In 1820, the whaling ship Essex was assaulted by a whale of mammoth proportions, a disaster that inspired Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. In the aftermath, the crew battles storms and starvation, and the men are forced to do the unthinkable in order to survive. In an astonishing true story based on Nathaniel Philbrick's best-selling book, Ron Howard directs Chris Hemsworth and Benjamin Walker.