In what The Guardian calls “the 90s equivalent of the billionaire space race,” the “odd couple” of Swiss explorer Bertrand Piccard and British balloon instructor Brian Jones were the ones who managed to complete—in 19 days and against many odds—the first nonstop round-the-world flight in a hot-air balloon in 1999. It was Piccard’s third try after two previous—and by his own account, somewhat humiliating—attempts. In achieving this feat, the two men beat out former-colleague-turned-competitor Andy Elson as well as other monied adventurers like business tycoon Richard Branson.

Naturally, a high-stakes competition of this type lends itself to cinematic storytelling, and The Balloonists, directed by experienced British documentary filmmaker John Dower, delivers an eminently watchable ride.

The glimpses that Dower provides of the two aeronauts’ biographies are part of what makes the film interesting. The Piccard family, for example, could almost be Jules Verne characters. Bertrand is a third-generation explorer whose grandfather Auguste, too, was a record-breaking balloonist. Bertrand’s father Jacques (who taught his son, “Whatever you do, do it well”) developed submarines and explored the deep sea. Together, grandfather and father “had the unique distinction of breaking world records for both the highest flight and the deepest dive.” Bertrand decided as a child that he, too, wanted “this type of life.” Interestingly—though not mentioned in the film—Bertrand is also a psychiatrist who became a hypnotherapy specialist while “looking for a solution to the problem of lack of sleep during his balloon expeditions.”

Jones, as the documentary conveys, was the force tranquille—the quiet strength—in the duo. After other more prickly flight partners did not work out, Jones stepped into the breach even though he was, by some skeptics’ reckoning, an improbable choice. Jones only agreed to participate after obtaining the go-ahead from the “love of his life,” his wife Joanna, herself a licensed balloonist. The documentary also pays homage to the team’s remarkable “weatherman,” Belgian meteorologist Luc Trullemans (described by Piccard as “a magician of the weather”). Hearing Trullemans confidently recount his pivotal contributions to the team’s success helps communicate how much an endeavor of this type relies on the people on the ground as well as in the air.

Director Dower has admitted that when he was first approached to make The Balloonists, he knew nothing about Piccard’s and Jones’ “extraordinary and utterly bonkers journey.” He said,

“I … knew nothing about ballooning. In my mind, that’s always a great starting point for non-fiction, especially with a story as extraordinary as theirs. There’s a real hunger for adventure stories but this one is full of such awe and wonder—things we could really do with a bit more of in our lives….”

The Balloonists does indeed offer plenty of “awe and wonder”—including descriptions and footage of what it is like to observe vast deserts and cumulonimbus clouds from above—as well as nail-biting suspense when the adventurers come up against potentially life-threatening challenges. However, a large part of what makes the story so compelling are the often moving insights into what makes for a successful team. Piccard reflected this year that they learned from other explorers’ “adaptability.” “We always tried in a different way, we changed the strategy, we changed the technology,” whereas their competitors “tried over and over again with the same bad technology and the same wrong strategies.”

Jones more modestly told the BBC in 2019, “I don’t think it was a foolish thing to do. I mean, we were pilots. We were just flying a balloon, and that’s what we were doing to the best of our ability.”

You can watch The Balloonists (through Dec. 2, 2026) at Jolt.Film HERE.