10 true-life outdoor survival movies

1. 127 Hours

Year: 2010
Score: 93% critics, 85% audience
Watch: Prime Video

PR Image 127 Hours reportedly made audience members ill

When 127 Hours first hit screens, it had audience members “fainting, vomiting and worse in numbers unseen since The Exorcist” according to the Huffington Post. At Telluride Film Festival, one viewer became lightheaded and had to be taken out of the screening on a gurney; another suffered a panic attack – and similar episodes were reported from Toronto International Film Festival. 

The movie charts the 127 hours that real-life adventurer Aron Ralston (played by James Franco) spent trapped in a Utah canyon after a boulder fell on his arm. Over an excruciating five days, Ralston looks back on his life and reckons with two horrifying choices: stay there and die or amputate his own arm. 

2. Society of the Snow

Year: 2023
Score: 90% critics, 88% audience
Watch: Netflix

PR Image Society of the Snow recounts a real-life plane crash in the Andes

In 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which had been chartered to fly a rugby team to Chile, crashed in the remote Argentine Andes. Only 29 of its 45 passengers survived. Trapped in one of the most hostile environments on the planet, they had to resort to extreme measures to stay alive.

This Spanish-language film follows the Hollywood version of events starring Ethan Hawke (see ‘Alive’ below). With greater spiritual depth than its predecessor, stunning cinematography and all-round excellent acting, it is widely deemed one of the best true-life outdoor survival movies. 

3. Thirteen Lives

Year: 2022
Score: 85% critics, 93% audience
Watch: Prime Video

PR Image A dramatic retelling of the Thai cave rescue

It was a disaster that captivated the entire world. In the summer of 2018, 12 members of a junior football team, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old assistant coach entered Tham Luang Nang Non, a cave system in northern Thailand following a practice session. Soon after they entered, heavy rainfall blocked the entrance to the caves, trapping them deep inside. 

Faced with insurmountable odds, a team of the world’s most skilled and experienced divers – uniquely able to navigate the maze of flooded, narrow cave tunnels – joined with Thai forces and more than 10,000 volunteers to attempt a harrowing rescue.

4. North Face

Year: 2010
Score: 84% critics, 82% audience
Watch: Apple TV

PR Image Disaster strikes as climbers attempt the north face of the Eiger

In 1936, two German mountaineers begin a contest against two Austrians to scale the unclimbed north face of the Eiger – also known as the “Murder Wall”.

Adding a little bit of fiction to fact, the film juxtaposes the extreme conditions on the mountain with a cosy nearby hotel in which Luise, an aspiring photographer, and her editor are preparing a “triumph or tragedy” story for their paper. Disaster ensues on the wall and the climbers must decide what is most important to them: glory or their humanity. 

5. Into the Wild

Year: 2007
Score: 83% critics, 89% audience
Watch: Prime Video

PR Image The tragic tale of Chris McCandless

Into the Wild recounts the true story of Chris McCandless (played by Emile Hirsch), a promising student and athlete who leaves his comfortable middle-class life to hike across North America, into the Alaskan wilderness.

McCandless takes refuge in an abandoned bus in a remote area north of Denali National Park. Initially, he is taken by his new life. He revels in the beauty of nature and the thrill of living off the land. He reads, hunts and keeps a journal. 

As the months wear on, however, he discovers that life in the wild may not be as idyllic as he had hoped. Bleak and beautiful, the film is one of the best true-life outdoor survival movies.

6. Last Breath

Year: 2025
Score: 80% critics, 92% audience
Watch: Prime Video

PR Image Last Breath is a chilling tale of survival

Last Breath is a dramatisation of a chilling real-life disaster. In 2012, saturation diver Chris Lemons was carrying out repairs to a gas line 100m (330ft) below the surface of the North Sea. The dynamic positioning system of his support vessel failed and drifted into rough seas, dragging Lemons and his colleagues, Duncan Allcock and David Yuasa, out with it. 

The umbilical tether that connected Lemons to the vessel snapped, leaving him without air and heat. He had only five minutes of breathable gas in the cylinders he wore on his back. What follows is one of the most incredible survival stories of modern times. 

7. Everest 

Year: 2015
Score: 73% critics, 68% audience
Watch: Prime Video, Apple TV

PR Image Everest recounts one of the deadliest disasters on the world’s highest peak

Everest is an admittedly Hollywood version of a real-life survival story, but is all the more gripping for it. Based on the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, it follows the survival attempts of two expedition groups, one led by Rob Hall (played by Jason Clarke) and the other by Scott Fischer (played by Jake Gyllenhaal).

After a violent storm strikes the mountain, the climbers must face freezing temperatures, blistering winds and one of the fiercest blizzards known to man in their battle for survival. 

8. Open Water

Year: 2003
Score: 71% critics, 33% audience
Watch: Prime Video

PR Image Open Water fictionalises a real life nightmare

Open Water is a nail-biting film based on a real-life horror. In January 1998, American couple Tom and Eileen Lonergan joined a dive in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. At the end of the dive, the crew failed to take an accurate headcount and accidentally left the couple behind.

Open Water is a fictional take on the Lonergans’ ordeal. The scene in which the couple surfaces to realise that the boat has left them is truly the stuff of nightmares.

9. The Aeronauts

Year: 2019
Score: 71% critics, 95% audience
Watch: Prime Video

PR Image A fantastical tale of two pioneers

The Aeronauts is a bit more fanciful than the other outdoor survival movies on this list, but is well worth a watch. Set in 1862, it follows real-life pioneering scientist James Glaisher (played by Eddie Redmayne) on his mission to prove to his sneering colleagues that meteorology is more than mere “fortune telling”.

He teams up with fictional pilot Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones) and takes to the skies in a hot air balloon in search of some serious atmospheric readings. Peril ensues and the pair must decide what they are willing to risk to fly higher than anyone in history.

10. Alive

Year: 1993
Score: 63% critics, 68% audience
Watch: Prime Video

PR Image A Hollywood version of the infamous Andes plane crash

Alive is another dramatisation of the 1972 crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. This English-language version stars Ethan Hawke as Nando, the group leader who tries to rally the survivors as they face a chain of disasters: frostbite, gangrene, avalanches and in-fighting.

As supplies dwindle, each individual must make a terrible choice: starve to death or do the unthinkable. The film is somewhat Americanised – and accordingly whitewashed – but as a piece of pure cinema, it stands up to scrutiny.