Everest: The Other Side (United States, 2026)

Spoiler warning: Although this is a documentary chronicling historically established events, I am aware that some potential viewers may not know how things turned out. This review candidly discusses the results, so those who wish to preserve a sense of "surprise" are advised not to proceed. You have been warned.

There are two kinds of people who seek to climb Mount Everest: those who see it as a "bucket list" item—not that different from participating in a threesome or visiting Antarctica—and those who are drawn to the adrenaline and challenge of an extreme activity. While those in the former category opt for the safest options (to the extent that any Everest summit can be considered "safe"), those in the latter often choose difficult, dangerous ways to make their journey unique.

Everest: The Other Side is the follow-up from directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin to their 2018 breakout film, Free Solo. The two, who were married at the time, began laying the groundwork for their next project not long after completing Free Solo. The focus was to be on the efforts of two of their friends, extreme climbers Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson, to ascend the North Face of Mount Everest to the summit and then come back down on skis. After COVID closed the mountain and delayed the expedition, they were finally able to get underway in 2022. While training on Manaslu (another of the 8,000-meter Himalayan giants), Hilaree was swept to her death by an avalanche.

After experiencing an intense period of grief and isolation, Morrison decided to dedicate himself to attempting the feat as a tribute to his dead partner. With the cameras rolling, he ramped up preparations for what would be two failed expeditions (one in 2023, which was derailed by bureaucracy, and another in 2024, which was cut short by an avalanche and a key injury) prior to the successful push in autumn 2025.

While Morrison's obsessive attempts represent the skeleton of Everest: The Other Side, his tendencies are only one aspect touched on by the film. The first act chronicles the duo as a happy couple who have found love in both each other and their all-consuming passion. Interviews filmed with Hilaree before her death recount her feelings on various subjects, including the possibility of not surviving a climb. Although the original intention had been to follow the pair through their journey, Chai Vasarhelyi and Chin had to refocus following her death. Consequently, although she is very much a part of the early proceedings, she eventually becomes a ghostly presence. The moment the avalanche sweeps her off the mountain and the discovery of her body are both shown because cameras were shooting.

Hilaree comes across less sympathetically than Jim. As we learn during the course of the film, he lost his wife and two children in a 2011 plane crash, and their deaths shaped the rest of his life. He climbed as a way to fill the void and somehow feel closer to them. Hilaree, on the other hand, had two teenage sons at the time of her death, and their grief is fleetingly captured by the film. The unasked (and therefore unanswered) question is whether they perceived her prioritization of climbing as a betrayal. She speaks of risk-taking as a compulsion she cannot deny and rationalizes that she tries to make the time she spends with the boys as meaningful as possible. Those words ring hollow in light of what happens.

One aspect of the subtext that the movie keeps mostly off-screen is that, as they were making the movie, the directors' marriage was crumbling. This is evident in only one scene—a domestic shot of Chai Vasarhelyi and Chin discussing how many people who had dined with them were now dead. There's a bitterness in her tone that hints at an underlying tension. The two filed for divorce in 2025, prior to Jim's successful summit. Although they dissolved their marriage, they remain business and creative partners.

While Everest: The Other Side gives us a cathartic ending, it ultimately does a better job of detailing the nitty-gritty of the trips than of examining Jim's character. Despite being the primary subject of the film's 115 minutes, he remains less realized than Hilaree, who is only around for the first 30 minutes. He's a little like Ahab: singularly obsessed with his Moby Dick. While we see the grief—how could one not, considering how much he has lost?—other aspects of his humanity likely ended up on the cutting room floor.

The standout aspect of the film is the cinematography. This is unsurprising given how awe-inspiring the region is, but the extensive use of drone footage allows the filmmakers to capture images unlike those seen in any other film. This is especially true of Morrison's return ski trip, which combines first-person photography (from a wearable camera) with sweeping bird's-eye perspectives. The spectacle element of Everest: The Other Side cannot be discounted when deciding whether to see the film theatrically (I personally caught it in IMAX) or wait for its streaming availability. The emotional core will remain the same regardless, but the soaring images of Everest—both its ferocity and its majesty—are best experienced on a large screen. In terms of movies documenting the harrowing realities of humanity's struggles against nature's most daunting obstacles, Everest: The Other Side doesn't quite strike as rich and resonant a chord as Free Solo or Touching the Void, but the setting alone allows it to come close to the peak of those productions.

Everest: The Other Side (United States, 2026)