Let me start by saying this. If Tom Hanks ever wants to narrate my daily life, I will hand over the reins immediately. Grocery shopping, folding laundry, dramatic internal monologues while stuck in traffic. Whatever it is, I trust him to make it sound noble. And that trust was rewarded in The Americas, a 10-episode nature docuseries that is not just a visual feast but also a warm, thoughtful, sometimes hilarious reminder that Earth is the best reality show we’ve got.
Over the course of this beautifully crafted series, we dive with sperm whales in the deep ocean, and take in the drama of a hummingbird turf war. I’m not making that up. The stakes are high. The wings are fast. The hummingbirds are petty.
Every episode feels like its own little love letter to a different region of the Americas, complete with animals you’ve never seen before and landscapes so stunning they made me forget I was watching this on my couch under a blanket. It turns out Patagonia is not just a brand of outerwear favored by dads and tech bros but an actual place, and it is absurdly gorgeous. Like offensively gorgeous. Like the kind of place that makes you feel personally attacked for having ever complained about your apartment view.
But what really elevates this series is the narration. Tom Hanks is exactly who you want walking you through all of this. He has the gravitas of Attenborough with a side of cozy familiarity that makes even the most brutal predator-prey moment feel like a bedtime story. When you hear Hanks quietly reflect on the harshness of nature, it doesn’t feel manipulative. It just feels… human.
There are moments that will genuinely make you laugh. There is a scene where a raccoon outsmarts a film crew and I swear you can hear the twinkle of mischief in Hanks’s voice. There are moments that will make you want to cry into your snack bowl, and you start re-evaluating every decision you’ve ever made. There are even moments that feel so unreal, you’ll be convinced the producers hired VFX artists and just told everyone to pretend it was real footage.
But it’s real. All of it. That is the part that sticks with you. That in this chaotic world, these places exist. These animals exist. This beauty is happening right now without a single influencer in sight. Just the natural world, doing its thing.
I will say, and I’ve seen others online reiterate this as well, that the show doesn’t lean as heavily into environmental issues as it could have. Climate change is touched on but not central. For some viewers, that might feel like a missed opportunity. For others, it will be a welcome break from doomscrolling. I fall somewhere in the middle. Would I have liked to see more urgency around preservation? Yes. Am I still going to rewatch the Gulf Coast episode 47 more times while whispering “look at those manatees” with tears in my eyes? Also yes.
From the sweeping Hans Zimmer score to the innovative camera work to the fact that someone somehow captured a sperm whale’s eye-view as it dove into the deep, The Americas feels like the kind of show that should be shown in schools, on planes, and quite possibly in therapy.
Final Verdict: 5 out of 5 stars.
If The Americas was a person, I would write it a thank-you note and bake it banana bread. It is stunning, heartwarming, occasionally heartbreaking, and narrated by the human equivalent of a hug. Watch it with your family. Watch it with your pets. Watch it by yourself with a snack and the lights turned low. Just watch it.
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