The 14 Best Survival Documentaries of All Time

Ropeless climbs, doomed expeditions, and impossible rescues captured as they unfolded — real stakes, no script. Which story grips you hardest?

1. 1
   Free Solo

   The Oscar-winning 2018 film following Alex Honnold's ropeless climb of El Capitan's 3,000-foot face.
   1000pts
2. 2
   The Endurance: Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition

   The 2000 documentary retelling Ernest Shackleton's legendary survival after his ship was crushed by pack ice.
   731pts
3. 3
   The Rescue

   The 2021 account of the daring cave-diving operation to save a Thai youth soccer team trapped underground.
   700pts
4. 4
   Touching the Void

   The gripping 2003 reenactment of two climbers' catastrophe and impossible survival in the Peruvian Andes.
   500pts
5. 5
   14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

   The 2021 film tracking Nirmal Purja's record-shattering quest to climb all fourteen 8,000-meter peaks.
   500pts
6. 6
   Meru

   The 2015 chronicle of three elite alpinists attempting the treacherous Shark's Fin route in the Himalayas.
   500pts
7. 7
   The Summit

   The 2012 investigation of the 2008 K2 disaster in which eleven climbers died on the world's deadliest peak.
   500pts
8. 8
   Sherpa

   The 2015 film capturing the deadly 2014 Everest avalanche and the Sherpas who risk everything on the mountain.
   409pts
9. 9
   The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest

   The 2010 film exploring George Mallory's fatal 1924 Everest attempt and a modern climber's tribute.
   409pts
10. 10
    Deep Water

    The 2006 film reconstructing Donald Crowhurst's doomed attempt to sail solo and nonstop around the world.
    409pts
11. 11
    Stranded: The Andes Plane Crash Survivors

    The 2007 documentary in which survivors recount 72 days in the Andes after their plane crashed in 1972.
    300pts
12. 12
    The Alpinist

    The 2021 portrait of enigmatic soloist Marc-André Leclerc and his boundary-pushing mountain ascents.
    167pts
13. 13
    The Dawn Wall

    The 2017 film following Tommy Caldwell's obsessive free-climb of Yosemite's fearsome Dawn Wall.
    167pts
14. 14
    Beyond the Edge

    The 2013 recreation of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's perilous first ascent of Mount Everest.
    167pts