Movie Review - Ocean with David Attenborough

Director: Colin Butfield, Toby Nowlan, Keith Scholey
Genre: Documentary
Runtime: 95 minutes
Year: 2025
Starring: David Attenborough
 
Description: Attenborough explores the planet’s undersea habitats, revealing the greatest age of ocean discover and emphasizes the ocean’s vital importance while exposing its problems and highlighting opportunities for marine life recovery.
 
Review: Just before his 99^th birthday, Sir David Attenborough is releasing one of the most important films of his career. In the documentary “Ocean”, the world-famous documentary maker takes viewers on a journey to discover how the oceans play an important role in saving biodiversity.

With “Ocean” he wants to show that the ocean is humanity’s greatest ally in the fight against global warming. Which makes this a very important film. At almost 100 years being on this planet, Attenborough shows how the state of the oceans and our knowledge of how they function changed during his lifetime. Looking back on his dive in the Great Barrier Reef in 1957, which made him forget how to breath when he first saw it. Since then, life in the oceans has declined catastrophically.

The documentary discusses various causes that show who and how the damage to the oceans has been caused. For example, these are shocking images of a trawler, a commonly fishing method. Large, heavy chains scour the bottom of the ocean and damaging and killing everything that is drag along. A prefect example of how industrial fishing sucks the life our of the oceans.

According to Attenborough, the state of the ocean was so dramatic that he almost lost hope for the future of life on the planer. An important reason was the near extinction of whales. But when whaling was banned, whales came back. The ocean can recover faster than we ever thought possible.

Less then 3% of the ocean is protected and that should be a lot more. Because if we leave the ocean alone, it will restore, faster then you think. And we can have our beautiful oceans back.

“Ocean with David Attenborough” is a beautiful, yet heartbreaking documentary, brutally honest but also very hopeful. The people who will see this film, probably already know the problem and are trying to help. The people who really need to see it, also most likely don’t care. I believe this film should be showed in schools.

Rating: 4,5/ 5