Hennie's Theme Park: The Billionaire's Last Gamble
Hennie's Theme Park is a 51-minute documentary following Dutch entrepreneur Hennie van der Most as he attempts to build a massive theme park on Rotterdam's Maashaven — a working harbour district with decades of industrial history. Produced by Captains and released in 2026, the film holds a solid 7.3/10 on IMDb and succeeds precisely because it refuses to celebrate or condemn its subject. Instead, it watches a man chase what he claims is his final project and lets you decide whether that's visionary or obsessive.
The thing nobody mentions about documentaries like this one is how much depends on whether your subject will actually reveal something uncomfortable on camera. Van der Most doesn't seem to have negotiated a flattering edit. You catch the micro-pauses, the calculating silence before an answer. That's where the film earns its 51 minutes.
Why This Documentary Works When Others Don't
Most entrepreneurship docs fall into two traps: hagiography or takedown. This one sits in the uncomfortable middle.
The Maashaven location itself becomes almost a character—Rotterdam's harbour has been demolished and rebuilt so many times that staking a theme park there feels either visionary or stubborn, depending on who you ask. The documentary doesn't resolve that tension. It lets it breathe.
What strikes me is how the filmmakers use scale against intimacy. Wide industrial shots make Van der Most look small against what he's building, then tight close-ups remind you this is fundamentally a human story: ego, legacy, and the particular loneliness of people who can't stop working. The cinematography is quiet but assured. It doesn't announce itself.
Honestly, the 51-minute runtime is almost provocatively brief for a subject this size. But it works because the film trusts Van der Most's presence to carry weight rather than padding with talking heads or archival filler. You won't find expert commentary here. You get the man and the project and the harbour, and that's enough.
Who Hennie van der Most Actually Is
Hennie van der Most is a Dutch multi-millionaire who built his business empire from nothing. He's known in the Netherlands as a maverick figure in leisure and entertainment—the kind of entrepreneur who doesn't ask permission, he just builds. The Maashaven project represents what the documentary frames as his final major venture, though whether that's true or just another chapter is something the film deliberately leaves open.
This is a man in his later years who apparently can't sit still (the documentary never explicitly states his age, but you can read it in the way he moves). He's been working continuously. The film catches him at a moment where the ambition should be winding down, but instead it's accelerating. That contradiction is the whole movie.
Where to Watch and What to Know
Stream it on major OTT platforms—check the where-to-watch widget at the top of Movie OTT for current availability, since streaming rights shift regularly. The film runs 51 minutes, making it an easy evening watch that doesn't demand you clear your schedule.
No MPAA rating has been assigned (typical for European documentary releases at this scale), and there's no Metascore on record yet. What matters is that the film found its audience through streaming rather than a theatrical window, which suits its intimate, portrait-like quality. Movie OTT's documentary tracker has listed it consistently since the 2026 release across platforms.
Quick facts:
- Released: 2026
- Runtime: 51 minutes
- IMDb rating: 7.3/10
- Production company: Captains
- Genre: Documentary
- Subject: Dutch entrepreneur Hennie van der Most's plans to build a theme park
The Maashaven Question
What's genuinely interesting about Rotterdam is that it's been rebuilt so many times—war, commerce, urban renewal—that adding a theme park to the mix feels like either the logical next chapter or a bizarre miscalculation. The documentary doesn't settle this. It just shows you Van der Most moving forward and lets you decide.
I kept thinking about what it means to build something that serves pleasure in a place built for work. That tension—between the industrial history of the harbour and the escapism of a theme park—is never explicitly discussed in the film, but it's always there in the wide shots, in the way the camera holds on the water and the cranes.
Who Should Watch This
If you're interested in entrepreneurship, Dutch culture, or documentaries that follow one driven person and get out of the way—this one's for you. It's not a hagiography, and it's not a takedown.
Compare it to other character-driven entrepreneurship docs you might've seen: it's leaner than most, more willing to sit with silence, and less interested in explaining whether the subject is "good" or "bad." You're left to make up your own mind. That's harder than being told what to think, but it's also more honest.
This is exactly the kind of film that plays well on streaming because it doesn't overstay its welcome. Fifty-one minutes is perfect for what it is. Watch it this week if you can—it's the kind of thing that stays with you longer than films twice its length.