Marketing & Communications

New Netflix Drama Brings Trials of Climate Migration Closer to Home

‘Families Like Ours’ poses pertinent questions: What if it happened to you? How would you rebuild your life? Could you be torn apart from your loved ones?

By Jennifer Elks | Published 1 week ago | About a 5 minute read

Image: L-R: Amaryllis August as Laura and Nikolaj Lie Kaas as Jacob in “Families Like Ours” | Per Arneson | Courtesy of Netflix

Netflix US is set to release an acclaimed Danish drama series that explores how people react and adapt when everything they know and love is stripped away.

“Families Like Ours” is the first series by renowned Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round, The Hunt, The Celebration). Developed by Zentropa Entertainments and StudioCanal; and shot on location in The Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Romania and Sweden, the series follows a Danish family and friends through a grueling forced migration after their country is evacuated due to rising sea levels.

The series premiered to critical acclaim at the 2024 BFI London Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and Venice International Film Festival; and has now been distributed for broadcast across Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea.

“It’s wonderful how an inherently Danish series like ‘Families Like Ours,’ through a platform like Netflix, can travel far and wide and strike a chord with audiences around the world,” Vinterberg says. “In this increasingly divided world, it gives me both joy and hope to see that there’s a universal language — a common ground rooted in shared human experiences. Hopefully, that sense of connection continues across the Atlantic.”

Countries disappear; love remains

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In a not-too-distant future, the rising water levels around Denmark can no longer be ignored and the country must be evacuated. As people disperse in all directions, they must bid farewell to what they love, what they know and who they are.

Slowly but steadily, everything changes. Property becomes worthless, fortunes change and luck only favors a few. Those who can afford to do so travel to affluent, higher-elevation countries while the less well-off depend on government-funded relocation to more challenging destinations.

The series shines a light on the desperation people feel as they lose everything and families, friends and loved ones are separated. Some will be overcome by hatred and division, while others will nurture love and foster new beginnings.

Against this backdrop, we meet Laura — a high school student in love for the first time and on the cusp of graduation. When news of the evacuation breaks, the course of Laura and her family's lives are changed forever — and as they are forced to migrate to far-flung lands, Laura is forced to choose between the three people she loves the most.

A climate-migration drama (hold the climate)

To quote Dorothy Fortenberry, writer and producer of the Apple TV series, “Extrapolations” (2023): “If climate isn’t in your story, it’s science fiction.”

While climate change is becoming an increasingly common presence in TV and film, approaches to climate storytelling run the gamut — from apocalyptic, post-climate-collapse narratives (The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Snowpiercer (2013), “Extrapolations”) to conspicuous omission (ex: Twisters [2024] – which highlighted increasingly frequent and catastrophic climate-fueled tornados, with no mention of climate change).

The latter can feel like a cop out or at least a missed opportunity: Everyone on Earth has or will soon have a climate story — and seeing characters that reflect our reality on screen can increase understanding and help viewers feel less alone and even inspired, rather than anxious or hopeless.

“Families Like Ours” took the Twisters approach — but, honestly, I didn’t mind. The series depicts the chaos and disorientation arising from the collapse of a once-wealthy Scandinavian nation; and the myriad practical challenges of redistributing a whole, developed society to surrounding areas amid dwindling space, resources and — maybe most importantly — empathy.

Forced migration is a universal threat

According to the United Nations, in 2022, a higher percentage of refugees came from areas at risk because of climate-related threats than ever before — from 61 percent in 2010 to 84 percent in 2022. A 2021 World Bank report estimated that, by 2050, the climate crisis could displace more than 200 million people.

But the climate crisis is not yet the biggest threat forcing the migration of millions: State-based armed conflict took the top spot in the World Economic Forum’s list of global risks this year (extreme-weather events are second on the list). The number of countries under threat and populations displaced — whether by climate, economic or geopolitical threats — will only continue to grow. But for now, at least, the direst threats feel far away for most of us in the Western world. “Families Like Ours” will hopefully remind viewers worldwide that stories like this could easily become our own — regardless of geography or economic status.

The series highlights the bias, mistrust, and unfair treatment and characterization of refugees that has become all too common — at a time when forced migration around the world is only going to increase. Seeing upper middle class white people from a wealthy Western European nation go through the trauma of losing everything (from their homes, families and communities to their careers and right to work) and being forced to integrate into unwelcoming foreign cultures might just help to re-instill empathy at a time when xenophobia has reached a fever pitch — and remind viewers that refugees are just people like us, with families like ours.

“Families Like Ours” will premiere on Netflix US on June 10.