The Big Blue

Jacques Mayol and Enzo Molinari grow up on the Greek island of Amorgos in the 1960s, bonded by the sea and a dream of the deep. Enzo dares Jacques to retrieve a coin from the sea floor, but Jacques refuses the dare. Their father, a shellfish diver, dives with a pump and helmet and is pulled under by rocks, drowning before their eyes.

By the 1980s both Jacques and Enzo have earned global renown as freedivers, pushing the limits of human endurance. Their paths begin to diverge: Jacques leans toward scientific study and a more solitary pursuit, while Enzo leans into competition and showmanship.

In Sicily, Enzo demonstrates his skill by rescuing a trapped diver from a wreck, earning admiration in the freediving world. The rescue cements his status as a world-class freediver and intensifies the rivalry with Jacques.

Jacques becomes a human research subject, testing bodily responses to extreme immersion with dolphins and in the Peruvian Andes. Scientists monitor his reactions to cold water and pressure as part of a larger program on dive physiology.

Insurance broker Johana Baker travels to Taormina, Sicily, after hearing Jacques will be at the World Diving Championships. She fabricates an insurance problem to ensure a meeting, and the two begin dating, not realizing how deeply Jacques is drawn to the sea.

At the World Diving Championships in Taormina, Jacques edges Enzo by one metre, signaling that he still holds a slight advantage. Enzo presents him with a crystal dolphin and a tape measure to illustrate their small but meaningful difference.

In the next World Diving Championships the depths are pushed further as Enzo beats Jacques’ record, and the dive doctor warns that the deeper dives are becoming lethal. Undaunted, both divers push on into increasingly perilous territory.

As the competition intensifies, the group breaks into a dolphinarium at night to free a distressed new dolphin, believing it will restore some balance to the sea's magic. They release the dolphin back to the ocean, hoping for a better future for their sport and for Jacques.

Jacques reaches 400 feet (120 meters), a new record that shocks spectators and rivals alike. The achievement marks a turning point, forcing Enzo to confront the widening gap between their abilities.

Enzo decides to go deeper to surpass Jacques, ignoring medical cautions, but he cannot surface in time. Jacques dives to retrieve him, but Enzo dies in his arms, declaring that it is better down there.

To honor Enzo's dying wish, Jacques carries his body back down to a depth where it becomes negatively buoyant and lets him sink deeper into the abyss. He returns to the surface emotionally shattered and physically spent.

Jacques suffers a cardiac arrest after the dive and is saved by supervising divers who restart his heart with a defibrillator. He is placed in medical quarters to recover from the life-threatening ordeal.

During recovery, Jacques experiences a hallucinatory dream in which the ceiling collapses and the room fills with water, sending him back to the ocean depths with dolphins. The dream deepens his inner conflict between obsession and survival.

Johana returns, reveals she is pregnant, and begs Jacques to stay. He insists on one final dive, and as she hands him the release cord, he descends while a dolphin appears; she breaks down as he sinks into the darkness, swimming away with the harness into the abyss.