Best Outdoors Movies

[ppine]

They are few and far between really.  When they first came out, Jeremiah Johnson, Little Big Man, and Dances with Wolves broke some new ground.  Into the Wild and the Edge are  interesting movies. Most people in Hollywood have no concept of the backcountry and their movies are lame even if they have a good story. It is much easier to find great books about the outdoors. I like Colin Fletcher, Townsend Whelen, Calvin Rutsrom, Sig Olsen, Brad Angier, and HD Thoreau as examples.

Edited March 12, 2016 by ppine

[lonerock]

6 hours ago, ppine said:

They are few and far between really.  When they first came out, Jeremiah Johnson, Little Big Man, and Dances with Wolves broke some new ground.  Into the Wild and the Edge are  interesting movies. Most people in Hollywood have no concept of the backcountry and their movies are lame even if they have a good story. It is much easier to find great books about the outdoors. I like Colin Fletcher, Townsend Whelen, Calvin Rutsrom, Sig Olsen, Brad Angier, and HD Thoreau as examples.

Good selection of movies. Little Big Man has always been one of my favorites for many reasons. I also agree about Hollywood but then their interest is mostly profit driven rather than providing accuracy when it comes to translating books into movies  or correctly portraying backcountry concepts.

You also have a good list of writers.  I often will read some of Colin Fletcher's books again and again.  There's a couple of great radio interviews with Colin available on New Dimensions Radio that can be found online. These were conducted after after the publication of The Complete Walker and another after The River. They provide a great insight into a person who's been referred to as the father of modern day  backpacking. 

[branchville]

The Last of the Mohicans

[jay]

A lot of good movies are listed here.  Another I would add is The Revenant.  Not sure how many have seen it but I did like a lot of the outdoor cinematography.

[ppine]

"The Revenant" is an interesting movie to watch. I first read the "Saga of Hugh Glass" for a range management class 45 years ago.  The movie deviates from the book in several important ways. The son is a Hollywood addition. Glass forgave Bridger and Fitzgerald at the Fort when they were reunited.  The movie makes a much more revengeful account of what happened. 

The heyday of good western and outdoor movies seems to be over, but this film is worth seeing. I agree that the cinematography is at a very hight level.  The depiction of the style of living of trappers is somewhat more realistic than what we usually get. Leonardo deserves some credit for making this movie. He said he will never do another one like it.

[ppine]

Back in the 1970s there was a long documentary on National Geographic about 4 guys that built a log raft with a wall tent and a sail and floated the Yukon River which is far, something like 600 miles.  When they got near the Beaufort Sea they built a house out of the raft logs and spent the winter with the Inuit.   when I was young, I thought this was the greatest video of all time.