It’s the season for stoke. This is one of our favorite parts of the snowboarding season, when the snow is just settling, and the excitement is rising inside us all. Snowboarders worldwide are pulling their beloved quiver out of storage and waxing it for winter. We’re eyeing up lines, watching weather patterns, and laying out what tricks we’ll dial in this winter.
And there’s another way to build stoke; we can watch the biggest hitters in the business laying it down. Whether you’re looking for inspiration to get you psyched or making yourself a must-watch list for those long winter nights while you service your snowboard or get all cozy while your boots dry out from another rad day, there are some films, documentaries, and series you have to watch.
Spoiler: this list doesn’t include the likes of Chalet Girl because why would it? Also, carving the whole world of snowboarding movies down to just a handful was hard work, and some classics and epics could — and maybe should — have made this list that have missed out; sorry.
SHE – Side Hits Euphoria Series
Starting off with pure, unadulterated fun. We love side hits. Sure, the park is great, but side hits are all about making the most of an opportunity, of getting into a flow and using the terrain as it should be used. Seeing more people using side hits tops our wish list for this season’s snowboarding trends. The SHE series is short and sweet, with three five-minute snowboarding videos, perfect for gondola rides or breakfast stoke.
VANS Snowboarding Presents
The VANS Snowboarding films range from quickfire shorts — around 10 minutes each — to hour-long epics. What they all have in common, though, is pro-riders pushing the boundaries of the sport. This series contrasts Arctic Roses, a splitboarding mission above the Arctic Circle on pure snow, against films like Landline and It’s Love, which feature almost solely street snowboarding.
Dear Rider, the Jake Burton Story
, Dear Rider is the story of perhaps the most influential figure ever to strap — and step — onto a snowboard. Jake Burton Carpenter took a childhood love and turned it into a lifelong passion that has surpassed anything else. Burton is synonymous with snowboarding, and Dear Rider shows how he was integral to progress in a sport that went from snurfing to step-on bindings in his lifetime.
Shaun White: The Last Run
Snowboarding documentaries don’t come much bigger than a three-time Olympic champion and a man who has been at the forefront of the sport for several decades. At the 2022 Olympics, White announced he was retiring from competition. It was only fitting, then, that a year later, this documentary would detailing the life of one of the best ever to do it.
Natural Selection Tour
You want to see a sport progress? Add a competition. The YETI Natural Selection Tour pits riders against one another to secure their spot in the live final event at Revelstoke Mountain. With stages in Switzerland, Japan, Crested Butte in Colorado, Scarp Ridge in Irwin, RED Mountain in BC, and more, the NST highlights some of the best freeriding in the world from some of the best snowboarders out there.
LIGHT
From Shredbots, this snowboarding video crosses into the world of meditation to perfectly demonstrate what it’s like to cruise the deep. The flow, the relaxation, and the sheer bliss are put across in a way that doesn’t seem possible as this video takes you on a journey of bliss. Even the most ardent park rat will be eyeing a powder board after this.
Fleeting Time
When a film comes out of Red Bull Media, you can generally presume it’s going to be pretty special. Fleeting Time features Ben Ferguson and a crew of elite snowboarders for two winters as they chase storms around the world in search of the perfect line and seek out adventure. This film promised a lot when it premiered in 2022, and the universal opinion was emphatic: it delivered.
Dustbox: Needed You
If you’ve never seen any of the Dustbox films before, then you’re in for a treat. These films have a homemade, rough-around-the-edge quality to them that just works with street snowboarding. These films remind me of the likes of Method Movie — oh, maybe watch that, too — with the big lines, gnarly rails, and heavy tunes. Made ‘by friends, for friends,’ Needed You is the latest in a series of excellent short videos that dropped just a couple of weeks back.
Stronger
It’s a few years old — coming out in 2017 — but this film from the Union team still stands up as a stoke-inducing, multi-discipline snowboarding move. Stronger features some of the best riders of the time — Scott Stevens, Gigi Rüf, Travis Rice, Arthur Longo, Torstein Horgmo, to name a few — each in their element. That’s one heck of a team roster, and they absolutely lay it all out for Stronger.
Art of Flight
Art of Flight has been around for more than ten years now, but somehow, it just doesn’t feel right to put together a list of snowboarding movies and not include it. This took the crown from the hands of “That’s It, That’s All” when it came out — also, watch that if you haven’t — which took some doing. If you’ve never seen Art of Flight, sit back, crank the volume, and immerse yourself in a true classic. In fact, even if you’ve done that hundreds of times, do it again; that’s what we’re about to do.
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