---
title: "Scavengers Reign"
year: 2023
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/scavengers-reign"
fi1m_id: "scavengers-reign"
imdb_id: "tt21056886"
tmdb_id: 204154
wikidata_id: "Q123110427"
fi1m_score: 86
critics_score: 88
critics_reviews: 4
published: "2026-10-01T00:09:40.278584+00:00"
updated: "2026-10-01T00:09:40.799486+00:00"
region: "HR"
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."
---

# Scavengers Reign (2023)

Created by Charles Huettner, Joseph Bennett, James Merrill · Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Drama, Animation, Action & Adventure

## Identity

Scavengers Reign

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/scavengers-reign
- **Type:** Series
- **Fi1m ID:** scavengers-reign
- **IMDb ID:** tt21056886
- **TMDB ID:** 204154
- **Wikidata ID:** Q123110427
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21056886/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/204154, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q123110427

**Fi1m score: 86** · Critics 88 (early) from 4 reviews

*In a sentence:* A nature documentary about a planet where everything is beautiful and most of it wants to lay eggs in you

> Twelve episodes of animated science fiction about castaways crossing an alien planet that is alive in every frame. Frightening and patient, it is among the best things of its kind we have seen; the human stories are thinner than the world around them.

## Synopsis

A ship has broken apart above Vesta, a green planet nobody has charted, and the crew who made it out are scattered across its surface. Ursula (Sunita Mani), who knows plants and keeps her head, and Sam (Bob Stephenson), older and coughing, trek towards the spot where they have ordered the damaged ship to land. Azi (Wunmi Mosaku) is travelling with Levi (Alia Shawkat), a companion who has begun to change in ways Azi did not ask for and does not understand. Kamen (Ted Travelstead) is alone and hungry, until something in a cave offers to feed him. Everything on Vesta is alive and most of it is hungry, and the survivors have to cross it before the ship comes down.

## Review

*Scavengers Reign* opens with a cargo ship broken apart above a planet called Vesta and its crew scattered across the surface, and then spends twelve episodes letting them walk. Joseph Bennett, Charles Huettner and James Merrill, who created it, are not much interested in the ship or in getting home. They are interested in the planet, which is drawn as a complete working ecology. Things graze, things lure, things lay eggs in other things, and the people are the newest animals in it.

Our verdict is that it is excellent, and the caveat is that the people never quite catch up with the place. The programme is at its best when nobody is speaking and the frame is holding on a creature doing something unpleasant and sensible. When the humans talk about guilt and whose fault the crash was, the dialogue is serviceable and the stories are thinner than the drawings around them.

Seven directors share the episodes, among them Christine Jie-Eun Shin, Rachel Reid, Diego Porral, Jonathan Djob Nkondo and Vincent Tsui, with Bennett and Huettner directing as well, and the look holds across all of them: flat colour, thin dark lines, faces made with a few marks, backgrounds crowded with growth. Vincent M. Vu’s production design gives Vesta pinks and greens that look like a coral reef dragged on to land, and every creature has a visible logic; you can see what it eats and what eats it. Jason Klein cuts slowly. He lets a shot of a plant closing round a small animal run long after a nervier editor would have moved on, and the length is what makes it frightening.

We were horrified, more than once, and we want to be exact about why. Early on there is a sequence, which we will not describe, in which something gets inside a body and the body does not object. Nothing is sudden. Nicolas Snyder’s music does not swell to tell us to be frightened; it stays low, mostly synthesiser and breath, and the drawings do the work. We put a hand over our mouth and did not take it away. Later, when a creature we had watched kill looked after a person with something like care, we felt the reverse, a gentleness the series had earned by being unsentimental about everything else.

The voice cast is good without being showy. Sunita Mani gives Ursula a dry competence with tiredness underneath it. Wunmi Mosaku’s Azi sounds most like someone who has worked for a living, impatient and practical, and her scenes with Alia Shawkat’s Levi are the warmest in the programme. Shawkat plays Levi flat and then lets small, odd inflections in as Levi changes, which is the right choice. Ted Travelstead’s Kamen is harder to like, and meant to be; he is a man who has done something he will not look at, and Travelstead plays the self-pity without asking for sympathy. Bob Stephenson’s Sam is gruff in a way that is accurate and occasionally dull.

The faults are in the writing, which is shared among Bennett, Huettner, Merrill, Jenny Deiker Restivo, Sean Buckelew and Jillian Goldfluss. Kamen’s strand circles for several episodes in the middle: he is tempted, he gives in, he is tempted again, and his memories of home return so often that they lose their force. The series also has a habit of saying out loud its most interesting idea, that Vesta may be using the castaways rather than merely eating them, when the pictures had already made it clear. Ten episodes would have been tighter than twelve.

Set against its genre, it is closer to René Laloux’s [*Fantastic Planet*](https://film.one/film/fantastic-planet) than to anything television usually makes, and it is more frightening than its 15 certificate suggests, because the horror is biological rather than violent: things grow where they should not. Watch it at night, one or two episodes at a time, and not over dinner. If the long wordless stretches of the first episode bore you, stop, because there are eleven more and they do not speed up. If they hold you, this is one of the few animated series for adults we would urge on someone who thinks animation is not for them.

*Fi1m score 86, published 1 October 2026.*

## Straight answers

**Is Scavengers Reign worth watching?**

*Scavengers Reign* is worth watching for anyone who can sit with slow, frightening animated science fiction, and we scored it 86. The alien planet is drawn as a complete working ecology and is the best thing in it; the human stories about guilt and the crash are thinner, and the middle sags. If the wordless stretches of the first episode bore you, it does not speed up.

**Where can I watch Scavengers Reign in Croatia?**

*Scavengers Reign* is not on any streaming or rental service in Croatia at the moment. It is available in 15 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How violent or frightening is Scavengers Reign, and is it suitable for children?**

*Scavengers Reign* is a 15 certificate and is not suitable for children; we found it more frightening than that rating suggests. The horror is biological rather than violent: things get inside bodies and grow where they should not, shown slowly and without warning music. The squeamish should watch it in daylight and not over dinner, and teenagers under fifteen should wait.

**How does Scavengers Reign compare to Fantastic Planet?**

*Scavengers Reign* is closer in spirit to [*Fantastic Planet*](https://film.one/film/fantastic-planet) than to anything television usually makes, and both put the drawn alien world ahead of the people in it. The series is the more frightening and the more fully worked out as an ecology; Laloux's film is shorter, stranger and carries a clearer warning about coexistence. Both have characters less absorbing than their landscapes.

**What should I watch after Scavengers Reign?**

After *Scavengers Reign*, try [*Fantastic Planet*](https://film.one/film/fantastic-planet) (1973, Fi1m 80): René Laloux’s hand-drawn alien world, where humans are the pets and the pests. Then [*Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind*](https://film.one/film/warriors-of-the-wind) (1984, Fi1m 85): Miyazaki’s poisoned forest and giant insects, drawn with the same respect for ecology; and [*Annihilation*](https://film.one/film/annihilation) (2018, Fi1m 82): Live-action cousin: a landscape that rewrites the people who walk into it.

### Reviews we read (4)

- **Vulture**, Kambole Campbell (85/100, inferred): The critic finds the series thrilling and rich with ideas, while acknowledging its gruesome horror. They single out the vivid, detailed animation of Vesta’s strange ecology as its greatest strength. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/scavengers-reign-review.html)
- **The Ringer**, Zach Kram (95/100, inferred): Kram calls the series a captivating and original science-fiction standout. He especially praises its richly imagined, biologically diverse world and gorgeous animation. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2023/11/10/tv/scavengers-reign-max-episodes-review-underrated-shows-2023)
- **Collider**, Chase Hutchinson (9/10): The critic calls the series an outstanding, visually spectacular work and one of the most exciting animated shows in recent memory. They especially praise its breathtaking animation and richly imagined alien world, which make its survival story feel expansive and humbling. [Read](https://collider.com/scavengers-reign-review/)
- **Paste**, Reuben Baron (85/100, inferred): Baron finds the series a beautiful, genuinely frightening form of cozy horror that ultimately offers comfort. He especially praises its imaginative alien ecosystem and the way nature and technology converge in the finale. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/hbo-max/scavengers-reign-review-finale-ending-explained-cozy-horror)

## Details

- **Created by:** Charles Huettner, Joseph Bennett, James Merrill
- **Creator:** Charles Huettner, Joseph Bennett, James Merrill
- **Director:** Vincent Tsui, Christine Jie-Eun Shin, Diego Porral, Rachel Reid, Jonathan Djob Nkondo, Charles Huettner, Joseph Bennett
- **Writer:** Sean Buckelew, James Merrill, Charles Huettner, Joseph Bennett, Jenny Deiker Restivo, Jillian Goldfluss
- **Editor:** Jason Klein
- **Music:** Nicolas Snyder
- **Production design:** Vincent M. Vu
- **Cast:** Sunita Mani as Ursula (voice); Wunmi Mosaku as Azi (voice); Alia Shawkat as Levi (voice); Bob Stephenson as Sam (voice); Ted Travelstead as Kamen (voice); Chris Diamantopoulos as Station Tech (voice); Okieriete Onaodowan as Station Chief (voice); Sepideh Moafi as Mia (voice)
- **Release (Croatia):** 19 October 2023
- **Genres:** Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Drama, Animation, Action & Adventure
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWQH8cMpWTU

## Where to watch in Croatia

Not streaming, renting or buying in Croatia at the last check.

Also available in: AR, AT, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, DE, EC, GB, IE, MX, PA, PE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Fantastic Planet* (1973), Fi1m 80: René Laloux’s hand-drawn alien world, where humans are the pets and the pests — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/fantastic-planet.md)
- *Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind* (1984), Fi1m 85: Miyazaki’s poisoned forest and giant insects, drawn with the same respect for ecology — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/warriors-of-the-wind.md)
- *Annihilation* (2018), Fi1m 82: Live-action cousin: a landscape that rewrites the people who walk into it — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/annihilation.md)
- *Primal* (2019): Genndy Tartakovsky’s nearly wordless animated survival series, brutal and oddly tender
- *Stalker* (1979), Fi1m 86: Tarkovsky’s slow walk through a zone that has its own quiet intentions — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/stalker.md)

---
© 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/tv/scavengers-reign