film
Genres

Explore the best films inspired by and based on true stories about natural disasters, human-made disasters, disaster survival, and wilderness survival.

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Natural Disaster and Survival 

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Natural disaster films depict a major event caused by natural processes of the Earth, resulting in severe damage, destruction, or loss of life. According to researchers Caldera and Wirasinghe,"Natural disasters can be land based (e.g., earthquakes), water based (e.g., river floods), atmospheric (e.g., tornadoes), biological (e.g., pandemics), extraterrestrial based (e.g., comet strikes), or any combination of these (e.g., undersea earthquake and tsunami)." Check out these films based on real natural disasters and survival!

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North Face (2008)

Hurricane Season (2009)

The Impossible (2012)

Everest (2015)

Adrift (2018)

Togo (2019)

The Aeronauts (2019)

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Human-Made Disaster and Survival

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Some true story films dramatize disaster and survival in the face of human error or oppression. These disasters range from on-the-job human error and accidents to slavery, imprisonment, internment, hostage situations, and oppressive laws and governments. Some of these films portray individuals traversing the wilderness, while others are set inside planes, trains, ships, cities, or prisons. Still others show a disastrous collision between human-made objects and nature, like the Titanic crashing into an iceberg. Check out these human-made disaster and survival films!

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The China Syndrome (1979)

Not Without my Daughter (1991)

Alive (1993)

Apollo 13 (1995)

Titanic (1997)

The Hurricane (1999)

Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)

Touching the Void (2003)

Flight 93 (2006 TV Movie)

United 93 (2006)

Rescue Dawn (2006)

Unstoppable (2010)

The Way Back (2010)

Captain Phillips (2013)

The Railway Man (2013)

Run Boy Run/Lauf Junge Lauf (2013)

Sully (2016)

Deepwater Horizon (2016)

The 12th Man (2017)

Stronger (2017)

Detroit (2017)

All the Money in the World (2017)

Trial by Fire (2018)

Harriet (2019)

Chernobyl (2019)

Society of the Snow (2023)

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Wilderness Survival by Choice

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Some true story disaster and survival films dramatize humans willfully braving the elements across mountains, deserts, land, water, and skies.

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Touching the Void (2003)

Into The Wild (2007)

North Face (2008)

127 Hours (2010)

Kon-Tiki (2012)

Wild (2014)

Everest (2015)

The Revenant (2015)

Jungle (2017)

The Aeronauts (2019)​​​​​​