Two movies this year feature prolonged scenes in which a dung beetle pushes a piece of poop in the middle of the African savannah. One of them is an emotional journey about a leader coming to terms with the full cycle of birth, life, and death, which ends with a poignant moment in the rain. The other is the live-action Lion King.

Apple TV Plus’ nature documentary The Elephant Queen does what Disney couldn’t: imbue emotional depth to its animal subjects and crafting a sweeping narrative across the African plains. Comparisons to The Lion King are inevitable and probably not a coincidence: both focus on groups of animals, both find titles in the animal monarchy, and both seek to replicate a whole circle of life. The Lion King shed its lush animation for a more photorealistic world, which prompted many (us included) to wonder if the hyper-realistic CGi caused some of the heart to be lost from the story. The Elephant Queen, on the other hand, works with just animals and narration to create an evocative tale.

The documentary, from wildlife filmmakers Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone, centers around a parade of elephants led by Athena, the wise matriarch in question. Narrated by Chiwetel Ejiofor (who also voiced Scar in The Lion King remake), The Elephant Queen introduces the herd, but doesn’t stick with them. Soon after meeting our heroes, the documentary takes a macro look at the ecosystem by shifting the focus from the elephants to their neighbors: from the tiny fish that swim in their watering hole to a family of birds that lives right next door.

Granted, some of those scenes focusing other fauna — for instance, a prolonged foam frog orgy — seem a little overlong, but ultimately capture how essential elephants are in their own ecosystem. The bits about Steven the perpetually lost baby bird, the survival of the tadpoles in the watering hole, and yes, the dung beetle pushing a piece of poopoo along the dusty savannah, all add color to sweeping story. Instead of using those little focuses to connect to the greater ecosystem, like say in Planet Earth, the side scenes all relate back to the elephants.

The documentary works the best when it centers in on the elephants and their relationships. Mimi, the youngest baby elephant of the parade, is born in the midst of a rainstorm, during the first moments of the movie. She’s the pride and joy of the herd, and the other baby elephant quickly befriends her.

Soon we learn that Mimi is having a hard time getting the food she needs to be stronger. Athena must decide if the herd is strong enough to travel to their dry season destination: if she leaves before Mimi is ready, the herd may lose Mimi; if they wait too long, she might lose the entire herd.

Since she is, you know, an elephant, Athena’s internal struggle is fictionalized. We don’t actually know if an elephant’s instinctual behavior carries the weight of the human anxiety and thought, and we certainly don’t know Athena’s thought process as she makes the final decision to leave when she does. But set to Ejiofor’s narration, we get a sense of what she could be thinking, were she not an elephant but a human. It stirs sympathy for this matriarch and makes the consequences of her decision feel all the more real.

The best moments of The Elephant Queen come from when the elephants’ actions on their own stir the heartstrings, complex emotions beaming off screen without anyone uttering a single word. One of the most powerful scenes occurs as the elephants make their way back across the savannah, trying to get to their old stomping grounds right on time for the wet season. If they stay too long at the oasis, Athena’s herd — along with all the other animals who have sought refuge — will render the oasis unsustainable. They must journey back. Along the way, they find the skull of an elephant, long dead. Still, though, the elephants gather around the skull, gently touching their trunks to it in mourning. It’s a powerful scene — rendered all the more powerful by the fact that these animals aren’t talking or even emoting in a way that a human recognizes, yet still we understand their grief.

The Elephant Queen ends in triumph, the elephants making their way back to their watering hole just as rainy season begins, just as they have done for generations and generations. It begins to rain, mirroring the opening sequence, and another elephant is born — the circle of life complete.