The 10 Best Survival Movies of All Time, Ranked
Technically, a whole bunch of movies are about survival, but a line was drawn here to look at the ones really focused on surviving. Basically, no horror or action movies where people are obviously fighting to stay alive the whole time, because if you included anything with life-or-death stakes, then you’d probably find yourself with more “survival movies” on your hands than non-survival movies.
The ones below are mostly adventure/drama films, with some creeping into other territories, but as long as characters are isolated and battling the elements (more so than specific disasters) in one way or another (and maybe some other threats, too, at least on the side), then they’re worth considering as survival movies. And they’re high-quality, too, and definitely worthy of being considered among the best survival movies ever made.
10
‘Rescue Dawn’ (2006)
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Image via Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer</figure>
Rescue Dawn takes place during the Vietnam War, so maybe it’s more of a war movie early on, but the focus is definitely on survival and less about the usual stuff you’d find in more straightforward war movies. It’s based on the real-life experiences of a pilot named Dieter Dengler, and what happened when his plane got shot down over Laos, with him having to battle the elements and coming into contact with forces who make him a prisoner of war, too.
There’s time spent on surviving time in a POW camp on top of having to survive (and trek through) jungle terrain, so Rescue Dawn is certainly grueling, but by design. It’s one of the better non-documentaries Werner Herzog has directed, though he did also cover the same story in a documentary, and that film’s pretty great as well (it was made about a decade earlier and was called Little Dieter Needs to Fly).
9
‘Cast Away’ (2000)
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Image via 20th Century Fox</figure>
This is one you sort of have to mention, because it’s probably one of the first things most people think about when they hear the term “survival movie,” but yes, it’s Cast Away. There’s a desert island, there’s just the one guy stranded on it, and he has to stay alive on that island for an extended period of time. It’s all very stripped back in terms of the premise, but there are things beyond it being just literally a guy and an island for nearly 2.5 hours.
Still, the bulk of the movie is that. And a little under 2.5 hours is long, but Cast Away stays interesting for most of that runtime. It’s one of the good Robert Zemeckis films, which is always nice to see (when he’s on, he’s on, but he definitely isn’t always on, y’know?), and it’s also got one of many strong Tom Hanks performances at its center, so that dynamic director/actor duo ensures the movie’s pretty good for the most part.
8
‘The Martian’ (2015)
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Image via 20th Century Studios</figure>
Cast Away but it’s Mars instead of an island: that’s The Martian. Kind of. Someone is alone for a good chunk of the movie, and they have to figure out ways to survive their predicament while also needing to think about how they might actually get out of the situation they’re in, with help from anyone else being limited, at least at first.
The Martian works well as a crowd-pleaser, not exactly doing a ton to rewrite the survival sub-genre, but hitting all the beats in a more-than-solid manner.
It’s also one of a fair few movies that features a character played by Matt Damon trying to get home in one way or another, so that’s possibly worthy of note. And The Martian works well as a crowd-pleaser, not exactly doing a ton to rewrite the survival sub-genre, but hitting all the beats in a more-than-solid manner and, overall, ending up being a pretty difficult-to-dislike sort of film.
7
‘All Is Lost’ (2013)
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Image via Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions</figure>
If you’re picking up a theme here, with stories about one person battling the elements or otherwise being in a stressful situation while alone, then congrats. But also not really congrats, because it’s obvious. That’s a lot of survival movies. And that is also All Is Lost, though maybe this one goes a step further because the only cast member listed is Robert Redford.
The closest thing to a second character here is the boat he’s on throughout the film, and even then, he’s not a particularly well-developed character, not even having a confirmed name or anything. Nothing else is really relevant, though. There’s been an accident, the boat is sinking, and he doesn’t want to drown. That’s enough for All Is Lost, because it’s genuinely quite gripping throughout, and it’s one of the best of the late-era Robert Redford movies, too (he does a lot considering he was nearing 80 at the time of this film’s release, though there is one other survival movie he starred in decades earlier that’s also worth mentioning… more on that one in a bit).
6
‘Buried’ (2010)
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Image via Lionsgate</figure>
What do you know: Buried is about a guy who gets buried. No clickbait with this title, that’s for sure. Ryan Reynolds is that guy, and he gives a surprisingly good performance here in a movie pretty much devoid of anything funny or otherwise light-hearted, since he’s stuck in a coffin the whole time, well and truly, you know, buried, and he has a limited amount of time to try and contact someone who can then work out where he is.
He’s really just equipped with a phone and a lighter, so he’s calling people, stressing out, and exploring any option he can for the 90 minutes of oxygen he has (approximately), and that is also the length of the movie. So, Buried plays out basically in real-time, and it’s remarkably intense for all of those minutes, successfully stretching out that very memorable coffin scene from Kill Bill: Vol. 2 into a feature-length film.
5
‘Deliverance’ (1972)
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Image via Warner Bros. Pictures</figure>
This is a tricky one to talk about, because Deliverance is a deeply unpleasant movie, but it takes a little while to get to that territory, and then also, discussing that stuff feels like it could be a bit much on top of it possibly involving saying too much, in terms of the narrative and all that. But then again, it’s more than half a century old at this point, so you probably know at least a little about this movie and why it’s notorious, even if you’ve not actually seen it.
If you don’t mind the idea of having a bad time with a good movie, it’s likely worth watching. Deliverance does make you feel the desperation of its main characters uncomfortably well, and there’s undeniable skill involved here with it all building the way it does. And a movie being this old and still feeling shocking in many ways is quite impressive when you think about it, too.
4
‘Jeremiah Johnson’ (1972)
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Just over 40 years before All Is Lost, Robert Redford also starred in Jeremiah Johnson, which is a different sort of adventure/survival movie, sure, but both are great, in any event. Jeremiah Johnson definitely isn’t as minimalist, since there are a few other characters here, and the main character isn’t as restricted, not being stuck out at sea and instead having to survive in and around the Rocky Mountains.
It’s also set back in the mid-1800s, very much being a Western, but one focused on survival, and then there is some additional conflict in the movie involving some other people in the area the titular character lives. Still, not a lot of story. It’s not minimalist compared to All Is Lost, but placed against most other more “conventional” movies, it’s very light on story, but not in a bad way. It’s interesting to watch something that’s kind of a hang-out movie, but lots of it is just the one guy, rather than a film where you get to see, like, a group of characters hang out and everything.
3
‘The Revenant’ (2015)
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Take the setting and the chilly Western feel of Jeremiah Johnson and add in the grit/violence of Deliverance, and you’d find yourself with something that might be honestly kind of close to The Revenant. Okay, not perfectly, but those itches scratched by those films get scratched here, and also, both those movies from the early 1970s have revenge play some kind of role in their respective stories.
The Revenant is as much a revenge movie as it is one about survival, with one man seemingly staying alive against all odds so he can brutally murder the man who wronged him. That’s a simple way to break down such a long film, yet that is pretty much what The Revenant boils down to. It tells that straightforward story well, though, all the while doing some interesting things thematically and feeling hard to fault in terms of its technical aspects and also regarding many of the performances it features.
2
‘127 Hours’ (2010)
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Of all the notably uplifting movies out there, 127 Hours could well be the most disturbing, but it has to be disturbing and grisly before it can get uplifting. It feels right, in other words, and while “that” scene that everyone knows might be nauseating to watch without context, if you see it in the movie, at the point at which it happens… well, sure, it’s still nauseating, but it’s also undeniably triumphant.
This one came out the same year as Buried, and it’s similarly claustrophobic, all the while also being much more visually unpleasant and then, somehow not paradoxically, also a whole lot less depressing. 127 Hours is about as good as the more mundane survival movies out there get, because it’s easy to imagine yourself in this situation, get some kind of understanding about the pain involved, yet also then find some inspiration in how far a real-life person was willing to go to survive.
1
‘Gravity’ (2013)
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Image via Warner Bros. Pictures</figure>
Gravity is not based on a real-life story, but it certainly feels real while you’re watching it, and it’s also grounded in enough ways to make it a bit difficult to classify as a science fiction movie. It’s about survival in space, but the disaster, in effect, isn’t too outlandish, and then it also doesn’t happen very far into space, by any means, with Earth always very much in view, but still undeniably difficult to get back to in one piece.
Also, Gravity is very heavy on spectacle for many of its scenes, though, things are also personal and character-focused, to some extent, with enough time to spend on the characters even with a short runtime because there are so few characters. Some people find parts of Gravity silly and maybe a little overly sentimental, too, but it is so spectacular and laser-focused on survival throughout that it feels worthy of being ranked as high as it is here. If you can get on board with what this movie’s doing both technically and emotionally, it really is one of the most thrilling and involving films out there.
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