The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari

In December 2019, forty seven people on a day trip were inside the crater of Whakaari off the New Zealand coast when the volcano erupted. Twenty two of them died. The documentary reconstructs the event minute by minute, most of its material shot by the tourists and guides themselves. Rory Kennedy's method is not the official account but the voices of survivors and of the people who went in. The most shattering stretch covers the hours when the official services judged the island unsafe and helicopter pilots landed on their own authority. Ron Howard and Leonardo DiCaprio are among the executive producers. It went to Netflix on 16 December 2022 and reached number one in a long list of countries. Its flaw is that the question of responsibility stays on the surface. Why the tours were still running, why the alert level was not raised, and the legal aftermath are almost entirely absent. Who it is for: viewers who follow real event documentaries. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot handle accounts of severe injury.