3.8 billion years ago, when the Earth’s temperature cooled down, rain fell for centuries. Oceans formed. Longer than human history, the creation of oceans—all this water that we can float on, fly over, and swim through—is our lifeline.
Premiering in the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference at Nice, France, National Geographic’s Documentary Ocean with David Attenborough holds timeless urgency in our valuable role of supporting life below water. Spearheading production, film, and invention in natural history, Sir David Attenborough tells a lifetime’s worth of what the ocean means to our past, present, and future in his 99th birthday.
After 3 years of production, the documentary dives into breathtaking locations on every continent: Papahānaumokuākea, Hawaii—where mobula rays leap into the air; Raja Ampat, Indonesia—where coral reefs nurture sea horses and carpet sharks; Geographe Bay, Australia—where blue whales tread across the bay; and many more.
Sweetlips in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. (Credit: Olly Scholey)
“This is the start of a journey. What we’ve been excited about is that a lot of people have felt moved by the film,” producer Keith Scholey said.
In the documentary, there’s a brilliant tracking shot of dolphins swimming toward the camera. Light reflects the movement of the ocean surface above. Rhythms of hums and flaps. Water sings in companion. No matter if we live near scuba diving sites or live far away from the ocean, we are invited to dip inside water and feel every emotion below the surface.
Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins in Red Sea, Egypt. (Credit: Olly Scholey)
Facing the stretch of open sea in Dorset, United Kingdom, Sir David Attenborough’s presence and narration leave behind an indescribable impact for us. Each word he speaks captures the sublime weight of the physical world: every bubble, seagrass bed, and underwater egg. His voice ripples, exponentiates, and plunges into the devastating impact of bottom trawling—an industrial practice of catching fish that leaves behind seabeds of corpses.
Combined with the lack of regulation and its contributions to ecological damage and carbon production, bottom trawling receives an annual $1.3 billion amount of subsidies in Europe. As the first documentary to depict bottom trawling, the devastating and brutal presence of metal, mesh, and ropes sweep across the ocean floor. Confronting us with our perception of how prevalent such industrial practices are to the environment, the documentary presents truth in its most human form.
A bait ball in the open ocean near Azores. (Credit: Silverback Films and Open Planet Studios/Doug Anderson)
“A lot of people think of the ocean as not being relevant to their lives. What we hope the film would say is, no, the ocean is deeply relevant to everyone,” Scholey said.
With only 2.7% of the oceans protected from bottom trawling, the documentary portrays how our decisions and actions dictate the progress of saving marine life and ecosystems—and in conjunction, the environmental crisis.
It’s not just what happens below the waters, though. Sir David Attenborough’s storytelling represents the perspectives of fishermen and climate advocates who have been impacted by bottom trawling. Towards the fishing trawler, two men row a small boat through the amber horizon, grey sea.
Yet, the ocean is not an elegy. It is a powerhouse that fuels a healthy planet. The documentary points to many elements of resilience in marine and coastal life: from mangroves that protect infrastructure in extreme weather events to seagrass beds that cultivate biodiverse ecosystems, both seascapes help capture carbon in their soil and roots. By recognizing the ocean’s universal foundation for human, animal, and plant populations, it turns into something closer and more connected to what we believe—something that breathes.
Director of photography Doug Anderson films the coral reefs of Raja Ampat, Indonesia. (Credit: Olly Scholey)
“The quickest way to help solve the climate crisis is to protect the ocean,” Scholey said. “[The ocean] has such a huge role in drawing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.”
What sets apart this documentary is how it reframes the ocean crisis as an exciting turning point: today transforms into our opportunity to mobilize populations, hold world leaders accountable, and take an active stance in how governmental institutions protect the oceans.
“When you get a political population absolutely pushing for protection, policymakers will always listen to what their populations have to say,” Scholey said. “Public pressure leads to change. In a way, that’s always been my inspiration: to get public understanding, public desire to bring about change.”
Alex Warham and Jacca Deeble launch a drone to film footage of an ocean trawler. (Credit: Silverback Films and Open Planet Studios/Alex Warham)
In this moment, Ocean with David Attenborough calls to action a diverse audience: teenagers who hold the power to deliver a life-changing testimony, ministers who spearhead legislation, artists, scientists, scuba-divers, swimmers, sailers, fishers, whale-watchers, surfers, beach enthusiasts—anyone human. It reminds us that even in moments where it is easy to lose hope in global issues, we are not alone in this crisis.
“When I was your age, the great whales were being hunted into extinction. And a tiny number of nations were doing it, tiny numbers of companies, but they were going to take the great whales away from the whole of the world,” Scholey said. “In 1986, a group of people who governed Wales got together and they banned it. And since then, the whale populations have come back enormously. We now understand they play a huge role in the ecology of the ocean, in helping us against climate change.”
A blue whale mother and calf in the Gulf of California, Mexico. (Credit: Olly Scholey)
As the documentary recalls historical moments of severe decline and collapse in the sea, it resonates with an optimistic message of delivering renewal and flourishment—in rescuing a planet teeming with ocean, ocean, and ocean.
Scholey said, “The dream at the end of the film is that, people like you may know an ocean that is richer and more diverse and does more for humanity than I have ever known in my lifetime.”
You can watch Ocean with David Attenborough on National Geographic, Hulu, or Disney+.
