2026 Nominees

Underdogs

Wildstar Films, Maximum Effort

USA

- Environmental & Wildlife

Underdogs is a unique wildlife/comedy genre mash in which Ryan Reynolds shines a spotlight on animals that usually don't get to be the stars of the show - the weird, the gross and the downtrodden - and showcases the extraordinary never-before-filmed animal behaviour that allows these animals to triumph against adversity. Capturing it required every wildlife camera specialism in the book, from night-vision to underwater, macro to drone. Each show has its own unique framing device to link the animal stories together, from the comicbook-themed Superzeroes to the 1980’s video game styling of Total Grossout aiming to keep the audience engaged and subvert the wildlife TV genre at every opportunity. Nature needs our help more than ever but engagement with nature is falling, particularly amongst teenagers and a younger demographic. This is the deeper context out of which Underdogs was born in the hope of attracting new audiences to the natural world.