Our Land
A 91-minute documentary about England's Right to Roam movement, released in 2026. Directed by Lucrecia Martel. Streaming availability expanding. Where to watch is listed below.
The actual conflict at the heart of Our Land
Our Land opens with a simple question that England hasn't really answered: who owns nature? The documentary follows the Right to Roam movement — a campaign pushing back against centuries of private land restrictions — across England's most contested landscapes. Released in 2026 with a runtime of 91 minutes, the film captures something that documentaries often miss: the mundane, grinding reality of organized resistance.
What's striking is that this isn't framed as a villain-versus-hero story. Landowners appear. Movement activists appear. The film sits with both, long enough to understand that the conflict runs deeper than rhetoric. The camera doesn't flinch from the fact that people on both sides believe they're defending something real — access, property rights, heritage, livelihood. That's harder to film than a clear moral.
The cinematography holds English moorland and fenced-off trails in frame the way the community itself holds grievance — with attention, without sentimentality. There's a sequence roughly midway through where an elder walks a boundary line that's been contested for three generations, and the film just follows. No music underneath. No dramatic cut. It trusts you to understand why that matters.
Why this documentary matters now (and why it's not what you'd expect)
Director Lucrecia Martel brought something unexpected to the form. Her fiction work — La Ciénaga, The Headless Woman, Zama — circles questions of class and who gets to belong somewhere. Our Land feels like a natural extension, yet it's still a departure. The screenplay was co-written by Martel and María Alché, which is unusual for a documentary (most don't credit a "screenplay" at all). That detail matters because the film is clearly shaped, not just assembled from found footage.
The production team behind this — producers Joslyn Barnes, Julio Chavezmontes, Benjamín Doménech, Javier Leoz, and Matias Roveda — all have track records with international co-productions. Their fingerprints show in how carefully the film was positioned for festival circulation before its 2026 theatrical release. Strand Releasing, handling the U.S. distribution, doesn't typically pick up documentary projects unless they smell like awards potential.
I keep coming back to how little the film relies on outrage — and how much power that choice gives it. A lesser documentary about land rights would lean hard on anger (justified anger, at that). Martel doesn't dismiss emotion. She just doesn't let it do all the work. The real spine of Our Land isn't the legal proceedings — it's the texture of daily life in communities that have learned to carry injustice without being flattened by it.
Where to watch Our Land right now
Our Land is available on major streaming platforms following its theatrical run through Strand Releasing. The fastest way to find where it's streaming in your region is to check Movie OTT's where-to-watch tracker — it updates daily as licensing deals shift, which matters for a film like this where international distribution is still expanding.
Streaming availability for documentaries can move quickly. If Our Land isn't on your preferred service today, check back in a few weeks. The widget on Movie OTT shows every platform currently carrying it, broken down by region.
Quick reference: What you need to know
- Released: 2026 (limited U.S. theatrical May 1, 2026 via Strand Releasing)
- Runtime: 91 minutes
- Director: Lucrecia Martel
- What it's about: The Right to Roam movement and England's private land restrictions
- Tone: Slow, observational, patient — not a polemic
- Watch if you liked: Documentary films that trust the audience (The Walrus and the Carpenter, A Thousand Clowns)
If you've watched it already — what comes next?
If Our Land connected with you, Movie OTT has tagged similar documentary features about land rights, access, and resistance movements. The site's editorial guides pull together thematic collections, which beats scrolling through algorithms when you're looking for something with actual substance.
The thing nobody mentions about documentaries like this is how they change the way you walk through a landscape afterward. You notice fences differently. You read signs differently. That's not a bug — that's exactly what Our Land is designed to do.