The story takes place in the winter of 1820. A whaling ship named Essex sailed in the vast South Pacific. What all the crew members did not expect was that at this time, there was a whale with superb intelligence and strong sense of revenge lurking on the seabed, preparing to execute its revenge plan. Soon, the whaling ship was attacked fiercely by the whales again and again. The fragile hull quickly became fragmented under the impact of the huge whales, and the crew suffered heavy casualties. A group of survivors including the first mate Owen (Chris Hemsworth), crew member Nixon (Tom Holland), and Matthew (Cillian Murphy) squeezed on the boat and drifted in the vast ocean for 90 days. During these 90 days, the scenes of hell on earth took turns in the boat.