The Swimmers

The Swimmers follows two sisters, Yusra and Sarah Mardini, who leave war-torn Syria and set out on a dangerous journey across land and sea toward Europe. Their goal is to reach safety, and their swimming ability becomes central to that journey. Their path eventually leads them to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, where Yusra competes as a swimmer. The film dramatizes the sisters' flight and the risks they take along the way.

Sally El Hosaini directed the film, which was released in 2022. It comes early in her filmography, ahead of Unicorns in 2024. Jack Thorne wrote the screenplay, and Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Ali Jaafar produced it through Working Title Films and AZ Celtic Films, with the United Kingdom and Turkey as the production countries. The cast is led by Nathalie Issa as Yusra Mardini and Manal Issa as Sarah Mardini, alongside Matthias Schweighöfer, Ahmed Malek, James Floyd and Nahel Tzegai. The film runs 134 minutes and belongs to the drama and history genres, drawing on the sisters' real experiences.

Audience response has been positive and consistent: the film holds a rating of 7.4 out of 10 on IMDb from around 40,000 votes and the same score on TMDB from a much smaller base of 662 votes. Among critics, the rating stands at 6.5 out of 10 from 62 reviews, somewhat lower than the audience scores.