Documentary Review: Ocean with David Attenborough

David Attenborough’s new documentary, Ocean, might have left me in a deep pit of misery and despair were it not for Attenborough’s famously reassuring and soothing effect. Ocean with David Attenborough (2025) represents perhaps the beloved documentarian’s most strongly put and searing environmentalist statement to date. 

The documentary, directed by Toby Nowlan, Keitch Scholey, and Colin Butfield pulls no punches. It makes it very clear to the audience just how bad our present situation really is, how much damage we’ve inflicted on our own planet. Attenborough is making a desperate plea to his audience in this film: he understands all too well the threat we currently pose to our planet, and he urgently wants us to understand too. It’s a powerful thing, to have such a high-profile and esteemed documentary film maker putting out such a striking and dramatic statement in support of environmentalism. 

The documentary begins by showcasing the beauty of the oceans. This is standard fare for an Attenborough documentary, and, as is to be expected, works very well. He shows off some beautiful imagery, footage of coral reefs, marine life, beaches, oceans floors, everything you could ask for in an ocean-based Attenborough documentary. The filmmaking here is incredible - Attenborough and his crew present a visual marvel in their depiction of the marine world. The colour, the variety of plants and animals, the camera work, the sheer vastness of the ocean, the experience of watching this film is like being transported to a different world. Coupled with Attenborough’s delightful enthusiasm, by this stage of the documentary the audience is fully enchanted by the natural beauty of the ocean. 

After such a beginning, when Attenborough moves onto the next section of this documentary, which depicts the devastation we are currently inflicting upon our oceans, the effect is all the more striking. It focuses on the overfishing of our seas, particularly on the practice of trawling, which has a catastrophic effect on our oceans. The coastal seas, a frequent target for overfishing, have been completely stripped of all life, transformed into desolate wastelands where no life can exist. Fishing companies, their hunger for new profits never sated, are now fishing in the Antarctic seas after stripping the coastal seas, and threaten all life in the South Pole as a result of their overfishing there. We see for ourselves the damage caused by trawlers, massive nets attached to boats which scrape across oceans floors, ripping up and destroying everything in their paths, like giant walls of death. The impact of these trawlers feels truly apocalyptic. 

In one horrifying scene, we watch as a giant net rampages across the ocean floor, sparing no life in its path, which, backed by the film’s music and the way this scene is shot, feels like something ripped straight out of a horror film. This is especially effective after seeing the first part of this film, which illustrates how beautiful and incredible the ocean is because we see it completely destroyed. It is much like watching someone paint a beautiful work of art only for them to rip it to shreds in front of you immediately after. 

Attenborough conveys a very real sense of urgency in this documentary, leaving no doubt that left unreined these fishing companies will destroy our oceans. All this information is very effective, but it also leaves us with a very heavy sense of dread, a feeling of utter hopelessness in the face of total ecological destruction. I often find myself feeling extremely pessimistic about climate change. Private corporations act only out of a desire for profit, and so can only be reined in by direct intervention from political leaders, but there is so little motivation amongst our political leaders to stand up and do something about climate change. Until the final section, this documentary seemed to share in that pessimism, but by the end Attenborough had done what for a brief moment seemed impossible: he motivated the audience. 

It’s a testament to the filmmakers therefore that, despite all this, they manage to pull us back and end the film on an optimistic note. He uses the example of preservation zones, areas where industrial fishing is illegal. He points out how in these areas, which had previously been completely devastated by overfishing, wildlife has already begun to take hold again. The ocean has a remarkable ability to bounce back from even the worst excesses of overfishing, which gives us cause for hope. 

Attenborough uses a fantastic analogy: in the twentieth century, it seemed inevitable that blue whales would be driven to total extinction by industrial whaling, and there seemed to be no will amongst politicians to face up to this threat. But, thanks to the efforts of activists, anti-whaling laws were passed, and the whales were saved. Overfishing can surely be defeated in the same way. Attenborough’s insistence on optimism is important here because pessimism can only lead to apathy and complacency; it’s only through optimism and persistence that we can face up to this problem. 

Attenborough’s love for the natural world and for its animal inhabitants constantly shines through. This ultimately makes his fear for the planet’s future all the more heartbreaking. Yet it also provides boundless optimism, despite how miserable this documentary can get at times, and reminds us that we all have a duty to look after this planet. The result is an incredibly emotive and effective documentary film.

Ocean with David Attenborough is now showing at Nottingham's Broadway Cinema.