Is 'Against the Ice' Based on a True Story? The Real Details Are Surprising

While trying to uncover a lost map, two men explore Greenland's vast landscape while fighting to survive some of the coldest and most dangerous conditions. The Netflix film Against the Ice, directed by Peter Flinth, is an incredible 2022 movie that tells the story of what it takes in the fight for survival when going up against all odds.

Starring Game of Thrones vet Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the film has people everywhere wondering: Is Against the Ice based on a true story?

Keep reading for all the details on the movie.

Against the Ice is most definitely based on a true story! The movie was adapted from the memoir Two Against the Ice by Danish explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen, who embarked on a journey with a team in 1909 to recover records that could offer proof of something he was certain of.

He believed the territory that they were covering was one large piece of connected land. Before he was able to recover the records he needed to find, it was generally believed that the territory was split into two parts. His real-life expedition really took place in Greenland back in 1909. Ejnar was dedicated to proving the territory was actually one solid region — and he was willing to exhaust all efforts to make it known.

Nikolaj stars as Ejnar, while Joe Cole co-stars as fellow explorer Iver Iversen, who was a ship mechanic on the team.

According to HITC, one major difference between the movie and reality is that Ejnar isn’t the one who actually found the map to the missing records like what you see in the film. In real life, a Danish explorer named Johan Peter Koch was the one who discovered the map in 1908, per History vs. Hollywood.

Nikolaj told Deadline, “I didn’t know anything about [the story]. Peter sent me the book: Two Against the Ice by Ejnar Mikkelsen, years ago… I was blown away by the book. We’ve seen survival stories before but there was something about the way he wrote, Mikkelsen, and the love he had for Iverson really came through in the book.”

As for co-writing the adapted screenplay for the film, he told the outlet: "I’ve been writing for a long time. I co-write a film in 1997 (Wildside), that was also actually done in Iceland as well. For the last ten years I’ve been writing with Joe Derrick, we have various things, this is the first big one we’ve got going."

Game of Thrones fans will also appreciate that the film reunites Nikolaj — who played Jaime Lannister in the fan-favorite HBO series — with his Thrones co-star Charles Dance, who played his dad Tywin on the show.

Against the Ice is available for streaming on Netflix now.