Ocean: A Wake-Up Call and Exclusive Interviews with National Geographic’s Team

In Ocean with David Attenborough, the world’s most beloved natural historian delivers what may be the most powerful and personal film of his extraordinary career. At 98, Sir David Attenborough continues to wield his voice, as familiar and steady as the tides, with a blend of reverence, urgency, and deep experience. In this National Geographic feature-length special, he guides us into Earth’s last great wilderness: the ocean.

From the opening frame, we are immersed in a realm of staggering beauty and profound mystery. We glide above coral cities teeming with color and movement, drift through the hushed green cathedrals of kelp forests, and plunge into the ink-dark waters of the open sea where light fades and secrets multiply. Attenborough’s narration is not just scientific. It is soulful. His voice carries the weight of wonder and the ache of bearing witness.

“There is nowhere more full of life, more rich in wonder or surprise,” he tells us, with both joy and sorrow in his tone. It is the voice of a man who has spent his life watching nature thrive and unravel.

The cinematography is arresting. We are brought face-to-face with a blanket octopus, its iridescent tendrils flowing like silk in slow motion. We watch a school of sardines ripple like a living river, only to be swept into a frenzy by a precision strike from dolphins. Each visual is crafted not only for beauty but for emotional impact. Sweeping drone shots, close-up macro photography, and immersive underwater sequences make it feel as though we are not just observing the ocean. We are inside it.

But Ocean is not merely an aesthetic marvel. It is a cinematic reckoning. We are shown the aftermath of industrial bottom trawling. Vast stretches of seabed are stripped bare and reduced to marine deserts. Coral reefs are bleached to ghostly white. These images are stark, but they are not without hope.

Attenborough’s true gift lies in his ability to pair devastation with possibility. This is not a film of mourning. It is a film of momentum. It shows us that when protected, the ocean rebounds. In marine sanctuaries around the world, species return, reefs regrow, and food webs knit themselves back into harmony. These stories of resilience shine even brighter than bioluminescence.

The score swells with emotion. The sound design shifts with the rhythm of the sea, tranquil one moment and thunderous the next. The result is a film that not only informs but stirs something deep. It builds empathy along with knowledge.

Produced by Silverback Films and Open Planet Studios and grounded in the scientific work of marine experts like Dr. Enric Sala of National Geographic Pristine Seas, Ocean is rigorous in its research and rich in human insight. What elevates it further are Attenborough’s personal reflections. His voice lingers in your mind after the film ends: “The ocean can recover. To a richness and diversity beyond anything we have seen in our lifetimes.”

Timed with World Oceans Day and the 2025 UN Ocean Conference, Ocean arrives when it is most needed. It does not scold. It inspires. It does not simply show what is being lost. It invites us into the awe of what still remains and what can yet be saved.

For anyone who cherishes the natural world, who longs to understand its secrets, or who still asks why the ocean matters, this film is not just recommended. It is essential. A love letter to a blue planet and a blueprint for its salvation.

An Exclusive Interview with Toby Nowlan and Dr. Enric Sala

To uncover the story behind Ocean, I interviewed director Toby Nowlan and scientific advisor Dr. Enric Sala about its creation and the powerful truths the sea is trying to tell us.

What was one moment during the making of the film that deeply surprised or moved you, either scientifically or emotionally?

Toby Nowlan:
There were so many incredible moments that completely blew my mind, and that’s coming from spending every minute of my life working with and around wildlife and being obsessed with it. I filmed how the ocean is capable of spectacular recovery, and that blew my mind. The idea that if you leave the ocean alone, the process of recovery is very different from what happens on land. It happens really quickly, much quicker than on land, and fills with life again, flowing over into the surrounding area. The images we captured at Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument of this huge albatross colony just completely blew my mind, and I felt absolutely wonderful. Wherever we filmed recovery from the most colorful reefs on Earth to the lobster larvae to kelp forests in the Channel Islands we saw these discoveries happening. It felt so exciting and really awakening.

Enric Sala:
For me, the most powerful images were those of bottom trawling. I’ve been doing marine science conservation for over 35 years and know about the impact of bottom trawling, but I had never seen it. That was really like removing a blindfold. I can only imagine what people who are not familiar with this practice will think about it.

The film shows the damage caused by industrial fishing in very visual ways. How important is it to make these “invisible” problems visible to the public?

Toby Nowlan:
 That is our role as filmmakers and storytellers, and that is quite simply our job. That was my mission when I began making this film: how do we tell the clearest, most emotional, and engaging story we can, and reach as many people as possible? On top of that, it was absolutely about bringing to light something that has remained hidden from view and concealed for 700 years. Bottom trawling was designed here off the coast of England in the 14th century, and it’s taken until this moment for a wildlife filmmaker to stick a camera on the dredging equipment to reveal how this process works and the violence of it. We’re not being critical of it; the film simply shows the process as it is. David Attenborough states the facts: this is what’s happening all around our oceans thousands of times every day, including in our protected areas.

After visiting some of the most remote and untouched ocean regions, what do they teach us about the planet and about ourselves?

Enric Sala:
 There are a few wild places out there in the ocean, too few, but there are places that look like the ocean of five hundred years ago. These places are like time machines. They’re in the film, and they take us back. Toby and the team captured that amazing big ball of tuna schooling around Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the Pacific. These footages and these places tell us not only about the ocean of the past but about the magnitude of our activities and our impact. They tell us what we have lost, but also they offer a blueprint for a future ocean, what we want the ocean to look like if we so choose.

The film includes before-and-after visuals of damaged and recovered ocean habitats. What was the process of getting those comparison shots?

Toby Nowlan:
 We’re talking about revealing how bottom trawling and other destructive industrial fishing practices can transform entire habitats in a matter of minutes. The purpose was to show these habitats as they are before the process happens and what they look like afterward. For example, the ancient sponge gardens near Exmouth, Western Australia. Much of them have been trawled and now it’s just empty sand around these sponge gardens. Our amazing camera operator André Rieu did these incredible tracking shots. These are worlds few people even know exist, let alone know they are being destroyed. Until we stop bottom trawling and protect these areas, we don’t know what we’re losing. These sponge gardens made of ancient, slow-growing sponges felt to me like some sort of Avatar like world, magical and bustling with fish and life of all kinds. They can be flattened by this process.

Looking ahead ten years, what is your vision for the ocean’s future if we make the right choices today? And what might happen if we do not?

Enric Sala:
 Our vision for Pristine Seas is an ocean where at least thirty percent of the most vital places are fully protected from extractive and damaging activities. That’s where ocean life can thrive and help to replenish the rest of the ocean, which we use smartly and responsibly. That way, we not only benefit from food from the sea but also from many other benefits that the ocean provides, benefits that make human life on this planet possible.

Toby Nowlan:
 Making the film gave me a feeling for what the ocean’s future could look like. We filmed recovery that is happening right now all around the ocean at every scale. Wherever we properly protect it, wherever we give the ocean time and space, it is recovering faster and on a greater scale than we ever imagined possible. From tiny lobster larvae and kelp forests in the Channel Islands to the biggest protected area on the planet, Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, which is acting like an engine of life across a huge wedge of the Pacific Ocean, it doesn’t get more exciting and spectacular than that.

Ocean is not just another nature documentary. It is a landmark film. It is a personal, poetic, and powerful call to care. Not only about what we are losing, but about what we still have the power to save. With Attenborough’s voice as its compass, and science and storytelling working in harmony, Ocean shows us a future worth fighting for.

Behind the Film

Dr. Enric Sala
 (Marine Biologist and Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic
.)

Dr. Sala is the founder of Pristine Seas, a pioneering project that has helped create 29 marine reserves covering over 6.8 million square kilometers. A former professor, he left academia to focus on real-world ocean conservation. His work has been recognized with the National Geographic Hubbard Medal and an Emmy Award. He served as lead scientific advisor for Ocean.

Toby Nowlan
 (Director and Producer)


Toby Nowlan has directed award-winning wildlife films for over 20 years, including Planet Earth II, Our Planet and A Perfect Planet. He has captured some of the rarest footage ever seen, including of the vaquita porpoise and Javan rhino. His recent work with Silverback Films on Ocean combines visual spectacle with an urgent environmental message.