12 Best Climbing Movies Of All Time (Get The Popcorn Ready!)

The legendary director Orson Welles once scoffed, “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” If that is the case, there are no greater friends to film than the world’s most magnificent mountains and the bravely insane souls who dare to climb and film them. Here is the list of the best climbing movies of all time, each one defying the limits of gravity, human potential, and filmmaking to absolutely soaring results.

12 Best Climbing Movies

1. Free Solo (2018)

Our first film is easily one of the most iconic, winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film in 2019. The film centers around legendary free soloist climber Alex Honnold’s journey to ascend Yosemite’s infamous El Capitan cliff face without ropes or harnesses, a feat never before accomplished in the history of big wall or free solo rock climbing.

Filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin keep us on the edge of our seats as they explore the human behind this superhuman assent and raise moral and ethical questions about the purpose, price, and pay-off of high-risk art. A dazzling achievement in both mountain climbing and documentary filmmaking, Free Solo is a monument to humanity’s quest for limitlessness.

2. Meru (2015) 

Next up in our list of the best mountain climbing movies is Meru, an enthralling film about filmmaker Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker, and Renan Ozturk’s successful summit of the eponymous Himalayan peak after a failed attempt in 2008 ended in near disaster. A meditation on redemption and the cost of ambition, this film gives us an intimate first-person account of the mountaineers’ journey up Meru’s 4,000-foot “Shark’s Fin” wall through a mix of hand-held footage and staggering long shots of a seemingly impossible ascent.

It snagged the US Audience Documentary Award for Chin and co-director/partner Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and remains one of the best films about facing one’s failure and returning victorious. 

3. The Dawn Wall (2017)

The Dawn Wall documents the story of masters Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson’s famous first-ever free climb up the “Dawn Wall” of Yosemite’s El Capitan. Not to be confused with Alex Honnold’s route and method in Free Solo, the “Dawn Wall” is the steepest of all of El Cap’s walls and  is considered one of, if not the, most difficult big walls in the world; its conquest evading even the most legendary of rock climbers for decades until Caldwell and Jorgeson’s successful summit in January 2015.

By shifting from then-present to past, veteran climbing documentarians Josh Lowell and Peter Mortimer present a roadmap of the two climbers lives, plotting their obsessive journey from trials and tribulations to ultimate triumph. 

4. Touching the Void (2003) 

Everyone always talks about how dangerous it is to climb a mountain, but nobody talks about how dangerous it is to get back down. Touching the Void drives this point home with its harrowing survivalist story of legendary mountaineers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates’ disastrous 1985 descent after successfully summiting the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes.

Based on Simpson’s riveting tell-all book released in 1989, Touching the Void packs in every bit of drama and nail-biting anxiety straight from the men who lived to tell the tale. Through intimate interviews and dramatic retelling, filmmaker Kevin Macdonald asks us again and again… what would you do if you were in their shoes? 

5. Valley Uprising (2014) 

What list of the greatest rock climbing movies would be complete without an homage to the golden age of climbing that took place in Yosemite Valley, California in the 1970’s when a rag-tag group of thrill-seekers made the peaks of the national park their home and stomping ground.

A blend of interviews with the pioneers of the adventure sport themselves and reels of home-footage documenting their exploits, Valley Uprising transports us to the birth of the big wall climbing movement that rebelled against powers of authority as much as they rebelled against powers of gravity. 

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6. Brave New Wild (2014) 

Climber and documentary filmmaker Oakley Anderson-Moore’s charming and heart-warming investigation into her father’s life during the golden age of climbing at Yosemite Valley in the 1970's ultimately asks one foundational question… “Why?” Through home footage and interviews with her dad’s old climbing compadres, Anderson-Moore parallels the legacy of these rock climbing renegades on contemporary climbing culture to the legacy of her own father on her in their shared passion of the thrill.  

7. Blocheads (2016) 

When discussing the best films about rock climbing, we can’t forget the Brits and their influence in the art of bouldering. Blocheads chronicles modern-day bouldering pioneers like Dan Varian, Ned Feehally, and Michaela Tracy as they hunt the UK and Irish countrysides for fresh arenas and lines to climb. Short and sweet, this youth-driven manifesto on the thrill of the hunt is beautifully shot by folks who know the boulders the best: the climbers themselves. 

8. Fine Lines (2019) 

How does a person become one of the best mountain climbers in the world? What experiences allow these people to ascend the limits of nature and human capability?

Fine Lines asks these questions to 20 of the greatest living legends of the climbing world to a wide variety of answers, each unique as the climbers themselves. This is a perfect film for anyone who wants to get into the philosophy behind big wall climbing and sneak a peek into the minds and souls of some of the greats. 

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9. 180° South (2010) 

To climb a mountain is to defy the limits of nature, but at what cost? Veteran mountaineer Jeff Johnson sets off to Patagonia, Chile to ponder this question with the help of legends Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins as he attempts to retrace their 1968 route up Mount Fitz Roy in the Andes.

However, through Johnson’s journey from Mexico to Chile and meeting his heroes to honor their historic summit, he learns much more about the journey we all must rise up to in the age of climate change and teetering ecological disaster. 180° South is a pensive and melancholic exploration of a climber’s responsibility to conserve and protect the very thing they seek to overcome. 

10. Pretty Strong (2020) 

Pretty Strong is an indie film with a lot of heart and a lot more strength. The world of rock climbing and mountaineering has been historically focused on men, but the women featured in Pretty Strong are here to push that dated misogyny off a cliff. Focusing its lens on 10 of the best climbers from all over the world, including Nina Williams, Anna Liina Laitinen, and Daila Ojeda, this is “a climbing film about women, by women, and for everyone” and we at Climbing Gear Hub are here for it! 

11. 127 Hours (2011) 

Arguably the most famous fictionalized film about rock climbing, this tale of survival at all the costs made quite a stir when it was released over 10 years ago. Yet, if you have the stomach to withstand its gruesome third act, Aron Rolston’s story stands as a testament to humanity’s capacity to endure, both in summiting canyons and summiting our own consciousness. Because of this, it rightfully earns its position on this list of the best rock climbing films of all time. 

12. King Lines (2008) 

If someone asks you to name a famous rock climber, chances are Chris Sharma will be one of the first people you think of. He is widely considered one of the best in the adventure sport, and the film King Lines leans primarily on its leading man.

I don’t blame them one bit, as there is nothing more thrilling to us viewers than seeing someone dangling upside-down with only their arms preventing them from a serious, if not lethal, fall. King Lines chronicles Sharma’s journey as he attempts to free climb Es Pontas, a breathtaking deep sea arch on the Mediterranean and this thrilling voyage has some jaw-dropping shots fit for adrenaline and cinema junkies alike. 

Conclusion 

There you have it, folks… the 12 best films about rock and mountain climbing ever made. Although each film carries its unique perspective and cast of characters, from the wild young daredevil to the pensive conservationist, a singular purpose shines through in all of them. From surmounting the seemingly insurmountable to pushing the limits of one’s own human capacity, these films show us that both climber and filmmaker must work in tandem to capture their mutual ascent to greatness.  

Please comment below if you have any thoughts or suggestions of films to add to our list, and happy viewing!