ARCTIC - Netflix Movie

ARCTIC | Official Trailer
Bleecker Street

Grim movie about survival in the Arctic.

Man (Mads Mikkelsen) alone with the wreckage of his airplane, an AN-2, in the Arctic. He's been there for a few days at least. He's carved out a giant SOS in the snow, down through a couple feet of snow to the bare ground. The letters are like fifty feet tall, big enough that a passing aircraft should be able to see them. He's cut a couple of holes in the ice and is managing to catch some fish. He doesn't have any fuel for any kind of fire, so he's eating them raw. He has a hand cranked radio and every day he hikes to the top a nearby hill and cranks the radio and the radio blinks its red light at him.

One day while cranking the radio the green light blinks and shortly thereafter a helicopter appears, and immediately crashes. The pilot dies. The female copilot survives but she is comatose. He hauls her back to his airplane, which has the advantage of being right side up and level. They stay there for a few days, long enough for him to expand his ice fishing empire, but eventually he decides they need to travel to some kind of outpost. Pretty sad commentary on the local rescue service that they weren't able to get back out to where the last helicopter crashed. So Mads packs up his gear and loads the woman on a rescue sled that he found in the crashed helicopter, and starts hiking across the Arctic.

He does okay for a couple of days, but then he starts running into problems. He struggles but eventually he gets to the top of a hill and spots a live helicopter. The helicopter crew eventually spots him and all is well.