Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi's "Everest: The Other Side" follows grief-stricken alpine climber and skier Jim Morrison as he attempts to scale Everest's North Face, the Chinese-facing side of the world's highest mountain. Before Morrison's trek, only five people had successfully summited it, and zero had skied down it.
Morrison carries extraordinary personal weight up the mountain. His first wife and two children died in an airplane accident in 2011. More recently, his climbing partner and elite ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson died in 2022 when an avalanche struck her during a descent of Manasalu summit in Nepal, causing her to fall approximately 5,900 feet. Morrison and Nelson had been preparing to tackle the North Face together when Nelson died. After her death, in 2023, Morrison decided to carry out their shared dream alone.
The film documents Morrison's actual 2023 expedition, which goes wrong, followed by another attempt two years later. Cinematographers Clair Popkin, Christopher Murphy, and Chin use GoPros, drone footage, and telescopic lenses to capture the ascent. Morrison endures avalanches, a 9,000-vertical-foot corridor of bulletproof ice, broken legs, overwhelming monsoons, rising temperatures, and dwindling oxygen.
Nelson's surviving teenaged children are supportive of Morrison's climb. In 2018, Morrison and Nelson became the first people to ski down the Lhotse Couloir of Everest's fourth-highest mountain, which sparked their mutual obsession with attempting the North Face.
The film premiered at the 2026 Venice Film Festival. National Geographic opens it in theaters starting October 30. The review notes that Chin and Vasarhelyi underwent a high-profile breakup during production, though this remains offscreen.