Families Like Ours (2025)
The threat of rising sea levels hits home for 6 million Danes
What would you do if your government told you, and all your friends and neighbors, that you had to leave your home?
It’s a scenario that many governments around the world are being forced to contemplate as rising sea levels and extreme weather make more of the planet uninhabitable.
But rarely do audiences get an inside look at what a mass evacuation or relocation might look like.
Danish film director Thomas Vinterberg hopes to change that with his latest work, Families Like Ours, a seven-part miniseries that originally premiered at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival before being acquired by both the BBC and Netflix.
Families Like Ours is unusual for a climate-themed show in that it doesn’t feature any scenes of extreme weather. But even without a wildfire, hurricane, or drought wreaking havoc on vulnerable populations, this drama series still forces viewers to think about the physical and emotional toll of climate migration.
Set in the not-too-distant future, Families Like Ours follows the aftermath of the Danish government’s decision to evacuate the country of 6 million people due to rising sea levels. Instead of fighting against the rising tide by hopelessly throwing money at dams, dikes, and levees — as the Netherlands, its neighbor to the south tried to do, wrecking its economy in the process — the Danish government chooses to cut its losses and relocate the entire population while there’s still time.
This decision sets off a cascade of bureaucratic chaos and social upheaval as families are forced to reconfigure their lives on the fly with only a few months to plan. While the mass migration is as well-organized as possible, there are still countless Danish citizens who get lost in the cracks and have to choose between resettling in an unfamiliar place, or trying to illegally migrate to somewhere to be closer to family or to have a chance at a better livelihood.
It’s an impossible choice that can reveal a lot about humanity’s capacity for survival.
"This is more about human resilience, about how humans can create coping strategies when there's a crisis and when they're being separated from what they love... This is meant to be a story about how we would react in a crisis. Who would you fit into your lifeboat in a situation like this? If you had to choose.” — director Thomas Vinterberg in an interview for Deadline
Given a choice, most Danes would obviously want to stay home to be close to family, friends, and cultural traditions. But all over the world, many families are starting to run out of options.
The reality of rising sea levels
The threat of rising sea levels is forcing many island nations and low-lying countries to contemplate how to relocate their people.
The scientists and think tanks that study this issue believe that there could be anywhere from 200 million to 1.2 billion climate refugees and migrants globally by 2050. Some countries, like the Pacific island nations of Kiribati and Tuvalu, will likely need to relocate their entire populations over the next few decades. Other countries, like Denmark and the Netherlands, may be forced to abandon large parts of the coast.
Denmark is actually better prepared than most despite 24% of the country lying less than 10 meters above sea level. The government is working hard to make the capital, Copenhagen, into a “Sponge City” that can better withstand floods. Structural defenses, like an artificial island and other flood barriers, are also in progress.
But at a certain point, the costs of these impressive innovations may outweigh the costs of a planned retreat or relocation.
Understanding this trade-off is what makes shows like Families Like Ours — and documentaries like Oceania — such an important part of climate cinema.
It’s one thing to read academic studies about climate migration, which tend to distill vulnerable populations into an elaborate math problem that only some combination of policy and capital can solve. But it’s much a different story when audiences are introduced to individual characters, complete with hopes, dreams, and fears about what the future may hold.
The people of Denmark and Kiribati may be almost 15,000 kilometers apart, but their stories share many of the same characteristics as more governments start to think about the unthinkable.
In some ways, Families Like Ours displays a best-case scenario of a controlled and coordinated relocation scheme that gives each resident an opportunity to start a new life, albeit not necessarily in a country of their choice. The Danish government is even able to retain some economic power by turning the flooded country into the world’s largest wind farm.
In reality, large-scale relocations are likely to be much more chaotic. The modern world is nowhere near ready for 1 billion climate refugees. And even those people that do find a new home are likely to face xenophobia wherever they go.
But if there’s a lasting message from Families Like Ours, it’s that sometimes it takes a crisis to bring out our shared humanity.
Dmitriy is a CFF volunteer and a Contributing Editor for Cinecology.
Background
Logline: As Denmark faces total evacuation due to rising water levels, high school student Laura must choose between her divorced parents and the boy she is in love with.
Released for U.S. audiences on June 10, 2025
Premiered at 2024 Venice International Film Festival
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg
Produced by Studio Canal, Canal+, TV 2 and others
Climate themes include: rising sea levels, flooding, flood prevention, climate migration, climate refugees, inequality, xenophobia