Hollywood is filled with genres and subgenres, and many of them have conventions that are entirely their own. Survival movies are, among other things, some of the more harrowing films made in America. These movies are about people who are trying only to stay alive after meeting some sort of disaster that may or may not be their fault.
Survival movies have risen all the way to the top of the Oscars, but they’re also some of my favorite movies to watch. They push people to their extremes, and the tension of the story is almost always built-in.
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These are the best survival movies you can stream now:
Cast Away (2000)
143m
Genre
Adventure, Drama
Stars
Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Chris Noth
Directed by
Robert Zemeckis
One of the best survival movies ever made, Cast Away tells the story of a FedEx employee who winds up stranded on a deserted island following a plane crash. Anchored by one of the best performances of Tom Hanks’s career, in part because he’s often working against nothing except a volleyball, Cast Away follows this man as he lives on the island for four years and eventually attempts to sail to freedom on a hand-built raft. It might not be that old, but Cast Away is the template for all great survival movies.
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127 Hours (2010)
94m
Genre
Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Stars
James Franco, Kate Mara, Amber Tamblyn
Directed by
Danny Boyle
Watch on Hulu
Telling the true story of a man who gets trapped in a remote Utah cave after a boulder falls on his arm, 127 Hours is an innovative look at everything that went on in his mind while he was trapped. Because the movie takes place almost entirely in a single location, director Danny Boyle and star James Franco are tasked with making the movie compelling in unconventional ways. Through flashbacks and daydreams, 127 Hours takes us inside its central characters mind, right up until the moment he cuts his own arm off to survive.
The Revenant (2015)
157m
Genre
Western, Drama, Adventure
Stars
Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson
Directed by
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Watch on Hulu
The movie that finally won Leonardo DiCaprio his Oscar, The Revenant stars Leo as a 19th-century explorer who is left for dead after a bear attack. As he works to survive the barren wilderness at least long enough to hunt down the man who left him and killed his son, we watch him undergo a series of harrowing ordeals, perhaps most famously including sleeping inside a horse carcass. The Revenant is a movie about survival above all else, but one that leaves you on a note of ambiguity when its closing credits roll.
Life of Pi (2012)
127m
Genre
Adventure, Drama
Stars
Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Ayush Tandon
Directed by
Ang Lee
Watch on Hulu
Based on a brilliant novel of the same name, Life of Pi tells the story of the lone human survivor of a sunk ship who finds that his only path to survival involves sharing a boat with a tiger. A stunning visual achievement (which perhaps shouldn’t be surprising coming from director Ang Lee), Life of Pi is also a story about why we tell stories. The movie’s twists and turns are best left unspoiled, but it’s the kind of ambitious adventure movie we don’t get enough of, one that dares you to believe in the magic of the world around you.
Swiss Army Man (2016)
97m
Genre
Comedy, Drama, Romance, Fantasy, Adventure
Stars
Paul Dano, Daniel Radcliffe, Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Directed by
Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
Watch on Amazon
A surprising, unusual survival story, Swiss Army Man follows a man who finds himself on a deserted island alone, only to discover a body washing up on shore. When he discovers how useful the body can be (it’s a Swiss Army Man), he begins to find reasons to live. Eventually, he and the body become friends as it slowly regains speech, leading to one of the stranger love stories of the past 20 years. Swiss Army Man is about a farting corpse, but like Everything Everywhere All At Once, it’s much more interesting and profound than its logline might appear.
The Impossible (2012)
114m
Genre
Drama, Thriller, History
Stars
Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland
Directed by
J.A. Bayona
Watch on pluto-tv
A harrowing film that follows a single family as they deal with the 2004 tsunami that destroyed Thailand, The Impossible is anchored by a remarkable central performance from Naomi Watts. As great as Watts is, though, the movie around her is equally impressive, giving you a sense of just how devastating an event like this can be. Is The Impossible a little bit manipulative? Sure, but the movie is undeniably effective, and it’s highly likely to leave you in tears when all is said and done.
28 Days Later (2002)
113m
Genre
Horror, Thriller, Science Fiction
Stars
Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson
Directed by
Danny Boyle
Watch on Amazon
A survival tale of a different kind, 28 Days Later is set a decade after the zombie apocalypse. The movie, which is shot on grainy digital tape, follows its central character as he travels from the heart of London out into the country, gaining and losing companions along the way. In a genre that can feel played out, 28 Days Later managed to forge genuinely new ground, in part through its use of movement and kineticism, and in part because its characters understand almost immediately that humanity is just as terrifying as the monsters that now live among us.
Thirteen Lives (2022)
147m
Genre
Drama, Thriller
Stars
Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton
Directed by
Ron Howard
Watch on Amazon
A grounded, procedurally oriented movie about the Thai soccer team that got trapped in a cave in Thailand, and the cave divers from all over the world who came to their rescue, Thirteen Lives is great precisely because it’s not all that showy. Colin Farrell, Viggo Mortensen, and Joel Edgerton all do exemplary work here alongside a cast that’s made up primarily of Thai actors, and the movie is smart about the ways that political pressure is informing the decisions that have been made as much as the actual desire to bring these boys home.
