Mubi has announced theatrical release dates for Nuisance Bear, the documentary that won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. The film will open in Los Angeles on November 6, followed by releases in New York, Canada and the United Kingdom on December 4. The distributor announced the dates on Wednesday, October 14, alongside the release of a new trailer, according to Deadline, which premiered the trailer exclusively.
According to the film’s official synopsis, Nuisance Bear explores the lives of polar bears that have migrated along the shores of Hudson Bay in northern Canada for thousands of years. Their ancient rhythms now collide with a human world shaped by tourism, surveillance and control. The documentary immerses viewers in the experience of a polar bear navigating tourists, wildlife officers and hunters as climate change delays the annual freeze and pushes bears closer to human settlements. When a revered predator is labelled a “nuisance,” the film raises questions about who truly belongs in this shared landscape.
The filmmakers shot the documentary in Churchill, Manitoba, which calls itself the “Polar Bear Capital of the World.” The film observes bears being monitored, photographed and redirected, challenging conventional approaches to nature documentaries. Rather than presenting the animals merely as spectacles, it portrays them as active participants in a rapidly changing world.
Directed and filmed by Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden, Nuisance Bear expands on the filmmakers’ 2021 short film of the same name, which Sundance describes as Oscar-shortlisted. Weisman and Osio Vanden also serve as directors of photography, with additional cinematography by Sam Holling, Michael Code, Ian Kerr and Jack Gawthrop.
In a statement, the directors said their aim was “to collapse the distance between audience and subject.” By placing viewers within the bear’s perspective while revealing the human forces shaping its journey, they seek to challenge audiences to see the landscape, “both natural and political,” as a shared and increasingly contested space.
The documentary has received several honours since its festival debut. Alongside its Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at Sundance, it won the 2026 Werner Herzog Film Award, took the top prize at the Silk Road International Film Festival in China and received the James Balog Creative Vision Award at Mountainfilm in Telluride, Colorado. Deadline reported that Herzog himself praised the film, which has also been described as “beautifully crafted and meticulously composed.”
The film recently received five nominations for the upcoming Critics Choice Documentary Awards. Among the nominated categories are Best First Documentary Feature, Best Science/Nature Documentary and Best Cinematography.
Andres Landau edited Nuisance Bear, while Cristóbal Tapia De Veer composed the score. Mike Tunalaaq Gibbons narrates the film. The producers are Weisman, Osio Vanden, Will N. Miller, Teddy Leifer and Michael Code. Executive producers include Nicole Stott, Emily Osborne, Harry Go, Nicole Quintero Ochoa, Eric Anoee, Joe Karetak, Alex Pritz, Moudhy Al-Rashid, Sam Frohman, Christine D’Souza, Julia Nelson, Adriana Banta, Emily Goldner, ZZ and Mike Anders.
In a Sundance interview, the directors discussed their approach to filming the animals. Cameras were mounted on vehicles, a method Osio Vanden said felt safer and more respectful to the bears. Weisman described the shoot as largely an exercise in patience, saying, “Mostly nothing happened. We were living on a prayer.” The team subsequently spent approximately a year and a half editing more than 700 hours of footage. Tapia De Veer was asked to keep the score restrained, avoiding sentimentality and sweeping orchestral passages.
Screen Daily gave the documentary a positive review following its Sundance screening, praising its cinematography and restrained style while describing it as well suited to big-screen distribution. The review noted that the film avoids talking-head interviews and instead relies on narration by Gibbons, an elder from the Inuit community of Arviat. It also praised the filmmakers for honouring a fragile ecosystem without suggesting that its challenges have easy solutions.
Arianna Bocco, Mubi’s global senior vice-president of distribution and acquisitions, said the company had been mesmerised by both the story of the so-called nuisance bear and its wider implications for humanity. Calling the documentary “beautiful and profound,” Bocco said Mubi was “thrilled to be working with Jack and Gabriela on their stunning feature debut.”
With its theatrical rollout now scheduled across North America and the United Kingdom, Nuisance Bear will bring its exploration of wildlife, human intervention and an increasingly contested natural environment to cinema audiences beyond the festival circuit.