Is Yellowjackets based on a true story?

The second season of Yellowjackets is just as traumatic as the first, but is this coming-of-age cannibal show based on real-life events?

Yellowjackets Season 2 has easily lived up to the first, with more danger, more cannibalism, and more toxic friendships. We’ve loved this new season and you can read our coverage of it here.

The official plot of the show is as thus: “Wildly talented high school girls’ soccer players descend into savage clans after their plane crashes in the remote northern wilderness. Twenty-five years later, they discover that what began in the wild is far from over. They brought the darkness back with them.”

However, as wild as this plot may be, the story may actually be based on true events. But what true events, exactly? Read on to find out more.

Is Yellowjackets based on a true story?

Yes, but the show isn’t a beat for beat re-telling. The series’ creators have confirmed that Yellowjackets is loosely inspired by both the Donner Party and the 1972 Andes Flight Disaster.

Yellowjackets, created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, is a supernatural thriller series which follows a group of girls stranded in the Canadian Rockies, after their plane to a soccer championship crashes. Desperate to survive, they resort to cannibalism in the second season, and grow more and more unhinged every day.

If that story sounds familiar to you, then you may have heard of the Andes Flight Disaster. See, in 1972, a young Uruguayan rugby team was stranded in the Andes mountains for 72 days after their plane crashed on the way to a game in Chile. 16 people survived, and it was later revealed that they had to resort to cannibalism. This event was documented in the 1974 book Alive, which was later adapted into movie in the 90s starring Ethan Hawke, both of which was cited by Lyle to Looper as inspiration.

Another famous case of cannibal inspiration was the Donner Party. A group of American pioneers attempted to migrate to California from the Midwest on wagons in the 19th century. After foolishly taking a detour, the group became stuck in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which once again forced them to resort to cannibalism to survive.

Both events are horrifying tales, and show how far we are willing to go for survival. Which, as seen in the Yellowjackets Season 2 trailer below, can mean bad things for those less ruthless:

Check out more of our Yellowjackets coverage, including our reviews, here.

Yellowjackets Seasons 1 & 2 are currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, which you can sign up for here.

Please note that if you click on a product link on this page, we may earn a small affiliate commission.

You can find out about whether other films and shows are based on true stories below:

Forrest Gump | Blonde | The Staircase | Kaleidoscope | Emily the Criminal | Dog Gone | Treason | Happy Valley | The Black Phone | Cocaine Bear | The Pursuit of Happyness