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Nuisance Bear

The critic (4 out of 5)★★★★☆

A hushed, beautifully shot study of a polar bear that wanders into a town that both loves and fears it. Critics praise its patient camerawork, its Inuit narration and its refusal to cast a villain; the reservations are a slow start and a restraint that some will read as holding back.

Nuisance Bear is a Sundance prize-winner that watches rather than lectures, and it is best seen big.

Review · 4 min read

Dir. Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman · 2026 · about 90 min · in cinemas from 6 November

The setup

Every autumn, polar bears wait on the shore of Hudson Bay for the sea ice to form, and every autumn some of them wander into Churchill, Manitoba, a town that bills itself as the polar bear capital of the world. Tourists and photographers crowd in to see them. Wildlife officers treat the same animals as a hazard, and a bear that keeps coming back to town earns a label: nuisance. The film is built on that word and on the question it hides, which is who is trespassing on whom.

It is the first feature from Osio Vanden and Weisman, who also shot it, and it grows out of their own 2021 short of the same name. It won the US Documentary Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in January 2026, and Mubi bought worldwide rights a few months later. That is as far as this review goes into the story; there is nothing here you need to avoid.

What works

Almost every critic starts with the camera. Reviewers describe close, patient photography that sits at the bears' level, with tracking shots and long takes instead of cutaways, and one writer compares it with the best of David Attenborough's work. Several point out that there are no talking-head interviews and no title cards: the film watches, and lets the viewer work out the rest.

The second thing reviewers single out is the voice. The narration comes from the Inuit elder Mike Tunalaaq Gibbons, who gives the polar bear story a longer history, and the film moves from Churchill to Arviat, an Inuit community in Nunavut, to widen the frame. The score is by Cristobal Tapia de Veer, and critics describe it as muted and inquisitive, sometimes with a playful edge. Taken together, reviewers say, the film avoids the cute, comic framing that nature documentaries often fall back on, and refuses to cast anyone as a simple villain.

a beautifully shot and artistically innovative environmental fable

Pat Mullen, POV Magazine

What doesn't

The reservations are consistent and mild. One review finds the portrait of Churchill a little laboured at the start, with the pace picking up later. Another says the observational style leaves little room to dig into the argument over whether polar bear numbers are falling. A third thinks the film's detachment may leave some viewers wanting a sharper critique, and a fourth notes that without an expert voice you have to infer some distinctions between individual bears for yourself.

Critics split more on temperament than on quality. Most call the restraint a strength; a few read it as the film declining to take a position. The scores reflect that: from four out of five and glowing Sundance write-ups at one end to a cooler three-star reading at the other.

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Our score of four out of five sits with the clear majority. It is a gorgeously shot, carefully restrained film that treats a familiar subject differently, held just short of the top by a slow start and a reluctance to argue its case.

Where to watch

Mubi holds worldwide rights. A cinema release is reported for Los Angeles on 6 November 2026, followed by New York, Canada and the UK on 4 December. No streaming date has been announced at the time of writing. Availability and release dates vary by country, so check your local listings.

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