# Survive
**Survive** is a 2020 American adventure drama series starring [Sophie Turner](https://www.edgepedia.org/sophie-turner) and [Corey Hawkins](https://www.edgepedia.org/corey-hawkins) as the only two survivors of a plane crash in a snow-covered mountain wilderness. It was created for the short-form streaming platform [Quibi](https://www.edgepedia.org/quibi), where its twelve chapters of roughly seven to ten minutes each premiered daily beginning April 6, 2020, and it was later reissued as a single feature film.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/survive/s01) • [2](https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/freestyle-digital-media-acquires-mark-211741491.html)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Premiere | April 6, 2020, on Quibi, with the first three chapters released that day[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/survive/s01) • [3](https://culturemixonline.com/review-survive-starring-sophie-turner-corey-hawkins/) |
| Format | 12 episodes (chapters) of about 7 to 10 minutes, designed for phone viewing in horizontal or vertical orientation[4](https://www.crew-united.com/en/Survive__275966.html) • [5](https://www.sensacine.com.mx/series/serie-25650/) |
| Source | Adaptation of Alex Morel's 2012 young adult novel of the same name[2](https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/freestyle-digital-media-acquires-mark-211741491.html) |
| Key personnel | Director Mark Pellington; screenwriters Richard Abate and Jeremy Ungar; production companies Gunpowder & Sky and Forma Pro Films[4](https://www.crew-united.com/en/Survive__275966.html) |
| Cast | Sophie Turner as Jane, Corey Hawkins as Paul; Caroline Goodall as Jane's mother[6](https://www.senscritique.com/serie/Survive/40299248) |
| Reception | 56% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (27 reviews) and 70% on the audience Popcornmeter; 5.9/10 on IMDb from about 1,800 users[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/survive/s01) • [7](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11041046/ratings/) |
| Afterlife | Quibi shut down in October 2020; Roku acquired the library in January 2021, and a 1 hour 48 minute film version reached video on demand on June 20, 2023[8](https://www.axios.com/2020/10/21/quibi-shutting-down-streaming) • [9](https://www.axios.com/2021/01/08/roku-acquires-quibi) • [2](https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/freestyle-digital-media-acquires-mark-211741491.html) |
## Spoilers
### Premise
Jane (Sophie Turner) is a young woman with depression and suicidal thoughts who has talked her way out of a psychiatric facility for a holiday visit to her mother. She steals pills and boards the flight home intending to end her life mid-flight. The plane instead crashes in cold, snowy mountains near Oregon, leaving Jane and fellow passenger Paul (Corey Hawkins) as the only survivors, and the crash gives her a new drive to stay alive as the two trek toward safety.[10](https://www.pluggedin.com/tv-reviews/survive/) • [5](https://www.sensacine.com.mx/series/serie-25650/)
The story follows the pair's fight against brutal conditions and their own psychological burdens. Paul is the optimist of the two, Jane the pessimist, and their contrasting outlooks drive both the survival plot and a growing bond between them.[3](https://culturemixonline.com/review-survive-starring-sophie-turner-corey-hawkins/) Because of its subject matter, each episode opens with a disclaimer about depictions of suicide and mental illness, and early episodes carry a warning with a hotline number for viewers who may be triggered.[11](https://www.joblo.com/tv-review-survive-quibi/) • [10](https://www.pluggedin.com/tv-reviews/survive/)
## Production and format
The series is an adaptation of Alex Morel's 2012 novel *Survive*, published by Razorbill/Penguin, in which the suicidal teenager Jane Solis and a fellow passenger named Paul crash in a remote mountain range and struggle toward rescue.[2](https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/freestyle-digital-media-acquires-mark-211741491.html) • [12](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alex-morel/survive-morel/) Morel has said the germ of the story was placing a person who wants to die into a situation where she suddenly has to fight for her life.[13](https://thecinemaholic.com/survive-jane-paul/)
**Quibi's constraints shaped the show.** Quibi, founded by former Walt Disney Studio chairman [Jeffrey Katzenberg](https://www.edgepedia.org/jeffrey-katzenberg), was built entirely around short-form, phone-first storytelling, with every piece of content ten minutes or less and a "Turnstyle" feature letting viewers switch between horizontal and vertical viewing.[10](https://www.pluggedin.com/tv-reviews/survive/) • [14](https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/download/13281/11624/86546) Director Mark Pellington, known for films such as *Arlington Road*, customized the editing so the landscape and portrait versions each worked as compositions, and the production's cinematography of snow-covered mountains was widely noted as unusually ambitious for a show meant to be watched on a phone screen.[15](https://filmmakermagazine.com/109556-whats-happening-in-the-vertical-version-mark-pellington-on-quibi-series-film-survive/) • [16](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/04/quibi-streaming-review)
The twelve chapters together run about the length of a feature film; episodes average between 7 and 8 minutes, so the whole season is not much longer than a single long episode of Turner's previous series *Game of Thrones*.[10](https://www.pluggedin.com/tv-reviews/survive/) Reviewers noted that the first episode is set entirely in the psychiatric facility, called Lifehouse in the source novel, and that the crash itself does not occur until several chapters in.[11](https://www.joblo.com/tv-review-survive-quibi/) • [17](https://www.sweetandsourmovies.com/tv-reviews-2020/2020/4/7/survive-pits-sophie-turner-against-winter-again-in-this-so-so-adventure)
## Reception
Critical response was mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes the season holds a 56% Tomatometer from 27 reviews, with the site's critics consensus stating that the show "struggles under the weight of its subject matter and limited runtime" while calling Turner "worthy of bigger, better roles"; the audience Popcornmeter stands at 70%.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/survive/s01) IMDb users rate it 5.9 out of 10 from about 1,800 ratings.[7](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11041046/ratings/)
Reviewers frequently praised the two leads while criticizing the format. Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson called the show an odd fit for Quibi's dimensions, questioning why a story of sweeping mountain vistas was made solely for tiny screens, though he found Turner and Hawkins compelling.[16](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/04/quibi-streaming-review) Time's critic judged Turner "great" and the production values impressive but felt the story did not earn them.[18](https://time.com/5815336/quibi-what-to-watch/) Other reviews highlighted the good chemistry between Turner and Hawkins and the movie-quality cinematography, while finding the pacing and character development rushed by the short chapter format.[19](https://www.frightday.com/a-666-character-review-of-quibis-survive-so-far/) The series received one Primetime Emmy nomination, for Outstanding Actor in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series.[20](https://www.tvinsider.com/show/survive/)
## Afterlife
Quibi launched on April 6, 2020 and announced its shutdown six months later, in October 2020, having struggled to hit subscriber targets during the pandemic; the company had raised $1.75 billion from investors including Alibaba, the Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal, and [WarnerMedia](https://www.edgepedia.org/warnermedia).[8](https://www.axios.com/2020/10/21/quibi-shutting-down-streaming) In January 2021, Roku acquired the rights to Quibi's library of 75 original shows and began releasing them free on [The Roku Channel](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-roku-channel) as Roku Originals.[9](https://www.axios.com/2021/01/08/roku-acquires-quibi)
**The film version.** In May 2023, Freestyle Digital Media acquired U.S. rights to *Survive* as a single feature film directed by Pellington, releasing it on video on demand on June 20, 2023 with a runtime of 1 hour 48 minutes.[2](https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/freestyle-digital-media-acquires-mark-211741491.html) • [21](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/survive_2020) The film keeps the same premise and leads and was distributed by Freestyle Digital Media, produced by [Gunpowder](https://www.edgepedia.org/gunpowder) & Sky and EMH Consulting Group.[21](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/survive_2020) The adaptation differs from the novel's ending: in the book, Paul dies of his injuries after Jane goes for help alone, while the series has Jane learn after her rescue that Paul was found dead the following day.[12](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alex-morel/survive-morel/) • [22](https://buchkurz.com/survive-wenn-der-schnee-mein-herz-beruhrt-alex-morel/)
## References
1. [Survive: Season 1, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/survive/s01)
2. [Freestyle Digital Media Acquires Mark Pellington's Thriller 'Survive' Starring Sophie Turner & Corey Hawkins, Deadline via Yahoo](https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/freestyle-digital-media-acquires-mark-211741491.html)
3. [Review: 'Survive,' starring Sophie Turner and Corey Hawkins, Culture Mix](https://culturemixonline.com/review-survive-starring-sophie-turner-corey-hawkins/)
4. [Survive, TV Series, Crew United](https://www.crew-united.com/en/Survive__275966.html)
5. [Survive, SensaCine](https://www.sensacine.com.mx/series/serie-25650/)
6. [Survive, SensCritique](https://www.senscritique.com/serie/Survive/40299248)
7. [Survive (TV Mini Series 2020) Ratings, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11041046/ratings/)
8. [Quibi says it's shutting down, Axios](https://www.axios.com/2020/10/21/quibi-shutting-down-streaming)
9. [Roku acquires Quibi's library of content, Axios](https://www.axios.com/2021/01/08/roku-acquires-quibi)
10. [Survive, Plugged In TV Review](https://www.pluggedin.com/tv-reviews/survive/)
11. [TV Review: Quibi's Survive starring Sophie Turner, JoBlo](https://www.joblo.com/tv-review-survive-quibi/)
12. [Survive by Alex Morel, Kirkus Reviews](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alex-morel/survive-morel/)
13. [Is Survive Based on a Real Plane Crash? The Cinemaholic](https://thecinemaholic.com/survive-jane-paul/)
14. [Cell phone fiction: Serial poetics and platform vernacular, First Monday](https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/download/13281/11624/86546)
15. [Mark Pellington on Quibi Series/Film Survive, Filmmaker Magazine](https://filmmakermagazine.com/109556-whats-happening-in-the-vertical-version-mark-pellington-on-quibi-series-film-survive/)
16. [Quibi Review: New Streaming App Shows Off Its Short Shorts, Vanity Fair](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/04/quibi-streaming-review)
17. [TV Review: Survive - Season 1, Sweet and Sour Movies](https://www.sweetandsourmovies.com/tv-reviews-2020/2020/4/7/survive-pits-sophie-turner-against-winter-again-in-this-so-so-adventure)
18. [We Watched Every New Show on Quibi, Time](https://time.com/5815336/quibi-what-to-watch/)
19. [A 666-Character Review of Quibi's 'Survive', Frightday](https://www.frightday.com/a-666-character-review-of-quibis-survive-so-far/)
20. [Survive, The Roku Channel Series, TV Insider](https://www.tvinsider.com/show/survive/)
21. [Survive (2020 film), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/survive_2020)
22. [Survive by Alex Morel: Zusammenfassung, Figuren & Analyse, Buchkurz](https://buchkurz.com/survive-wenn-der-schnee-mein-herz-beruhrt-alex-morel/)
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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 › Web-native and streaming-original series › Comedy, drama, and general-genre web series › Premiered 2017 to 2021*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 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