Tenzing: A Stirring, Old-Fashioned Everest Epic That Plays It Safe
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<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>IMDb rating:</strong> 7.7/10 (as of October 16, 2026) <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6262770/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IMDb</a></p>

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Cortlyn Kelly comes away deeply moved, treating Tenzing as a mountain adventure with real spiritual weight. She credits director Jennifer Peedom for weaving the Sherpa&#8217;s childhood, youth and middle years together out of order, a choice that makes his devotion to Everest feel lifelong, and for giving Eastern and Western viewpoints equal footing.</p>

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Genden Phuntsok&#8217;s layered lead turn is the anchor, with Tom Hiddleston wisely playing Edmund Hillary as a partner rather than a star. Drone photography, sound design and convincing ageing work put you right on the slopes. Her main complaint is that the women in Tenzing&#8217;s life, including Dawa and Jill Henderson, exist mostly to serve his ambitions. Cortlyn Kelly, <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tenzing-film-review-2026" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RogerEbert.com</a></p>

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<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Reuben Baron sees Tenzing as a throwback crowd-pleaser. It follows the familiar biopic playbook almost step by step, yet the man at its centre is so easy to cheer for that the predictability rarely hurts. He credits Peedom&#8217;s documentary instincts for making the expedition feel tactile and real.</p>

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Phuntsok and Hiddleston sell the friendship between climber and guide, and Willem Dafoe brings welcome humour as expedition chief John Hunt. Baron wishes Dawa and the wider team had more to do, and he laments that a film built for giant screens gets such a short run in cinemas before landing on Apple TV. Reuben Baron, <a href="https://www.looper.com/2278258/tenzing-review/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Looper</a></p>

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<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Matt Neglia calls the film a stirring biographical epic held aloft by a breakout performance from Phuntsok, whose warmth gives the story its emotional centre. He is most impressed once the climb finally gets underway, praising tense, technically polished sequences, sweeping camerawork and a score that captures the mountain&#8217;s scale.</p>

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">He also values the attention paid to Sherpa culture and Everest&#8217;s sacred meaning, a welcome corrective to Western-centred retellings. On the downside, he finds Luke Davies&#8217; script formulaic and at times heavy-handed, the supporting climbers forgettable, and the questions of race and class sketched too broadly. The expedition itself also takes about forty minutes to start. Matt Neglia, <a href="https://nextbestpicture.com/tenzing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Next Best Picture</a></p>

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<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Robert Kojder lands in the middle, finding Tenzing consistently absorbing and often striking to look at. He likes how it frames the summit push as a kind of national space race, and how centring Tenzing and his fellow Sherpas, who are frank about climbing for wages, freshens a story usually told from the British side.</p>

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The practical-looking climbing scenes convey thin air and tiny figures against vast ice, but he feels the mountain&#8217;s brutality is softened, possibly by the family-friendly rating, and the grandest summit imagery arrives late. The flashbacks feel like footnotes and the Tenzing-Hillary bond stays shallow, which keeps the film short of its peak. Robert Kojder, <a href="https://www.flickeringmyth.com/movie-review-tenzing-2026/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Flickering Myth</a></p>

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<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>The consensus:</strong> Critics agree that Genden Phuntsok&#8217;s lead performance, the immersive climbing sequences and the long-overdue focus on Tenzing&#8217;s own perspective make this a worthy watch, while most point to a formulaic script and thin supporting roles, especially the women in his life. The verdict: a handsome, inspiring old-school adventure that&#8217;s easy to recommend for a family movie night, even if it rarely takes risks.</p>
