This is nature’s Super Bowl. Attenborough calls plays, glaciers collapse like stadiums, and killer whales coordinate attacks — like they’ve been watching NFL tape.
Frozen Planet is the best docuseries on the beauty, brutality, and breathtaking extremes of life at the ends of the Earth.
I found this one from Charlotte Davis’s post “6 of the best Sir David Attenborough series to watch after Planet Earth III.”
I rated Frozen Planet II (also from that list) 91/100.
Trailer for “Frozen Planet”
You Can’t Make This Sh*t Up
- Orcas were filmed using coordinated wave attacks to knock seals off Antarctic ice floes—this hunting behavior had never been captured before.
- Scientists in Alaska launched rockets into the aurora borealis to study its upper atmosphere physics in real-time.
- In Canada’s boreal forest, the crew tracked a 25-wolf mega-pack as they hunted full-grown bison—filming one of the rarest predator-prey hunts on Earth.
Watch “Frozen Planet”
You can watch “Frozen Planet” on HBO Max and Amazon Prime.
Ratings:
- My Rating: 93/100
- IMDB Rating: 9.0/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Ratings: not yet rated (Critics), 100/100 (Users)
Director’s Note: This BBC mega-series comes from the team behind “Planet Earth” and “Blue Planet.” Executive Producer Alastair Fothergill and Series Producer Vanessa Berlowitz brought back Sir David Attenborough to narrate. It took 4 years, 2,300+ field days, and new tech to shoot snow caves, ice shelves, deep sea vents, and active volcanoes in polar zones. Climate change is baked into every scene.
Release Date: October 26, 2011 (BBC One)
My Review of “Frozen Planet”
The Setup
This is a seven-part look at Earth’s polar extremes—both Arctic and Antarctic. Each episode covers the animals, landscapes, and weather systems that define life on the edge of the planet. You get migrations, births, deaths, and blizzards. It’s stunning—but it’s also fading fast due to warming seas and melting ice sheets.
Attenborough makes sure you understand: these aren’t just pretty pictures. This is the last documentation of many of these frozen habitats before they collapse.
More Highlights from the Doc
- Footage of emperor penguins taking turns shielding chicks in -100°F wind chills—without food—for weeks.
- Time-lapse sequences of glaciers calving, ice cracking, and frozen deserts bursting into flower as the seasons shift.
- Rare footage of Arctic wolves, polar bears, and belugas adapting to thinning ice and earlier thaws.
- Underwater shots of bizarre ice creatures that survive in pitch-black, subzero brine pockets under the sea ice.
Lesser-Known Details from the Doc
- The crew had to custom-build camera rigs to survive minus-50°C temps and wind-blasted ice plains.
- One scientist describes Antarctica as “Mars on Earth”—his tent froze shut for three days during a blizzard.
- The wolf-bison hunt footage was filmed using a helicopter drone, since no ground crew could keep up in snow that deep.
- Attenborough recorded most of his voiceovers in a custom sound booth during post-production—after reviewing each finished episode personally.
Wrap Up
“Frozen Planet” is both a visual masterpiece and a climate elegy. If you’re not blown away, you might be frozen inside.
Thanks for reading!
Heather Fenty, Guest Writer, Daily Doc