Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
Direction
Apted's patient, unflinching gaze over decades.
Writing
Lives revealed through silence and what goes unsaid.
Director
Michael Apted
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The series began as a one-off Granada Television special in 1964, testing the Jesuit motto 'Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.' Nobody expected Apted to still be filming 56 years later.
Apted later admitted his upper-class bias—he chose more posh kids, gave them softer questions, and watched them thrive while working-class subjects struggled. The series accidentally became a damning portrait of British inequality.
US
GB
