Walt Disney, aptly the founder of the gargantuan media conglomerate today known as The Walt Disney Company, was fascinated by an eclectic mix of things throughout his esteemed life, among them anthropomorphic mice, trains, and cigarettes; and though overshadowed in a trailblazing oeuvre that, in hindsight, includes seminal animated features, immersive theme parks, and generally iconic cultural symbols, Disney’s unwavering interest in nature—and the resulting media he produced—at one point served as a pillar of his empire. His True-Life Adventures series, a collection of 14 nature documentaries released between 1948 and 1960, earned eight Academy Awards for the studio, one of which came in 1954, the year in which Disney won a record-setting four Oscars at a single ceremony; the contemporary Walt Disney Company honors this legacy in the form of its Disneynature division, an imprint, of sorts, that’s been releasing nature documentaries on a near-annual basis since 2008. The company has made a recent habit of releasing new films on or around each Earth Day (which occurs annually on April 22) on the Disney+ streaming service, and 2026’s release, Orangutan, takes viewers to the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra for a glimpse into the lives of—you guessed it—orangutans that live across the islands’ treetops.
Directed by Disneynature veterans Mark Linfield and Vanessa Berlowitz, Orangutan commences with an interesting anecdote: when explorers first arrived on these islands, the locals told them of a species of “forest people” living amongst the treetops, “secretive loners” who isolated themselves from regular humans to avoid work. The bulk of that assessment, quite obviously, turned out to be incorrect, though the notion of orangutans being solitary, or “secretive loners,” has largely endured into today’s conventional wisdom; Orangutan, from its opening moments, sets out to dispel this idea, and does so by spending the bulk of its runtime focusing on a family of primates living high above the forest floor.
Indah, a young female orangutan taking initial steps toward independence, serves as our primary point-of-view character, our window into a world in the sky. She begins the film in close proximity to her mother, Diann, and infant brother, Bimo, but a severe food shortage quickly forces Indah out on her own into other portions of the jungle. Though we get frequent detours into the lives of other orangutans and general animals living across these Southeast Asian islands (including a sun bear whom narrator Josh Gad is needlessly condescending towards), it’s Indah who we spend the most time with, the documentary almost playing out as a coming of age story as we see her figure out life on her own, rekindle old relationships, and form new companionships as she becomes a more independent creature.
As is to be expected from a Disneynature production (or any nature documentary), the scenery throughout the film is simply breathtaking; captured by several on-site photographers, each frame of Orangutan would make an aesthetic desktop background or a pleasant photo to frame on a wall, the occasional wide shots from above the treetops perhaps being the film’s most visually engaging. The photography is truly the backbone of the documentary and the reason why it works on any level; whether it be orangutans, tigers, sun bears, gliding lizards, or any of the countless other creatures featured throughout this film, all animals are framed and captured in a visually compelling way, whether it be through foliage, via extreme close-ups as to accentuate their features, etc. The documentary almost works better as an ambient journey through these islands than as a narrative story (which is not at all surprising when documenting an uncontrolled environment), and some sequences would greatly benefit from a lack of narration.
The subsequent writing and narration are perhaps the most significant issues with this film, as they, at times, feel twee and overly cute. This isn’t necessarily Gad’s fault—his narration is generally fine, and there are some genuinely insightful and educational moments throughout. There are sequences, however, in which the Disney stalwart comes off as a commentator as opposed to a narrator, offering a level of entertainment and insight akin to that of the standard YouTube reaction video; this, again, isn’t his fault, and this isn’t necessarily a problem unique to this particular documentary, but not every moment needs voiceover. Orangutan is at its best when Gad provides only necessary framing and supplementary information, allowing the sounds of the jungle (augmented by Nitin Sawhney’s music) to tell the story.
Fortunately, this is the case more often than not, with arguably the film’s most effective sequences occurring when it allows its stunning photography to coalesce with its restrained narration, score, and sound design to hit its intended emotional beats. One such scene occurs roughly midway through the film when a hungry Indah ventures to the forest floor in search of edible palms; unbeknownst to her, a Sumatran tiger is lurking amongst the foliage, the film conjuring immense tension as this predator slowly approaches our ‘protagonist.’ It’s a surprisingly tense scene that plays almost like a thriller, its efficacy attributed to the documentary’s decision to simply let the story tell itself.
Orangutan can, at times, feel meandering, but every detour ultimately plays a role in the communicated narrative. Some of the tangents are also genuinely interesting and provide great insight into the intelligence of the genus in focus; perhaps the documentary’s most compelling scene comes when Indah is following the aforementioned sun bear with whom Gad has unwarranted beef, Indah watching as the bear locates a beehive and indulges in its honey. Indah does not have claws and, thus, cannot rip into the beehive à la her bear acquaintance; she instead transforms a twig into a tool to reach inside the tree to free additional honey and bee eggs that the bear couldn’t reach. This sequence conveys the orangutan’s environmental awareness and general intelligence: it followed the bear to food and quite literally created a tool to collect the leftovers.
Several of the documentary’s scenes focus on orangutans as they create and utilize tools, with another sequence following them as they craft sleeping nests. These segments help communicate just how singular and intelligent these great apes are, helping to disprove the film’s introductory anecdote that they simply ‘don’t want to work.’ Orangutan also comes to a rather satisfying narrative and thematic conclusion when Indah sparks an almost inseparable companionship with an outsider orangutan named Zaki, reiterating the film’s point that orangutans are not solitary creatures, but instead deeply intelligent, nuanced animals with a robust society who, like humans, value kinship.
Though not necessarily a thought-provoking documentary that will challenge your worldview, Orangutan is a pleasant enough glimpse into a world amongst the treetops in Borneo and Sumatra. The superimposed narrative can feel a bit saccharine at times, but it’s ultimately a beautifully photographed, generally engaging window into the fauna of Southeast Asia, providing some genuinely interesting insight into the lives of not only orangutans, but countless other species in the region. It’s an innocuous, easily digestible documentary that, while perhaps not the most memorable thing in the world, is, at the very least, enjoyable background fodder; there are certainly worse ways to celebrate Earth Day.
