Why do you hate cruiseliners so much, Netflix?
In a span of just slightly longer than one year, Netflix has released the definitive documentaries on three of the greatest (read: worst) cruise-ship disasters of our time: Amy Bradley Is Missing, Trainwreck: Poop Cruise and Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea. It’s like Ted Sarandos is some sort of landlubber.
The Hollywood Reporter has extensively covered Amy Bradley Is Missing, released on July 16, 2025. For those spared the true-crime horror story, to summarize: In 1998, 23-year-old Amy Bradley vanished overnight from the Royal Caribbean cruise ship she and her family were vacationing on. A search of the ship found no trace of Bradley, leading officials to believe she likely jumped or fell overboard on the way to Curaçao. Her body was never found, however, and in the ensuing decades multiple people have reported seeing Bradley alive on several area islands. Amy Bradley Is Missing serves up compelling evidence that she may have instead been trafficked off the boat.
Trainwreck: Poop Cruise, released on June 24, 2025, chronicled the absolutely disgusting — and legitimately dangerous — goings-on from the 2013 Carnival Triumph disaster. The ship departed from Galveston, Texas headed toward Cozumel, Mexico on a four-day pleasure trip, though it turned out to be anything but that. When an engine fire knocked out power and plumbing for five days, 4,000 passengers were stranded with overflowing sewage — including, yes, poop — spoiled food and unbearable heat. No one died, thank goodness, but it was a horrible ordeal.
Amy Bradley Is Missing made Netflix’s top 10 global series list for four weeks; Trainwreck: Poop Cruise did it twice (but for movies).
And now we have Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea, which set sail on Netflix on Friday. In just its first two days, the feature-length doc racked up 9 million views, the streamer reported on Tuesday, second only to Millie Bobby Brown threequel Enola Holmes 3 (12 million views over the fulls even days). Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea chronicles the harrowing ordeal faced by passengers and crew on the Costa Concordia (Costa Cruises is a Carnival subsidiary), which in January 2012 slammed into a giant rock just off the coast of Giglio Island, Italy, flooding the engine room, tipping over the boat, and causing 32 deaths. It is the worst modern cruise-ship disaster on record, and the documentary is a tough watch.
As we say in the news business, three is a trend. In the content business, it starts to feel like an agenda. With its 325 million subscribers and the popularity of each of its recent cautionary tales, could Netflix capsize the cruise industry? (It probably wouldn’t mind putting Disney Cruise Line out of business…)
“Not at all,” cruise journalist Ashley Kosciolek told THR, immediately and completely killing my theory. “Cruises are more popular than ever. Fares are the highest they’ve ever been because the demand is there [and] ships are booking out further in advance than they used to.”
She’s right. Last year, a record-high 37.2 million people took an ocean cruise, according to industry group Cruise Lines International Association. The lobbyist organization estimates the number will reach 42.1 million by 2029. The two industry leaders (and the companies involved in the Netflix docs), Carnival and Royal Caribbean, each reported record revenues in 2025: $26.6 billion and $17.9 billion, respectively. That should fund a few backup generators.
Though the COVID-19 pandemic nearly ended the cruise industry, it ultimately created an urgency to hit the high seas once restrictions were rescinded.
“People shifted from ‘I’d like to cruise someday’ to a ‘Seize the day and book the trip’ mentality,” Kosciolek said.
Plus, you’re like 200 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to be involved in a catastrophic cruise ship occurrence.
“Anyone who cruises knows these are rare incidents,” Kosciolek said. “I think what the general public should understand is that ships are like small cities. They aren’t immune to occasional danger or human error.”
OK, but like, familiarize yourself with your muster station anyway, Mmkay?
