A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough

Released on Netflix in April 2026, this documentary returns to one of the most remembered moments of David Attenborough's career. In the 1970s he lay down beside a young mountain gorilla in the Virunga mountains of Rwanda, and the encounter became one of natural history television's defining images. The film follows that gorilla, Pablo, into his years as the dominant silverback of his group, and then follows his descendants alive today. The structure sets fifty-year-old archive beside newly shot material, and tracking two moments in the same valley produces a measurable story about what conservation has and has not achieved. Director James Reed previously made My Octopus Teacher; the production was made by Silverback Films with Appian Way. Who it's for: viewers who want natural history and the payoff of long-term field work. Who it's not for: anyone hoping for something outside the genre's usual warm narration and swelling score.