--- title: "My Octopus Teacher" year: 2020 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/my-octopus-teacher" fi1m_score: 75 critics_score: 78 critics_reviews: 5 published: "2026-09-17T05:42:59.861069+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T05:43:00.130277+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # My Octopus Teacher (2020) Directed by Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed · 1h 25m · Documentary **Fi1m score: 75** · Critics 78 (early) from 5 reviews *In a sentence:* The octopus does everything asked of a lead and never once says how she feels; the man makes up for it > The octopus is the best thing in it, and the footage from a cold South African kelp forest is close, patient and often lovely. Craig Foster’s narration tells us what she is thinking a good deal more often than it should. ## Synopsis Craig Foster (as himself) is a documentary maker who has stopped enjoying his work. He starts swimming every day in a kelp forest off the tip of South Africa, in cold water, and on one of those dives he finds an octopus. He decides to go back to the same patch of sea floor every day for as long as she lives. Slowly she stops hiding from him. Above the water his son Tom Foster (as himself) watches his father change. Below it, the octopus has to hunt, and hide from the things that hunt her, and get on with her short life while a man with a camera looks on. ## Review Craig Foster is a documentary maker who, by his own account, had worn himself out. He started diving every day in the kelp forest off the tip of South Africa, in cold water, and on one of those dives he found an octopus hiding on the sea floor. He decided to go back to her every day for as long as she lived. *My Octopus Teacher* is the record of that year, and it is good. It is also a film in which one man talks for 85 minutes about an animal that cannot answer back, and we came to wish he would let her get a word in. Roger Horrocks’s underwater photography is the reason to watch. The kelp forest is shot in the light that comes down through it, so the fronds move like weather and the sea floor is a scatter of shell and sand in greens and browns. The octopus is filmed from a few inches away. Her skin goes from smooth ochre to spiked and mottled in about a second; she sits inside a shell like a woman in a doorway; she walks along the bottom on two arms with the other six bundled up. When a shark comes hunting she gathers shells around herself as armour, and Horrocks holds the shot long enough for us to see her thinking about it. What happens in those encounters we will leave for the film. There is a moment, early on, where she reaches out a single arm and lays it across the back of his hand. We were more moved by it than we expected, and we have been trying to work out why. It is partly that the camera does nothing: no cut, no push in, just a hand and an arm and the water between them. It is partly that we had spent twenty minutes watching this animal flee from everything, and she chose not to. Whatever it is, it works, and the film knows it, because it comes back to that touch again and again. The trouble is what Foster says over it. He tells us she is curious, that she is playing, that she trusts him, that she is teaching him something about being alive. Some of that may be true. None of it is shown to be true, and nobody else is asked. There is no biologist in the film, no second voice, only Foster in a dark room facing the camera and Foster over the pictures, and after a while every shot arrives with its meaning already attached. Kevin Smuts’s score does not help. It is piano and strings, and it climbs every time Foster reaches the end of a thought, so that the octopus is never allowed to simply be an octopus for long. Pippa Ehrlich and Dan Schwalm had 3,000 hours of footage to cut, and the shape they have found is clear and easy to follow: a year, a season at a time, one animal at the centre of it. Where the editing is less sure is on land. The film wants to be about Foster’s recovery as well as about the octopus, and it says so, but the depression is described rather than seen and Tom Foster appears mostly towards the end, as a way of tying the two halves together. It is honest about being a film about a man. The title says otherwise. Nature documentaries usually come with a narrator who knows more than we do. This one comes with a narrator who knows only what he has seen, and that is both its strength and its limit. Werner Herzog’s [*Grizzly Man*](https://film.one/film/grizzly-man) (2005) is the obvious comparison, a film about a man who loved animals more than was good for him, and Herzog was careful to keep his own doubts in the frame. Ehrlich and James Reed, who direct, give Foster the last word on everything. He is a likeable man and he has done a remarkable thing, going into that water every day for a year, but we finished the film knowing a great deal about how he felt and rather less about her. Watch it on the biggest screen in the house, with the volume a notch lower than usual. The octopus is worth the evening; she is one of the better leads we have seen in a while, and she never overplays. Her co-star does, a little, and he has all the lines. *Fi1m score 75, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say With only 5 reviews in so far, the reception is uniformly warm but not unanimous in its enthusiasm. Every critic praises the underwater photography and the intimacy of the bond between Craig Foster and the octopus, and several note how coherent a story has been cut from a vast quantity of footage. The reservations are mild and cluster in one place: Variety finds Foster’s personal story pressed a little heavily onto the material, and Radio Times anticipates complaints about anthropomorphising the animal. Vulture stands slightly apart, treating the film as a curiosity rather than a nature documentary, though it lands in the same friendly territory. ### Reviews we read (5) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Sheri Linden (90/100, inferred): The critic calls it a rewardingly intimate deep dive into one man's bond with an octopus. She singles out the personal, openhearted perspective and technical achievement in turning 3,000 hours of footage into an immersive, surprising film. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/my-octopus-teacher-film-review-4136577/) - **Radio Times**, Terry Staunton (4/5): The documentary captures the curious friendship between a filmmaker and an octopus in a South African kelp forest, showing how the experience helped him emerge from depression and strengthen family bonds. It praises the intimate interactions and strong production values while acknowledging potential criticism of anthropomorphising. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-g2v28w/my-octopus-teacher/) - **Variety**, Guy Lodge (70/100, inferred): The film is an engaging, crowd-pleasing nature documentary that humanizes the octopus through anthropomorphic techniques and the empathetic narration of Craig Foster. It excels in its ravishing underwater cinematography and emotional portrayal of the bond but imposes the filmmaker's personal story somewhat heavily. [Read](https://variety.com/2020/film/reviews/my-octopus-teacher-review-an-eight-legged-freak-becomes-a-friend-in-netflixs-gorgeous-hit-nature-doc-1234874255/) - **Vulture**, Rebecca Alter (70/100, inferred): The piece playfully examines whether the documentary about a man's bond with an octopus is erotic, ultimately concluding it is not sexual but rather a chaste, intimate story of curiosity and connection akin to Charlotte's Web. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2020/09/my-octopus-teacher-netflix-doc-just-how-horny-is-it.html) - **Eye for Film**, Jennie Kermode (80/100, inferred): The critic finds it an engaging film that viewers will want to watch repeatedly. She singles out the well-edited coherent narrative that mixes wonder, drama and action, and the magic of the underwater world and central relationship. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/my-octopus-teacher-2020-film-review-by-jennie-kermode) ## Details - **Director:** Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed - **Director:** Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed - **Writer:** Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed - **Cinematography:** Roger Horrocks - **Editor:** Dan Schwalm, Pippa Ehrlich - **Music:** Kevin Smuts - **Producer:** Craig Foster - **Cast:** Craig Foster as Self; Tom Foster as Self - **Runtime:** 1h 25m - **Release (the US):** 7 September 2020 - **Genres:** Documentary - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s0LTDhqe5A ## Where to watch in the US - Netflix: streaming *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 2021: Best Documentary Feature Film (won) ## If you liked this - *Grizzly Man* (2005), Fi1m 85: Herzog on a man who loved wild animals, with the doubt this film leaves out — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/grizzly-man.md) - *Microcosmos* (1996): Insects in a French meadow shot at their own scale, with almost no narration at all - *Honeyland* (2019), Fi1m 82: A Macedonian beekeeper and her bees, observed for years without a word of explanation — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/honeyland.md) - *Gunda* (2020): A sow and her piglets in black and white, silent, and more moving for it - *Leviathan* (2012): Cameras strapped to a fishing trawler; the sea as it looks when nobody is talking --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/my-octopus-teacher