# Life on Our Planet
**Life on Our Planet** is an eight-episode Netflix nature documentary series, released on October 25, 2023, that tells the history of life on Earth across roughly 4 billion years, combining footage of living wildlife with computer-generated reconstructions of long-extinct organisms.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/life_on_our_planet) • [2](https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/how-is-life-on-our-planet-made) It was produced by Silverback Films in association with Amblin Television, the team behind the Emmy-winning series *Our Planet*, and is narrated by [Morgan Freeman](https://www.edgepedia.org/morgan-freeman).[3](https://amblin.com/tv/life-on-our-planet/) • [4](https://www.televisionacademy.com/shows/life-our-planet)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| First release | October 25, 2023, on Netflix; 8 episodes of about 51 minutes each; TV-PG[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/life_on_our_planet) • [5](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/life-on-our-planet) |
| Narrator | Morgan Freeman, nominated for the 2024 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Narrator for "Chapter 1: The Rules Of Life"[4](https://www.televisionacademy.com/shows/life-our-planet) |
| Executive producers | Steven Spielberg, Darryl Frank, Justin Falvey, Alastair Fothergill, Keith Scholey, and Dan Tapster (showrunner)[3](https://amblin.com/tv/life-on-our-planet/) • [6](https://www.awn.com/news/pairing-natural-history-and-vfx-together-life-our-planet) |
| Visual effects | Industrial Light & Magic; VFX account for 30 to 40 percent of each episode, the rest filmed in 45 countries[7](https://silverbackfilms.tv/the-making-of-life-on-our-planet/) |
| Framing device | Five mass extinctions in Earth's history structure the story of dynastic species rising and falling[6](https://www.awn.com/news/pairing-natural-history-and-vfx-together-life-our-planet) |
| Ratings | Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 50% from 6 reviews, Popcornmeter 69%; IMDb 8.1 from roughly 8,000 user votes[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/life_on_our_planet) • [5](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/life-on-our-planet) |
## Spoilers
### Premise and narrative structure
The series sets out to tell the complete story of life on Earth rather than only the species alive today. Per its official synopsis, it follows "life's extraordinary journey to conquer, adapt and survive on Earth across billions of years," and the marketing copy describes the story of a 4 billion-year journey told through "its ruling dynasties, its underdogs and the cataclysmic events that reshaped it."[5](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/life-on-our-planet) • [1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/life_on_our_planet) Showrunner Dan Tapster oversaw the eight episodes, which chronicle the rise and fall of successive dominant groups of organisms; the narrative is framed around five mass extinctions in Earth's history.[6](https://www.awn.com/news/pairing-natural-history-and-vfx-together-life-our-planet) Episode titles include "Chapter 1: The Rules Of Life," "Chapter 6: Out of the Ashes," "Chapter 7: Inheriting the Earth," and "Chapter 8: Age of Ice and Fire."[4](https://www.televisionacademy.com/shows/life-our-planet) • [5](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/life-on-our-planet)
The scale of the subject shaped the production. Producer-director and writer Sophie Lanfear described an extended research and development phase before fieldwork began, asking where to start with "essentially 500 million years of complex life."[8](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-filmmaking-magic-behind-the-making-of-netflixs-life-on-our-planet/)
## Production: natural history filming meets visual effects
The series' defining method is a hybrid. It pairs real natural-history cinematography, shot in real locations, with hyperrealistic CGI creatures built by [Industrial Light & Magic](https://www.edgepedia.org/industrial-light-and-magic) (ILM), the effects company founded for the 1993 dinosaur film *Jurassic Park*, whose director [Steven Spielberg](https://www.edgepedia.org/steven-spielberg) came on board as an executive producer.[2](https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/how-is-life-on-our-planet-made) [Visual effects](https://www.edgepedia.org/visual-effects) supervisor Jonathan Privett led the creature work at ILM.[6](https://www.awn.com/news/pairing-natural-history-and-vfx-together-life-our-planet)
**Real locations, digital animals.** The filmmakers deliberately filmed real backdrops rather than building CGI environments, on the view that real locations make the effects more believable and help the prehistoric sequences blend with the modern natural-history footage.[8](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-filmmaking-magic-behind-the-making-of-netflixs-life-on-our-planet/) Because the show was made as a nature documentary, even its most speculative scenes had to be staged and shot like one; many natural "sets" had to be digitally scrubbed of contemporary plants in post production so that ancient creatures would not appear among modern vegetation.[2](https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/how-is-life-on-our-planet-made) Most of the visual effects photography was captured by cinematographer Jamie McPherson, and shooting took three years in part because the production limited itself to one or two principal cinematographers.[6](https://www.awn.com/news/pairing-natural-history-and-vfx-together-life-our-planet)
Visual effects account for only part of each episode: Silverback Films states that VFX make up 30 to 40 percent of an episode, with the remainder being conventional wildlife footage from 45 countries including Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Morocco, and the United Kingdom.[7](https://silverbackfilms.tv/the-making-of-life-on-our-planet/) Pre-visualization was done with a low-tech method the team called "preschool pre-vis" or "plastic pre-vis": scenes were played out with plastic dinosaur toys and Lego tracking vehicles, filmed on a phone, then turned into storyboards for ILM and Netflix.[8](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-filmmaking-magic-behind-the-making-of-netflixs-life-on-our-planet/)
## Science and creature design
Roughly 65 prehistoric creatures were built as digital "assets," from the [Tyrannosaurus](https://www.edgepedia.org/tyrannosaurus) rex and [Triceratops](https://www.edgepedia.org/triceratops) to the four-winged dinosaur *Anchiornis* and a 12-foot, 7-ton woolly mammoth.[7](https://silverbackfilms.tv/the-making-of-life-on-our-planet/) • [2](https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/how-is-life-on-our-planet-made) Each animal was researched with the series' resident palaeontologist, [Tom Fletcher](https://www.edgepedia.org/tom-fletcher), and documented in a fact file of around 60 pages covering the skeleton, musculature, ligaments, tongue, teeth, skin, fur, feathers, eyes, feet, and body mass, all supplied to ILM as the basis for the models.[7](https://silverbackfilms.tv/the-making-of-life-on-our-planet/)
The series sits in a recent lineage of hybrid prehistoric documentaries. It followed *Prehistoric Planet*, produced by Apple, the BBC, and the visual effects company MPC, which recreated the [Cretaceous](https://www.edgepedia.org/cretaceous) period; both shows combine Oscar-winning visual effects companies with natural-history cinematographers to turn fossils into living creatures.[6](https://www.awn.com/news/pairing-natural-history-and-vfx-together-life-our-planet) • [9](https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/supplement_posts/wildlife-filming-and-cgi/)
## Reception and awards
Professional and audience responses diverged. On Rotten Tomatoes the series scored 50% on the Tomatometer from 6 critics but 69% on the audience Popcornmeter from more than 100 ratings; on IMDb it holds 8.1 out of 10 from about 8,000 votes.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/life_on_our_planet) • [5](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/life-on-our-planet) The *Independent* framed its October 2023 release as a head-to-head with [David Attenborough](https://www.edgepedia.org/david-attenborough)'s BBC series *Planet Earth III*, arriving within days of each other.[10](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/david-attenborough-morgan-freeman-bbc-netflix-b2433244.html)
The series gathered nominations across documentary, music, and craft categories: a 2023 Critics' Choice Documentary Award nomination for Best Science/Nature Documentary; a 2023 Hollywood Music in Media Award and a 2024 International Film Music Critics Award nomination for Lorne Balfe's original score; a 2024 Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Narrator; and 2024 nominations at the Golden Trailer Awards, the Televisual Bulldog Awards (Best Music and Best VFX), the Cinema for Peace International Green Film Award, and the AMPS Award for Excellence in Sound for a Factual Film (Kate Hopkins).[11](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23181388/awards/) • [12](https://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/life-on-our-planet/1060291666/)
## Concert adaptation and streaming
Balfe's score supported a spin-off stage production, *Life on Our Planet in Concert*, presented by esk film in association with Netflix and Silverback Films, which toured in 2024 and 2025 with highlights from the series accompanied by a live soundtrack.[13](https://lifeonourplanetinconcert.com/)
Streaming availability has shifted since release. JustWatch, checking 376 services in late October 2026, listed the series as available to stream on Netflix and Netflix Standard with Ads in the United States; Flixboss, by contrast, records the title as removed from Netflix in the US on July 5, 2026, while remaining available on Netflix in more than 30 other countries.[5](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/life-on-our-planet) • [14](https://flixboss.com/series/life-on-our-planet-80213846)
## References
1. [Life on Our Planet, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/life_on_our_planet)
2. [How 'Life on Our Planet' Brought Extinct Creatures Back to Life, Netflix Tudum](https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/how-is-life-on-our-planet-made)
3. [Life on Our Planet – About the Show, Amblin](https://amblin.com/tv/life-on-our-planet/)
4. [Life On Our Planet – Emmy Awards and Nominations, Television Academy](https://www.televisionacademy.com/shows/life-our-planet)
5. [Life on Our Planet (2023), JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/life-on-our-planet)
6. [Pairing Natural History and VFX Together in 'Life on Our Planet', Animation World Network](https://www.awn.com/news/pairing-natural-history-and-vfx-together-life-our-planet)
7. [The making of Life on Our Planet, Silverback Films](https://silverbackfilms.tv/the-making-of-life-on-our-planet/)
8. [The Filmmaking Magic Behind the Making of Netflix's Life on Our Planet, Den of Geek](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-filmmaking-magic-behind-the-making-of-netflixs-life-on-our-planet/)
9. [Wild Filming / Wildlife filming and CGI, British Cinematographer](https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/supplement_posts/wildlife-filming-and-cgi/)
10. [The battle of the behemoths: David Attenborough and Morgan Freeman go head-to-head, The Independent](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/david-attenborough-morgan-freeman-bbc-netflix-b2433244.html)
11. [Life on Our Planet (2023) – Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23181388/awards/)
12. [Life on Our Planet – Where to Watch and Stream, TV Guide](https://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/life-on-our-planet/1060291666/)
13. [Life on Our Planet in Concert](https://lifeonourplanetinconcert.com/)
14. [Where to watch 'Life on Our Planet (2023)' on Netflix, Flixboss](https://flixboss.com/series/life-on-our-planet-80213846)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Documentary, docudrama, and lifestyle series › Nature, wildlife, and science documentary series*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license