# What is the best mountaineering documentary of all time?

> Eight-thousanders, frozen big walls and century-old expedition footage share this list, where harrowing survival tales sit next to quiet portraits of the guides who carry everyone else up.

*By YPB Team · Published October 25, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-mountaineering-documentary-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Meru** — score 1000/1000
   The 2015 film following Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk up the Shark's Fin of Meru in India.
2. **Cerro Torre** — score 622/1000
   The 2013 film of David Lama's quest to free-climb Patagonia's Cerro Torre via its Compressor Route.
3. **Beyond the Edge** — score 551/1000
   A 2013 New Zealand docudrama re-creating the 1953 Hillary and Tenzing summit in 3D.
4. **14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible** — score 466/1000
   Netflix's 2021 film on Nirmal Purja climbing all fourteen 8,000-metre peaks in about seven months.
5. **The Conquest of Everest** — score 466/1000
   The Oscar-nominated 1953 record of Hillary and Tenzing's first ascent of Everest.
6. **Everest (1998)** — score 466/1000
   The IMAX documentary filmed during the 1996 Everest season, among the highest-grossing documentaries ever.
7. **Mountain Queen** — score 466/1000
   Netflix's 2024 portrait of Lhakpa Sherpa, the woman with the most Everest summits.
8. **The Wildest Dream** — score 466/1000
   A 2010 film in which Conrad Anker retraces George Mallory's 1924 route on Everest.
9. **The Summit** — score 466/1000
   Nick Ryan's 2012 investigation of the 2008 K2 disaster in which eleven climbers died.
10. **Torn** — score 466/1000
   Max Lowe's 2021 film about his father Alex Lowe, killed in a 1999 avalanche on Shishapangma.
11. **The Alpinist** — score 363/1000
   The 2021 portrait of Canadian free-soloist Marc-Andre Leclerc and his remote alpine ascents.
12. **Touching the Void** — score 0/1000
   Kevin Macdonald's 2003 film on Joe Simpson's near-fatal 1985 descent of Siula Grande in Peru.
13. **Sherpa** — score 0/1000
   Jennifer Peedom's 2015 documentary on the Sherpa guides of Everest, shot during the deadly 2014 avalanche.
14. **The Epic of Everest** — score 0/1000
   Captain John Noel's official film of the 1924 British Everest expedition on which Mallory and Irvine vanished.
15. **Mountain** — score 0/1000
   Jennifer Peedom's 2017 essay film on humanity's obsession with peaks, narrated by Willem Dafoe.
16. **The Beckoning Silence** — score 0/1000
   Joe Simpson's 2007 film revisiting the 1936 Eiger North Face tragedy.

Tags: adventure, documentary, climbing, mountaineering, everest