Nuisance Bear: Documentary Review

I don’t throw around five stars lightly. But in the case of a thrilling and painfully honest documentary, Nuisance Bear earned my standing ovation.

This story is unrecognizable from your typical narrated nature documentary. You know, the ones you play in the background as a feel-good distraction. Not this. Nothing about Nuisance Bear will have you at a resting heart rate. This film thunders into the complex and challenging issue of living with dangerous wildlife. Having watched it in a packed theater, inside the American Museum of Natural History, it was obvious I wasn’t the only one with a rising cortisol level. Collectively, we were stunned by the hair-raising reality of living in polar bear country.

This feature-length documentary follows a compelling character, or should I say characters, as the story focuses on numerous ‘nuisance bears’ in and around Churchill, Manitoba— the polar bear capital of the world. The hard truth is that the crew filmed multiple polar bears that had been captured, marked, tagged, and relocated after being identified as problem bears. Aka bears with a taste for trash and a downright shocking comfort in strolling through town. Unfortunately, this story isn’t unique. Communities like Churchill are seeing more and more nuisance bears each year. Most folks just don’t have to consider what it’s like to share a doorstep with the largest land predator lurking about.

For wildlife nerds, Churchill is a familiar place. It’s New York City fashion week for polar bears. The Spice Girls reunion tour for animal fanatics. Each year, right around Halloween, hundreds of polar bears gather in Churchill while they wait for Hudson Bay to freeze and their seal hunting to begin. Polar bear fandom has dramatically changed this tiny town, packing tourists in shoulder to shoulder with their mega camera lenses and a hunger for the perfect photo. Nuisance Bear beautifully highlights the absurdity of this chaos. In a way, what this film captures of tourists sort of speaks for itself. You’ll see.

Once I recovered from my initial shock, I messaged back and forth with the Nuisance Bear team, and they offered a helpful tip on how to experience polar bears in Churchill differently—more ethically. Tours led by a local, Inuit small business owner, Leroy Whitmore, who lives in town year-round. His company, Sub-Arctic Tours, offers a lower-impact tour option that is Indigenous-led and tailored for smaller groups.

Visiting Churchill is still at the top of my wildlife viewing bucket list. And now Nuisance Bear feels like a prerequisite for others wanting to venture to the polar bear capital of the world. Often, most tourists miss the complex local perspectives on wildlife. What Nuisance Bear does so intelligently is weaves the dynamic opinions on polar bears in Churchill with respect to travelers, Indigenous Peoples, and, in a way, of the bears themselves as they are forced to navigate a human world.

Nuisance Bear is an absolute must-see for anyone with a curiosity for the complicated. Easily one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen!

Directed by Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman, 2026