Secret Lives of Orangutans

Secret Lives of Orangutans (2024) is a nature documentary you can watch online on iFILM. David Attenborough narrates, Huw Cordey directs, and the camera spends 78 minutes high in the rainforest canopy of Sumatra with one red-haired ape family.

Over several years the crew tracks individual orangutans through the treetops: a mother teaching her infant which fruit is safe, a teenager copying the grown-ups, an old male keeping the peace from a branch above. The footage gets close enough to read each face. What lands hardest is how little narration it needs — the personalities carry it, and the slow patience of the filming makes the forest feel lived-in rather than staged. Stream Secret Lives of Orangutans (2024) online on iFILM.