''Fathom'' is a 2021 American

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

, directed by Drew Xanthopoulos. It follows two researchers of

humpback whale The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the monotypic taxon, only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh u ...

s who study their communication and how it evolves across oceans and continents. It had its world premiere at the

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Enterprises. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. The festival ...

on June 16, 2021. It was released on June 25, 2021, by

Apple TV+ Apple TV+ is an American subscription over-the-top streaming service owned by Apple. The service launched on November 1, 2019, and it offers a selection of original production film and television series called Apple Originals. The service w ...

Synopsis

Dr. and Dr. , lead research on

s in Alaska and French Polynesia, respectively, where they study the communication of the whales and how it evolves across oceans and continents.

Release

In April 2021,

acquired worldwide distribution rights to the film, and set it for a June 25, 2021, release. It had its world premiere at the

on June 16, 2021. It also screened at

AFI DOCS The AFI Docs (formerly Silverdocs) documentary film festival was an American international film festival. Created by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel, it was held annually in Silver Spring, Maryland and Washington, D.C., fro ...

on June 23, 2021.

Critical reception

''Fathom'' holds a 50% approval rating on

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, based on 16 reviews, with a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

of 7/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film holds a rating of 67 out of 100, based on eight critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

References

External links

* * {{Apple TV+ 2021 documentary films 2021 films American documentary films Apple TV+ original films Impact Partners films 2020s English-language films 2020s American films News & Documentary Emmy Award–winning programs English-language documentary films