Survival Movies - The Best of (1990-2017)
by roccoborocco | created - 22 Nov 2020 | updated - 22 Nov 2020 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Cast Away (2000)
PG-13 | 143 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
A FedEx executive undergoes a physical and emotional transformation after crash landing on a deserted island.
Director: Robert Zemeckis | Stars: Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Paul Sanchez, Lari White
Votes: 637,863 | Gross: $233.63M
Tom Hanks (Big, Forrest Gump) stars in his Oscar nominated performance as Chuck Noland, a Fed Ex executive who is stranded on an isolated island after a thunderous plane crash.
2. Alive (1993)
R | 128 min | Biography, Drama, Thriller
After crash-landing in the snowswept Andes, a Uruguayan rugby team has no choice but to turn to desperate measures in order to survive.
Director: Frank Marshall | Stars: Ethan Hawke, Vincent Spano, Josh Hamilton, Bruce Ramsay
Votes: 64,367 | Gross: $36.73M
The very concept that this film is based on a true story makes it great. When you watch it you can't help but wonder what you would do in their situation. You want to think that you wouldn't, but then you think of their situation.
3. Get Out (I) (2017)
R | 104 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point.
Director: Jordan Peele | Stars: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener
Votes: 695,090 | Gross: $176.04M
Just because you're invited, doesn't mean you're welcome.
People will be talking about this one for a long time.
Get Out is an extremely powerful, poignant horror movie with some humor. Whatever elements of action or schlock that are present take a backseat to the real human drama that plays out when Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) meets his white girlfriend's eccentric family.
4. No Escape (I) (2015)
R | 103 min | Action, Thriller
In their new overseas home, an American family soon finds themselves caught in the middle of a coup, and they frantically look for a safe escape from an environment where foreigners are being immediately executed.
Director: John Erick Dowdle | Stars: Lake Bell, Pierce Brosnan, Owen Wilson, Thanawut Ketsaro
Votes: 93,038 | Gross: $27.29M
This movie is fascinating, completely plausible, filled with amazing scenes that keep you at the edge of your seat. The things that this family goes through were unimaginable but very well executed during filming.
5. The Descent (2005)
R | 99 min | Adventure, Horror, Thriller
A caving expedition goes horribly wrong, as the explorers become trapped and ultimately pursued by a strange breed of predators.
Director: Neil Marshall | Stars: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder
Votes: 246,604 | Gross: $26.02M
If you've seen the trailer you'll know what your going to get – suspenseful, claustrophobic thriller, when horrible things happen to a group exploring a cave system.
6. 30 Days of Night (2007)
R | 113 min | Action, Horror, Thriller
After an Alaskan town is plunged into darkness for a month, it is attacked by a bloodthirsty gang of vampires.
Director: David Slade | Stars: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston, Ben Foster
Votes: 189,202 | Gross: $39.57M
The setting is fantastic and what could be more scary than 30 days of endless night when you are besieged by vampires.
7. Everest (2015)
PG-13 | 121 min | Action, Adventure, Biography
On May 10, 1996, mountain guides Rob Hall and Scott Fischer combine their expedition teams for a final ascent to the summit of Mount Everest. With little warning, a storm strikes the mountain and the climbers must now battle to survive.
Director: Baltasar Kormákur | Stars: Jason Clarke, Ang Phula Sherpa, Thomas M. Wright, Martin Henderson
Votes: 232,205 | Gross: $43.48M
This is the true story of two different expeditions in 1996 who attempt to scale Everest but encounter massive storms on the descent down the mountain. Everest is a stunning looking film that you come away from , feeling totally exhausted. Because it is so realistic you do feel you are with the climbers at times.
8. Vertical Limit (2000)
PG-13 | 124 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A climber must rescue his sister on the peak of K2, the second highest mountain in the world .
Director: Martin Campbell | Stars: Scott Glenn, Chris O'Donnell, Bill Paxton, Robin Tunney
Votes: 65,294 | Gross: $69.24M
A team of mountain climbers run into dire straits when they encounter a turn in the weather and become stranded during an assault on K2 in `Vertical Limit
9. North Face (2008)
Not Rated | 126 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
A secretary at a Berlin newspaper in 1936 gets to write about two Alpinists, as she knows them well. She later gets to report on and photograph her friends' and other Alpinists' climbs of the dangerous Swiss Eiger north face.
Director: Philipp Stölzl | Stars: Benno Fürmann, Florian Lukas, Johanna Wokalek, Simon Schwarz
Votes: 16,429 | Gross: $0.71M
Most climbing movies are good just by the nature of conquest - few however achieve real greatness as film.
Here we do. This works in its first third as a rather tepid period piece - but the climb itself is outstanding.
10. Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)
PG | 94 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
In 1931, three half-white, half-Aboriginal girls escape after being plucked from their houses to be trained as domestic staff, and set off on a journey across the Outback.
Director: Phillip Noyce | Stars: Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury, Kenneth Branagh, Laura Monaghan
Votes: 30,241 | Gross: $6.17M
"Rabbit-Proof Fence" discloses a shameful part of the Australia contemporary history when the white man tried to force a process of eugenism, following the true saga of three escapees from one "native center" to reach their families in the desert.
11. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
R | 134 min | Biography, Drama, History
In the antebellum United States, Solomon Northup, a free Black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery.
Director: Steve McQueen | Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Kenneth Williams, Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt
Votes: 740,607 | Gross: $56.67M
'12 Years a Slave' is based on the memoir of Solomon Northup, a freeman who was living in Saratoga, NY before being tricked, drugged, and sold into slavery in the south.
12. Frozen (I) (2010)
R | 93 min | Adventure, Thriller
Three skiers stranded on a chairlift are forced to make life-or-death choices, which prove more perilous than staying put and freezing to death.
Director: Adam Green | Stars: Shawn Ashmore, Emma Bell, Kevin Zegers, Ed Ackerman
Votes: 80,657 | Gross: $0.24M
13. The Snow Walker (2003)
PG | 103 min | Adventure, Drama
A pilot and his passenger struggle for survival after crashing in the Arctic tundra.
Director: Charles Martin Smith | Stars: Barry Pepper, Annabella Piugattuk, James Cromwell, Kiersten Warren
Votes: 11,356
14. Flight of the Phoenix (2004)
PG-13 | 113 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Survivors of a plane crash in the Mongolian desert work together to build a new plane.
Director: John Moore | Stars: Dennis Quaid, Miranda Otto, Giovanni Ribisi, Tyrese Gibson
Votes: 56,724 | Gross: $21.01M
15. Rescue Dawn (2006)
PG-13 | 125 min | Adventure, Biography, War
A U.S. fighter pilot's epic struggle of survival after being shot down on a mission over Laos during the Vietnam War.
Director: Werner Herzog | Stars: Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies, Zach Grenier
Votes: 110,747 | Gross: $5.49M
16. I Am Legend (2007)
PG-13 | 101 min | Action, Drama, Horror
Years after a plague kills most of humanity and transforms the rest into monsters, the sole survivor in New York City struggles valiantly to find a cure.
Director: Francis Lawrence | Stars: Will Smith, Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Salli Richardson-Whitfield
Votes: 813,172 | Gross: $256.39M
17. Touching the Void (2003)
R | 106 min | Documentary, Adventure, Drama
The true story of two climbers and their perilous journey up the west face of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985.
Director: Kevin Macdonald | Stars: Simon Yates, Joe Simpson, Brendan Mackey, Nicholas Aaron
Votes: 38,076 | Gross: $4.59M
18. Eight Below (2006)
PG | 120 min | Adventure, Drama, Family
Brutal cold forces two Antarctic explorers to leave their team of sled dogs behind as they fend for their survival.
Director: Frank Marshall | Stars: Paul Walker, Jason Biggs, Bruce Greenwood, Moon Bloodgood
Votes: 68,329 | Gross: $81.61M
19. The Edge (1997)
R | 117 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
An intellectual billionaire and two other men struggle to band together and survive after getting stranded in the Alaskan wilderness with a blood-thirsty Kodiak Bear hunting them down.
Director: Lee Tamahori | Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, Elle Macpherson, Harold Perrineau
Votes: 78,963 | Gross: $27.78M
20. The Grey (2011)
R | 117 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
After their plane crashes in Alaska, six oil workers are led by a skilled huntsman to survival, but a pack of merciless wolves haunts their every step.
Director: Joe Carnahan | Stars: Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, Dallas Roberts
Votes: 263,202 | Gross: $51.58M
21. The Ruins (2008)
R | 90 min | Adventure, Horror, Thriller
A leisurely Mexican holiday takes a turn for the worse when a group of friends and a fellow tourist embark on a remote archaeological dig in the jungle, where something evil lives among the ruins.
Director: Carter Smith | Stars: Shawn Ashmore, Jena Malone, Jonathan Tucker, Laura Ramsey
Votes: 84,135 | Gross: $17.43M
22. The Road (I) (2009)
R | 111 min | Drama, Thriller
In a dangerous post-apocalyptic world, an ailing father defends his son as they slowly travel to the sea.
Director: John Hillcoat | Stars: Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Robert Duvall
Votes: 253,944 | Gross: $0.06M
23. Life of Pi (2012)
PG | 127 min | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
A young man who survives a disaster at sea is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While cast away, he forms an unexpected connection with another survivor: a fearsome Bengal tiger.
Director: Ang Lee | Stars: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain, Tabu
Votes: 666,274 | Gross: $124.99M
24. The Martian (2015)
PG-13 | 144 min | Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi
An astronaut becomes stranded on Mars after his team assume him dead, and must rely on his ingenuity to find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive and can survive until a potential rescue.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Kate Mara
Votes: 923,642 | Gross: $228.43M
25. Open Grave (2013)
Unrated | 102 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A man wakes up with no memory in a pit full of dead bodies in the wilderness and must determine if the murderer is one of the strangers who rescued him, or if he himself is the killer.
Director: Gonzalo López-Gallego | Stars: Sharlto Copley, Thomas Kretschmann, Josie Ho, Joseph Morgan
Votes: 31,322
26. All Is Lost (2013)
PG-13 | 106 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
After a collision with a shipping container at sea, a resourceful sailor finds himself, despite all efforts to the contrary, staring his mortality in the face.
Director: J.C. Chandor | Star: Robert Redford
Votes: 83,780 | Gross: $6.26M
27. The Way Back (I) (2010)
PG-13 | 133 min | Adventure, Drama, History
Siberian gulag escapees travel four thousand miles by foot to freedom in India.
Director: Peter Weir | Stars: Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Dragos Bucur
Votes: 121,935 | Gross: $2.70M
28. The Shallows (2016)
PG-13 | 86 min | Action, Drama, Horror
A mere 200 yards from shore, surfer Nancy is attacked by a great white shark, with her short journey to safety becoming the ultimate contest of wills.
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra | Stars: Blake Lively, Óscar Jaenada, Angelo Josue Lozano Corzo, Joseph Salas
Votes: 143,291 | Gross: $55.12M
29. 47 Meters Down (2017)
PG-13 | 89 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Two sisters vacationing in Mexico are trapped in a shark cage at the bottom of the ocean. With less than an hour of oxygen left and great white sharks circling nearby, they must fight to survive.
Director: Johannes Roberts | Stars: Mandy Moore, Claire Holt, Matthew Modine, Chris Johnson
Votes: 60,856 | Gross: $44.31M
30. Circle (II) (2015)
Not Rated | 87 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Held captive and faced with their imminent executions, fifty strangers are forced to choose the one person among them who deserves to live.
Directors: Aaron Hann, Mario Miscione | Stars: Allegra Masters, Aimee McKay, Ashley Key, Autumn Federici
Votes: 65,983
31. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
PG-13 | 103 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A young woman is held in an underground bunker by a man who insists that a hostile event has left the surface of the Earth uninhabitable.
Director: Dan Trachtenberg | Stars: John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr., Douglas M. Griffin
Votes: 354,241 | Gross: $72.08M
32. Children of Men (2006)
R | 109 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
In 2027, in a chaotic world in which women have somehow become infertile, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea.
Director: Alfonso Cuarón | Stars: Julianne Moore, Clive Owen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Caine
Votes: 528,903 | Gross: $35.55M
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