NYAD

NYAD (2023) is a true-story biographical drama you can watch online on iFILM. At sixty, long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad fixes on a goal most people would call impossible: crossing the open water between Cuba and Florida under her own power. No shark cage, no wetsuit, just her body against the sea.

Annette Bening plays Diana, a former marathon-swimming star for whom this stretch of ocean became a lifelong obsession. At her side is coach and old friend Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster), without whom not a single attempt would have a chance. The film is sharper about that partnership than about the swim itself: stubbornness that edges into selfishness, burnout, blowups, and a loyalty that holds when the body gives out. The ocean is a character too, with jellyfish, currents, exhaustion-fueled hallucinations and long hours of solitude.

Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, who came from documentary filmmaking, the movie carries a physical honesty in its water and its pain. Bening and Foster both drew Oscar nominations for their work. It's one for viewers drawn to stories of relentless drive and a friendship that outweighs any record. Stream NYAD (2023) online on iFILM.