Absolutely no surprises in the news that Netflix has released a documentary about the 2023 OceanGate submarine disaster, says streaming columnist NICK OVERALL.

When the world was gripped by the OceanGate disaster in 2023 the comments about a Netflix documentary had already begun ringing out across social media.

People just knew that the streaming giant would undeniably be among the first to jump on making a film or series about the strange and sad saga of the doomed submarine.

Boy, were those comments accurate.

Just over two years on from the day the Titan submersible disappeared while on an expedition to the Titanic, a documentary has already made its way into the Netflix catalogue.

It’s called Titan: The OceanGate Disaster and it promises to dive deep into new detail about how the catastrophic endeavour went so wrong and why.

But Netflix might not have been quite quick enough to the punch his time around.

A BBC2 documentary called Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster cheekily aired in late May, getting ahead of Netflix’s documentary release by just a few weeks.

Which is the more authoritative account of the disaster?

While BBC’s doco has been released first, Netflix’s almost doubles it in length and, in turn, does offer a more comprehensive look into the tragedy for those who want as much detail as possible.

Winding back the clock a few years, it also takes an up-close look at the psyche of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, the man who infamously went down with the ship.

It turns out there’s a lot more to this story than what’s already out there, making the doco’s tag line “the deeper you look the darker it gets” pretty spot on.

UNMISSABLE on Disney Plus this month is David Attenborough’s epic new documentary Ocean.

In it, the 99-year-old naturalist has delivered one of the most awe-inspiring looks at the underwater world ever put to screen.

What sets Ocean apart though is its focus on unsustainable fishing that is devastating marine environments.

For the first time, cameras have captured the destruction caused by trawling and the results are frightening, to say the least.

In a behind-the-scenes interview that was included in the cinematic release of the film, one of the cameramen comments on how the footage of this trawling will do more for the conservation effort than anything else they’ve shot before.

It’s an urgent and powerful message. Attenborough puts forward a sensible argument not to eliminate industrial fishing but to rethink its boundaries. Even if you’re unable to watch the documentary on Disney Plus, the bottom trawling is still worth a watch on YouTube. It only takes a minute and it’s absolutely eye opening. With Attenborough about to hit 100 years old there’s a good chance Ocean may be his swan song. If it is, there couldn’t be a more important film for it.

IS there any modern actor more synonymous with playing gangsters than Tom Hardy?

Lawless, Legend, Peaky Blinders. These are to name just a few of the films and TV shows where he’s played the players of criminal underworlds.

Hell, he was even cast as Al Capone in the 2020 biopic about the most notorious gangsters of all time.

It’s no surprise then that Hardy is front and centre of Paramount Plus’ new series MobLand, which has proved a streaming hit.

He’s cast as Harry Da Souza, a middle man called into mediate a gang war threatening to spiral out of control in modern-day London.

The fuse is lit when Eddie, the son of an Irish crime dynasty patriarch, is stabbed at a nightclub by a rival mob.

Now it’s Harry’s job to navigate the brewing tension and power struggle that ensues.

Doubling down on the talent, the creative direction of MobLand is in the safe hands of Guy Ritchie. If you don’t recognise his name, you might recognise his work. The Gentleman, Sherlock Holmes and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels are just a few examples.

The pairing of him and Hardy has proven a powerhouse success for Paramount Plus. MobLand managed to rack up almost nine million viewers in its first week alone. Well deserved.