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The Endurance

Original title: The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
  • 2000
  • G
  • 1h 37m
IMDb RATING
7.8/10
2.4K
YOUR RATING
The Endurance (2000)
DocumentaryHistory

In December, 1914, the Endurance encountered ice packs before reaching 60º South - 400 miles north of Antarctica; an omen. The plan was to land at Vahsel Bay, which had never been done.In December, 1914, the Endurance encountered ice packs before reaching 60º South - 400 miles north of Antarctica; an omen. The plan was to land at Vahsel Bay, which had never been done.In December, 1914, the Endurance encountered ice packs before reaching 60º South - 400 miles north of Antarctica; an omen. The plan was to land at Vahsel Bay, which had never been done.

  • Director
    • George Butler
  • Writers
    • Caroline Alexander
    • Joseph Dorman
  • Stars
    • Liam Neeson
    • Julian Ayer
    • John Blackborow
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.8/10
    2.4K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • George Butler
    • Writers
      • Caroline Alexander
      • Joseph Dorman
    • Stars
      • Liam Neeson
      • Julian Ayer
      • John Blackborow
    • 29User reviews
    • 43Critic reviews
    • 85Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 2 BAFTA Awards
      • 8 wins & 8 nominations total

    Photos5

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    Top cast25

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    Liam Neeson
    Liam Neeson
    • Self - Narrator
    • (voice)
    Julian Ayer
    • Self (Grandson of expedition member)
    John Blackborow
    • Self (Grandson of expedition member)
    David Cale
    David Cale
    • Hubert Hudson
    • (voice)
    John Henry Cox
    • William Bakewell
    • (voice)
    Mary Crean O'Brien
    • Self (daughter of Tom Crean)
    Tom Crean
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Steven Crossley
    • Alexander Macklin
    • (voice)
    • …
    Brian d'Arcy James
    Brian d'Arcy James
    • Frank Wild
    • (voice)
    • (as Brian Darcy James)
    Jeffrey Dallas
    • Crewman
    Drew De Carvalho
    • Frank Hurley
    • (voice)
    Dominic Hawksley
    • Thomas Orde-Lees
    • (voice)
    Walter How
    • Self
    Roland Huntford
    • Self (historian)
    Leonard D.A. Hussey
    • Self
    Ron Keith
    • Walter How
    • (voice)
    Tom McNeish
    • Self (Grandson of McNish)
    Simon Prebble
    • Ernest Shackleton
    • (voice)
    • Director
      • George Butler
    • Writers
      • Caroline Alexander
      • Joseph Dorman
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews29

    7.82.3K
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    Featured reviews

    RichShep

    An incredible real-life survival story.

    An inspiring story of the will to survive which takes us back to the "Heroic Age" of exploration. Ernest Shackleton's expedition to the Antarctic set off in 1914 on the eve of World war 1. However, they became trapped in pack ice not far from their destination, though not close enough. So began a 2-year ordeal in the most inhospitable conditions,a constant fight for survival, before the redoubtable Shackleton got his men to safety...without losing one life. Then, on top of that, the men hurried back to help the war effort. The documentaries mix footage taken by the original expedition photographer and new footage to show the picturesque yet deadly, inhospitable and unforgiving land, and tell this superhuman tale of survival. Effectively shot and beautifully edited, and well narrated by Liam Neeson, you can almost feel the cold. At the end of it, no matter how much you already knew about the expedition, you still cannot believe this incredible story is real.
    9Squrpleboy

    Icily Gripping

    This is the most unbelievable TRUE story I have ever seen! Thank God I walked into it not knowing anything about Shackleton or the cataclysmic expedition he and his men endured for almost two years of their lives; I was mesmerized by the tale and STUNNED by the conclusion!

    Without a doubt, Sir Ernest Shackleton is one of the bravest, loyal, and awe-inspiring men I have ever heard of. This documentary does everything right in trying to tell his (and his crew's) story without sensationalizing or mythifying his character. Use of actual still and motion picture photography from the doomed expedition, letters from the crew, interviews and stories with grandchildren of the ship-men, new footage of the original Antarctic sites, and a beautifully written and delivered narration (by Liam Nieson) are blended together seemlessly to transport the viewer back in time, and into the terror that was the voyage of The Endurance.

    Although Kenneth Branagh's SHACKLETON (2002) was a good effort and a fine telling, it truly could not capture the real tension, anticipation, expectation and real-life drama in the way this documentary did throughout (I found Branagh's version often played on obvious audience manipulators, ie., heavy-handed dialogue, hammered musical scoring, camera indulgence, etc.).

    9/10. ENDURANCE is the greatest example of TRUTH being stranger than fiction, and so much more compelling!
    chaos-rampant

    Stand high in the base of your mountain

    Shackleton's third and last journey to the Pole in this documentary. We avoid talking heads and instead immerse ourselves in the arduous experience of traversing icy wastes. It has all the staples of polar exploits as have seeped into the popular imagination; valiant human endeavor, pitilessly harsh nature that cares none for our feeble attempts to cross it, scenes of increasing despair and privation, endured nonetheless with stoic composure.

    They were the moon landings of their time. Crews setting out with lofty aims of expanding the map of human knowledge, broadening horizons. What captivated audiences back home was either more prosaic or more poetic; will they make it alive, human bravery in an alien cosmos, the attending mystery of venturing in uncharted territory.

    One part of the film comprises actual footage of the expedition shot by a cameraman who was among the crew, really exciting (silent film) footage of the ship being crunched by the ice, desperately futile attempts to haul it out, playing with their trusted dogs, their makeshift camps as they have to go out on foot. The second part shows modern enactments, presumably captures views like they would have stumbled through, whether or not the very same locales. It's actually South Georgia later. But how different the visual regions when charged with knowledge that we're actually seeing into things as they happened.

    I remember being enthralled as a kid by a book on polar misadventures. It was about an earlier expedition - the Discovery - but very much the same grimly claustrophobic experience. (What I couldn't know as a kid was that so much of my book's power came from the notion that these were things that actually happened.) It was the kind of story that makes you freeze simply to read, glad for home.

    I have a quite different response these days than simply being aghast at what a cold universe it is out there.

    See, these people ventured full of dreams. They were broken just as they were starting, shipwrecked in the early stages. Can you imagine the kind of disappointment that shakes you to your core? To know your dreams are quashed, your expedition is a complete failure. The same tortuous effort you expected to muster in the course of making history will now have to be spent just making it back alive.

    So, you expected life to go one way, it went another. What now? Now dust yourself off and come back to us with a story of making a full return from the edge.
    9occupant-1

    magnificent

    At any point in this expedition, many would have given up or run out of ideas, but Ernest Shackleton's attitude reminds one of the Apollo 13 support crews in that failure was not an option. Everything great about the human species is seen in the efforts to discover an escape route from the pack ice, to find food in an almost lunar landscape and to send at least a few sailors to an island near the shipping lanes hundreds of miles from camp, the last chance for anyone to discover that Endurance's crew was still alive. Shackleton's refusal to give up, as well as resourcefulness in making unwasteful decisions, was the main reason for the rescue of the entire crew. Other than sled dogs, the antarctic didn't claim a single life - from this crew, anyway.
    8Xstal

    Incredible, Brave & Courageous...

    If you need something to remind you how incredible, brave and courageous people can be under the most impossible conditions, there are few better places to explore than the hell on earth experienced by Shackleton and his band of adventurers and how they escaped its frozen grasp.

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    Related interests

    Dziga Vertov in Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
    Documentary
    Liam Neeson in Schindler's List (1993)
    History

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Quotes

      Himself - Narrator: Optimism was at the very core of Ernest Shackleton's personality. Known to all as the "boss", he was a born leader who was from his youth driven by the romantic quest for adventure.

    • Connections
      Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Novocaine/In the Bedroom/Tape/Sidewalks of New York/The Endurance (2001)

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    FAQ19

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • December 21, 2001 (United States)
    • Countries of origin
      • United Kingdom
      • Germany
      • Sweden
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
    • Filming locations
      • Elephant Island, Antarctica
    • Production companies
      • Discovery Channel Pictures
      • FilmFour
      • Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $2,453,083
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $18,931
      • Oct 7, 2001
    • Gross worldwide
      • $2,453,083
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 37m(97 min)
    • Color
      • Black and White
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Stereo
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.78 : 1

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