If anyone is in the market for good films about hiking and the outdoors, it's this guy. I'm pointing to myself, by the way, which I'm realising you can't see.
I am, I hope, suitably qualified to be your guide to these strange and sometimes wonderful movies, given that I am both a) an avid walker – I’ve been part of the team on Country Walking and LFTO for some 18 years, and yomping the countryside in general since I did the South Downs Way at the age of four – and b) a massive movie nerd.
So I’ve had a near-lifelong obsession with films about walking, and I get very grumpy when they’re rubbish. On the other hand, when they’re good, my joy and excitement knows no bounds. As hopefully you’re about to see.
The winning formula for outdoor films should be so simple. Take beautiful location, add friendships, conversations, complications, a story, perhaps a decent tune or two, and create magic. And yet the history of walking movies is not so much magic as tragic, usually involving clichéd characters, forced storylines and the following assumptions:
1) There has to be at least one ‘eccentric’ character, possibly several
2) And at least one very annoying character
3) Everyone must get ‘comically’ lost at some point because no-one brings a map
4) Everyone is going to end up either miserable, angry or implausibly naked at some point
5) And everyone will grudgingly make friends/ fall in love in the end
And perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if those clichés all came together in a pleasing, original way. But all too often, they don’t. To prove the point, we’ve rounded up some examples.
Black Mountain Poets (2015)
In this strange, half-improvised bittersweet comedy, Dolly Wells and Alice Lowe play two thieving con-artist sisters who go on the run in the Brecon Beacons/Bannau Brycheiniog when their attempt to steal a JCB goes awry. There they are mistaken for two famed poets and welcomed into a writers’ retreat in which the guests hike, camp, and write and perform poetry.
It really is an odd little film, but if you can handle the quirkiness, there’s a lot to love. (A scene where the sisters improvise a tent by throwing a blanket over a camping chair is much funnier than it has any right to be.) Filming took place around the Coed Owen bunkhouse, just south of Pen-y-Fan (which is not the Black Mountain, but never mind).
Into the Wild (2007)
Directed by Sean Penn, this is the true story of Christopher McCandless (played by Emile Hirsch), a young student who rejects his affluent background, renames himself Alexander Supertramp, and hikes off into the Alaskan wilderness.
He makes his home in a derelict bus and proceeds to try to live off his wits. How you respond to the film depends greatly on how you feel about McCandless: inspirational seeker of true freedom or self-absorbed naïf who never bothered to learn anything in advance about the wilderness he was taking on? But with a story so emotive and a setting so sensational, the film can’t fail to grip you.
Deadly Pursuit (1988)
There may not be many thrillers about hiking, but really we don’t need any more because we’ve got this one. Sidney Poitier plays a veteran city cop chasing down a killer who has fled into the Rocky Mountains and joined a hiking trip in order to escape across the US-Canadian border. The catch is, no-one knows what the killer looks like, so the tension comes from trying to guess which of the hikers is our man. Everything is perfect: the scenery, the action setpieces, Kirstie Alley as the hike leader, and the friction between city slicker Poitier and grizzled mountaineer Tom Berenger.
Best of all, someone actually researched what hiking trips are really like. And the scene where the killer is revealed is an absolute heartstopper. Find it on YouTube, under its US title Shoot to Kill. (Although its French title, Hike with a Killer, is the best of the lot.)
Rambler Man (2022)
An honourable mention for this 11-minute short about the real power of walking. A simple tale shot in the Lake District, it’s the story of a dad trying desperately to reconnect with his son, who is going through a severe mental health crisis.
Inspired by a childhood drawing, dad takes his lad out into the hills, and a wonderful thing happens. Beautifully written by Cumbrian Ewan Pollitt, impeccably acted by Pollitt and Tim Bentinck, and almost wordless, it stakes a decent claim to being the best British drama ever made about walking. Find it on YouTube in your lunch break and enjoy.
Wild (2014)
Based on the memoir by real-life hiker Cheryl Strayed and adapted by Nick Hornby, Wild is a masterpiece. When Cheryl’s life goes into a tailspin, she resolves to heal herself by walking a 1000-mile stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert to the Columbia River. The hike is filmed with absolute truth and authenticity (blisters and all) and is intercut with flashbacks which gradually reveal the motivation behind it all.
Reese Witherspoon (as Cheryl) and Laura Dern (as her mother Bobbi) were both Oscar-nominated, and it’s not hard to see why. There are too many great scenes to mention them all here, but if the moment where a little boy sings Red River Valley doesn’t break you, you may not be human.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)
Easily taking the title of Funniest Film about Walking, this work of genius from director Taika Waititi is based on the novel Wild Boar and Watercress, by Kiwi author and outsdoorsman Barry Crump. It tells the tale of Hec (Sam Neill) and Ricky (Julian Dennison), who end up on the run in the New Zealand wilderness (specifically the Central Plateau of North Island) after a series of genuinely comic mishaps and misunderstandings.
It’s walking in a slightly different sense from what we’re used to (it involves rifles and wild boar), but as a film about the outdoors and about people, it’s as true-to-life as you could wish for – and an absolute hoot too.
The Way (2010)
Vying with Wild for the title of Greatest Walking Movie Ever, this is a wonderful film, written and directed by Emilio Estevez and starring his father Martin Sheen (below). Sheen plays Tom, an American doctor who arrives in southern France to retrieve the body of his estranged son Daniel, who has died in an accident while hiking the Camino de Santiago.
Intrigued by his son’s quest, Tom packs Daniel’s ashes in a rucksack and resolves to complete the Camino in his memory. The photography is superb, Sheen is fantastic, and the accompanying pilgrims are well drawn (with the exception of a rather clichéd Irish writer played by James Nesbitt). Story, characters, landscape: proof that with a bit of heart and soul, a film about walking can be truly beautiful.
The Salt Path (2024)
Coming soon...
Given the high calibre of all involved, it's hard not to love this film from cast and crew alone. Raynor Winn’s much-loved book The Salt Path recounts how she and husband Moth fled the most devastating of circumstances (bankruptcy, homelessness and Moth’s diagnosis with a life limiting-illness) by setting out to walk the 630-mile South West Coast Path from Minehead in Somerset to Poole in Dorset.
Now comes the film version, helmed by esteemed theatre director Marianne Elliott, starring screen luminaries Gillian Anderson as Raynor and Jason Isaacs as Moth, and filmed on location around the trail. Sure enough, these fine ingredients come together splendidly, with the chemistry between our two leads being the shining jewel at the heart of the film. There's not much to surprise you here, but if you're up for focusing on the journey and enjoying each step, then walk The Salt Path with this lot.
Free Solo (2018)
Free Solo isn’t just a film about climbing—it’s a film about obsession, fear, and the razor-thin line between brilliance and recklessness. The Oscar-winning documentary follows Alex Honnold as he prepares to climb El Capitan’s 3,000-foot vertical face without ropes, a feat so dangerous that any mistake means instant death. It's a classic.
The film has astonishing cinematography, though the shorts can be a bit vertigo-inducing. But it's the psychology of Alex Honnold that makes the doc so very interesting. He’s meticulous, methodical, and emotionally distant, traits that make him both an elite climber and a difficult partner. His relationship with his girlfriend, Sanni McCandless, adds tension, as she struggles with the reality of loving someone who willingly flirts with death. The result is a nerve-shredding, awe-inspiring documentary that leaves you in equal parts amazed and unsettled.
Dawn Wall (2017)
If you’ve not had your fill of sweaty palms after watching Free Solo, then you need to follow it up with a sofa session watching The Dawn Wall. In it, world-class climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson take on the Dawn Wall, an unclimbed route up Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan – and one that’s thought to be among the hardest in the world.
The duo spends 19 days on the wall, sleeping on a portaledge as they go. Unlike in Free Solo, the pair are roped up for protection, but the entire climb is under their own steam. You might think that the presence of ropes reduces the jeopardy, but tell that to the sweat forming on my brow when watching it.
Early in the film, we also hear about Caldwell’s experience as a young climber travelling in the Pamir-Alai mountains of Kyrgyzstan, where he and his friends were taken hostage by a militant group. Hearing Caldwell recount the experience, and their way out of it, is almost as remarkable as the Dawn Wall climb itself.
If you haven’t seen it before, watch this film!
And now, the films that didn't impress
Look, these next films are by no means terrible, but I can't hand-on-heart recommend them to anyone with a decent amount of experience in the outdoors. They're all either unrealistic, trope-filled, drippingly sincere, or all of the above.
Downhill (2014)
Billed as ‘a British road movie’, Downhill has a simple and promising premise: four friends set off to combat their various midlife catastrophes by walking the Coast to Coast, shooting a hand-held movie of their escapades as they go.
The trouble is, the team is a cluster of clichés (especially Ned Dennehy as the irritating Julian, a sort of poundshop Withnail), the escapades are deadly dull, the weather is dismal, and nobody seems to enjoy it very much. Still, Stephen Fry called it ‘a tremendous new British comedy’ at the time, and it boasts an 89% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Perhaps there’s something we’re missing?
A Walk in the Woods (2015)
Adapted from the most popular book ever written about walking, and starring Robert Redford as Bill Bryson and Nick Nolte as his eccentric pal Katz, this should have been the best walking movie of them all. And fair play, the photography is fantastic.
But strangely, the story of Bryson’s Appalachian Trail misadventure falls flat on screen. Perhaps it’s because it’s so curtailed, being unable to replicate all the great moments from the book. Or perhaps we simply didn’t need it: anyone who’d read the book had a perfect visual of the story in their head. Anyone who hadn’t read it was missing out on the one thing that made it so perfect: the voice of Bill Bryson.
Edie (2018)
In fairness there are two things to love about this sombre drama: the stunning photography and a thoughtful performance by Sheila Hancock. She plays cantankerous eightysomething Edie, who escapes to north-west Scotland following the death of her domineering husband.
Her target is Suilven, one of the UK’s most remote and challenging peaks. But having set out a terrific stall, the film then lets it all slide with its hackneyed portrayal of rude/surly/ money-grabbing locals (which will not ring true for anyone who’s actually been to Lochinver); a guide who says and does things no mountain guide ever would (including carrying a 60L rucksack on one shoulder, and allowing Edie to wander off by herself); and a route to Suilven that sacrifices all accuracy and logic to contrive a bit of extra drama.
There’s also a baffling moment where it’s revealed that Edie, out by herself in the wilderness with just a standard day-pack, has somehow carried a large tent, a stove and a transistor radio. And as a whole, it’s all rather joyless. We’ll tread carefully because Edie gets a lot of love on our social channels and we can understand why. We just wish it was a happier (and perhaps slightly more true-to-life) experience.