam Curtis directed the 1992 BBC documentary series Pandora’s Box.

Pandora’s Box is a six-part documentary series examining the political and intellectual history of attempts to use scientific and technological ideas to manage society. Curtis made the series for the BBC, combining interviews, archival footage, and historical narration.

The programmes cover subjects including cybernetics, nuclear strategy, economic planning, and political ideology. Rather than presenting technology as a neutral collection of inventions, the series investigates how experts and governments used claims about scientific control in social and political decision-making.

The title invokes the older Pandora myth: opening the container releases forces that cannot easily be controlled. Curtis used that image as a metaphor for ambitious systems of planning and expertise. This television series is separate from the 1929 German-Austrian silent film Pandora’s Box and from later fictional works using the same title.