# Can't Get You Out of My Head (TV series)
**Can't Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World** is a six-part documentary television series written and narrated by the British filmmaker [Adam Curtis](https://www.edgepedia.org/adam-curtis), released on [BBC iPlayer](https://www.edgepedia.org/bbc-iplayer) in February 2021. Across roughly eight hours, Curtis traces how political, economic, and emotional forces from the mid-20th century onward produced what he sees as the present condition of populism, conspiracy thinking, and political paralysis.[1](https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10209034/1/Citational%20Media.pdf) • [2](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/adam-curtis-cant-get-your-out-head-art-lost-way) • [3](https://time.com/5941744/adam-curtis-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full title | Can't Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World[2](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/adam-curtis-cant-get-your-out-head-art-lost-way) |
| Format | Six episodes, about eight hours in total, released together on BBC iPlayer on 11 February 2021[3](https://time.com/5941744/adam-curtis-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/) • [4](https://www.tvmaze.com/shows/53146/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/episodeguide) |
| Creator | Adam Curtis, who also narrates; produced for the BBC[5](https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-an-emotional-history-of-the-modern-world) |
| Origins | Curtis began work in 2016, disheartened by Brexit and Donald Trump's election and frustrated at the inability to effect change[6](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/adam-curtis-documentary-can-t-get-you-out-of-my-head-tv-review-b919415.html) |
| Subject matter | Conspiracy theories, the history of China, opium and opioids, artificial intelligence, loss of empire, love and power[5](https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-an-emotional-history-of-the-modern-world) |
| Central argument | People let down by radical 20th-century projects turned to individualism; politicians became managers of stability until 9/11 and the 2008 financial crash; the internet allowed conspiracy theories to spread[6](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/adam-curtis-documentary-can-t-get-you-out-of-my-head-tv-review-b919415.html) |
| Reception | IMDb rating of 8.5; described by The Guardian's reviewer as a "dense, ambitious triumph"[5](https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-an-emotional-history-of-the-modern-world) • [7](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/feb/11/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-review-adam-curtis-bbc) |
## Spoilers
### Content and argument
The series sets out to explain how the West, together with China and Russia, moved from the mid-20th century to the polarized, technology-saturated present. Curtis looks back as far as the 1920s, arguing that "these strange days" did not happen of their own accord.[6](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/adam-curtis-documentary-can-t-get-you-out-of-my-head-tv-review-b919415.html) • [7](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/feb/11/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-review-adam-curtis-bbc)
**The central thesis.** In Curtis's account, the 20th century saw people let down by radical projects and turning to individualism instead. Politicians became managers aiming for global stability until the [September 11 attacks](https://www.edgepedia.org/september-11-attacks) and the 2008 financial crash shattered that stability. In the background, the internet became a new empire, allowing conspiracy theories, which have existed for centuries, to spread rapidly.[6](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/adam-curtis-documentary-can-t-get-you-out-of-my-head-tv-review-b919415.html) The series also asks whether modern culture, despite its radicalism, is really just part of a new system of power.[5](https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-an-emotional-history-of-the-modern-world)
**Stories and characters.** Rather than a single narrative, Curtis tells the story through seemingly unconnected characters, including [Tony Blair](https://www.edgepedia.org/tony-blair), Jiang Qing (the wife of [Mao Zedong](https://www.edgepedia.org/mao-zedong)), and [Julia Grant](https://www.edgepedia.org/julia-grant), the first person to have her gender transition discussed on television.[6](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/adam-curtis-documentary-can-t-get-you-out-of-my-head-tv-review-b919415.html) One thread charts the history of Valium and its promoter Arthur Sackler, who insisted the drug was not addictive; by 1971 it had become the most widely prescribed medication in the Western world.[1](https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10209034/1/Citational%20Media.pdf) The first episode opens with a quotation from the anthropologist and activist David Graeber: "The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make and could just as easily make differently."[6](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/adam-curtis-documentary-can-t-get-you-out-of-my-head-tv-review-b919415.html)
### Episodes
The six parts were released simultaneously rather than weekly:[4](https://www.tvmaze.com/shows/53146/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/episodeguide) • [8](https://www.sky.com/watch/series/2eda2063-26e7-4d22-9d78-f4900618eeca/season-1)
1. **Part One: Bloodshed on Wolf Mountain** (74 minutes), first available 11 February 2021. It tells how those in power set out in the 1970s to create a world free of the dangerous big ideas of the past, producing a block that stops people imagining anything else.[4](https://www.tvmaze.com/shows/53146/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/episodeguide)
2. **Part Two: Shooting and F... are the Same Thing**, about dreams of revolution haunted by the ghosts of old power.[8](https://www.sky.com/watch/series/2eda2063-26e7-4d22-9d78-f4900618eeca/season-1)
3. **Part Three: Money Changes Everything**, on how money replaced grand dreams of the future and then took on a life of its own.[8](https://www.sky.com/watch/series/2eda2063-26e7-4d22-9d78-f4900618eeca/season-1)
4. **Part Four: But What If the People Are Stupid?**[5](https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-an-emotional-history-of-the-modern-world)
5. **Part Five: The Lordly Ones**[5](https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-an-emotional-history-of-the-modern-world)
6. **Part Six: Are We Pigeon? Or Are We Dancer?**[5](https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-an-emotional-history-of-the-modern-world)
## Style
The series uses Curtis's established method: carefully curated archive footage, a hypnotic soundtrack, and his own voiceover making grand statements about the significance of each moment. The narrative stops every few minutes to probe an idea, a movement, or a figure who sits below the radar of mainstream history, before returning to the main argument.[6](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/adam-curtis-documentary-can-t-get-you-out-of-my-head-tv-review-b919415.html) • [7](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/feb/11/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-review-adam-curtis-bbc) Compared with his earlier work, the series has a wider sonic palette that brings in more hip-hop and post-punk, and, in one critic's view, deeper emotional sympathy with its larger cast of characters.[9](https://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/on-adam-curtis-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/)
During the 1990s, Curtis honed this metaphoric way of using archive footage on the Bafta-winning Pandora's Box (1992), which examined the self-deceptions of modern technocracies, and on The Mayfair Set (1999), which profiled four entrepreneurs in Britain after the war, as well as on The Living Dead (1995), a study of how power manipulates historical memory.[2](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/adam-curtis-cant-get-your-out-head-art-lost-way)
## Production background
Curtis began the project for two reasons that he says came together. The first was aesthetic: where his previous film [HyperNormalisation](https://www.edgepedia.org/hypernormalisation) (2016) was built around a single overarching idea, he wanted to make a film about people, closer to a dramatic work, "like the great multipart novels that go back to the 19th century," with a fractured style mirroring a fractured world. The second was the reaction of self-described progressive and radical people to Brexit and Trump, whom he saw as unmoored from the real world, doom-mongering rather than engaging with political grievances or offering alternatives.[10](https://www.wired.com/story/adam-curtis-bbc-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/)
The Guardian's review placed the series as a longer, deeper dive into the concerns of HyperNormalisation.[7](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/feb/11/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-review-adam-curtis-bbc)
## Reception and availability
Reviewers responded strongly to the series's scale and style. The Guardian called it "a dazzling, overwhelming experience" and a "dense, ambitious triumph," while noting that readers may or may not be convinced by its working hypothesis.[7](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/feb/11/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-review-adam-curtis-bbc) The London Standard described it as a mesmerizing six-parter in which Curtis expounds a Big Theory.[6](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/adam-curtis-documentary-can-t-get-you-out-of-my-head-tv-review-b919415.html) On IMDb it holds a rating of 8.5.[5](https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-an-emotional-history-of-the-modern-world)
The series streams on BBC iPlayer in the United Kingdom and has also been available through Sky's platform; it is geo-restricted outside the UK, and copies circulated on YouTube and elsewhere after release.[5](https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-an-emotional-history-of-the-modern-world) • [8](https://www.sky.com/watch/series/2eda2063-26e7-4d22-9d78-f4900618eeca/season-1) • [11](https://www.vogue.com/article/adam-curtis-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-interview) The title is unrelated to [Kylie Minogue](https://www.edgepedia.org/kylie-minogue)'s 2001 song of the same name.[6](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/adam-curtis-documentary-can-t-get-you-out-of-my-head-tv-review-b919415.html)
## References
1. [Citational Media (UCL Discovery thesis discussing Can't Get You Out of My Head)](https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10209034/1/Citational%20Media.pdf)
2. [Nick Bradshaw, "Culture is a smokescreen: Adam Curtis on why art has lost its way," Sight and Sound, BFI, 28 March 2021](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/adam-curtis-cant-get-your-out-head-art-lost-way)
3. [A Conversation with Filmmaker Adam Curtis, TIME, February 2021](https://time.com/5941744/adam-curtis-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/)
4. [Can't Get You Out of My Head episode guide, TVmaze](https://www.tvmaze.com/shows/53146/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/episodeguide)
5. [Can't Get You Out of My Head streaming page, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-an-emotional-history-of-the-modern-world)
6. [Susannah Butter, Can't Get You Out Of My Head TV review, The London Standard, 11 February 2021](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/adam-curtis-documentary-can-t-get-you-out-of-my-head-tv-review-b919415.html)
7. [Lucy Mangan, Can't Get You Out of My Head review, The Guardian, 11 February 2021](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/feb/11/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-review-adam-curtis-bbc)
8. [Can't Get You Out of My Head episode listing, Sky](https://www.sky.com/watch/series/2eda2063-26e7-4d22-9d78-f4900618eeca/season-1)
9. [On Adam Curtis: Can't Get You Out of My Head, The White Review](https://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/on-adam-curtis-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/)
10. [Will Bedingfield, Adam Curtis knows why we all keep falling for conspiracy theories, WIRED, 13 February 2021](https://www.wired.com/story/adam-curtis-bbc-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/)
11. [Legendary Documentarian Adam Curtis on His Extraordinary New Series, Vogue](https://www.vogue.com/article/adam-curtis-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-interview)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Documentary, docudrama, and lifestyle series › History and war documentary series*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 20, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 20, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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