Items13The creator’s order
  1. 1Our Oceans (2024)Our Oceans (2024) 8.0/10 on IMDbFirst aired Nov 20, 2024Start here if you want another series that visits a different ocean each episode. A current links all five, so the episodes give you a way to follow how events in one stretch of water shape life elsewhere. Save the Southern Ocean episode for a close look at how the water around Antarctica fits into…0
  2. 2Big Pacific (2017)Big Pacific (2017) 8.2/10 on IMDbFirst aired Jun 21, 2017This series organizes the Pacific around behaviors as well as geography. The episode on reproduction brings together forest penguins, great white sharks, and male pregnancy. A separate making-of episode gives you a reason to stay after the wildlife footage if you want to know how it was made.0
  3. 3Oceans (2010)Oceans (2010) 7.7/10 on IMDbReleased Jan 22, 2010Pick the Disneynature film for a single evening with a wide range of animals. It moves from migrating whales and dolphins in motion to a close swim with a great white shark. The changes in scale and pace are a bigger part of its appeal than any one scientific question.0
  4. 4Deep Blue (2003)Deep Blue (2003) 7.4/10 on IMDbReleased May 18, 2003This BBC Worldwide and Greenlight Media feature is the closest companion here to the original Blue Planet. It reshapes footage from the series’ production into a feature-length film, from sea lions to animals far below the waves. Choose it if you want to revisit that world in one sitting, or start…0
  5. 5Secrets of the Whales (2021)Secrets of the Whales (2021) 8.4/10 on IMDbFirst aired Apr 22, 2021The four episodes follow several kinds of whales and make social behavior the main event. Start with the Arctic episode to see how belugas and narwhals approach a shared landscape of sea ice. The orca episode gives you a different comparison, looking at behaviors passed on in separate groups.0
  6. 6Under the Sea 3D (2009)Under the Sea 3D (2009) 7.5/10 on IMDbReleased Feb 13, 2009Howard Hall's large-format film sticks to underwater encounters from trips to Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia. The geographic focus makes this a handy change after a global overview. It also gives you time to look at smaller reef animals up close, at the scale the film was designed to…0
  7. 7The Living Sea (1995)The Living Sea (1995) 7.1/10 on IMDbReleased Feb 1, 1995Palau provides one of the most memorable stops in this large-format film about how the oceans connect. Meryl Streep's narration and Sting's music give it a different feel from an episode built around a naturalist explaining a hunt. It works if you want to spend more time looking at a whole habitat.0
  8. 8Aliens of the Deep (2005)Aliens of the Deep (2005) 6.3/10 on IMDbReleased Jan 28, 2005This is the exploration choice. James Cameron and Steven Quale take viewers to the deep ocean, where teams of oceanographers and NASA scientists look at life around hydrothermal vents. The film frames those encounters as a reason to think about what exploration beyond Earth might look like.0
  9. 9Chasing Coral (2017)Chasing Coral (2017) 8.0/10 on IMDbReleased Mar 16, 2017Underwater time-lapse makes a reef’s change visible across days and weeks. When the team needs a way to document bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, they return to the same spots to photograph the corals by hand. Choose it if the work behind the footage interests you as much as the event it…0
  10. 10The Last Ocean (2012)The Last Ocean (2012) 7.4/10 on IMDbReleased Aug 1, 2012Peter Young's film brings you to the Ross Sea off Antarctica and follows a conservation campaign centered on the Antarctic toothfish fishery. It gives the polar scenery a specific question to carry: how what diners order far away can put pressure on an ecosystem most of them will never see.0