Why Seaspiracy is the best new documentary to watch on Netflix right now

REVIEW: Hot on the hooves of the successful Cowspiracy, which, yes, will make you seriously consider how many more sheep and cows you want to have killed for the sake of you being able to eat their flesh, comes Seaspiracy, which takes a similar deep dive into the murky world of commercial fishing.

Film-maker Ali Tabrizi and producer Kip Anderson pack a hell of a lot of information into one 90-minute documentary. I'm guessing that there simply isn't the viewer appetite for these facts and figures to make a series a viable option. Which seems a shame, when you consider how often Netflix spin the slenderest of “true crime” cases into a six or 12-part series.

Seaspiracy, in no particular order, takes in the dolphin cull at Taiji in Southern Japan, the Blue Fin tuna industry, the myth of “sustainable” fishing, the plastics industry, bottom trawling and the horrific exploitation of labour – including murder – that keeps the whole filthy business of supplying cheap fish to markets afloat.

Seaspiracy makes a pretty good case, that unless we change our behaviour soon, the entire fishing industry will have collapsed by 2050, with the world's commercial fish stocks either extinct, or needing generations to recover.

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Staying under the water, Last Breath is an astonishingly tense and compelling true-life documentary on the race to rescue diver Chris Lemons, who became separated from his crew and tether over 100 metres beneath the North Sea, with only limited oxygen.

The window of opportunity to rescue Lemons was tiny – measured in minutes – and Last Breath does a fine job of keeping the clock ticking while the rescuers fight to find the missing man. If you like your stories all wrapped up in a single session, Last Breath is a great wee find.

Or, though it may be close to morally indefensible in these carbon conscious times, the world of Formula One racing still exerts a powerful pull on anyone who is fascinated by the personalities and the technology that keeps those cars going faster with every season.

Now in its third year, Formula 1: Drive to Survive covers the Covid-affected 2020 FI season in exhaustive detail, letting the drivers, engineers and team-bosses tell the story themselves in a familiar and friendly style. The focus is on the relationships more than the cars, and Drive to Survive remains a likeable and watchable show because of that. Guilty pleasures don't come much better-made than this.