Top 5 Climbing Movies of All Time
It seems that every couple of years, Hollywood gets the idea to make a movie with climbing as the main theme. For real climbers, these are usually amusing affairs with all kinds of technical blunders, improper use of gear and lingo, and general mayhem. God only knows what kind of impression it gives the general public. After watching a couple of these recently, I put together this list of the top climbing movies ever made. Leave a comment if you’ve got any good ones to add to the list!
#5 – Take it to the Limit
View the trailer here.
A recent entry, I don’t know how this one went under the radar for so long. Rappelling off tunnels, water towers, and speed climbing up 5.4 slabs really keeps the excitement going. Suffice it to say that if you aren’t pumped to “Screw this, let’s go top roping” by the end of the movie, you may not have a pulse! You can read Tracy’s full review here.
#4 – Vertical Limit
I remember seeing this in the theater with a couple climbing buddies when I was in college. The opening scene depicts a ridiculous and overly dramatic sequence in which a climber decks from high on a desert tower after the rope had to be cut to save the rest of the party. We all burst out laughing, while the rest of the audience sat there in silence (and no doubt disgust at our lack of decency.) The rest of the film was held to this same high standard, with plenty of nitro explosions and incredibly huge dynos with ice tools. Maybe this is what a climbing action comic book would be like.
You can watch the incredible bad opening here.
#3 – Cliffhanger
Maybe one of the most widely viewed of the mainstream climbing movies due to the presence of actor Sylvester Stalone. It gave folks a lot of wrong impressions about the sport, like a harness buckle being able to bend like silly putty, or bolt guns that instantly set an anchor in any stone (Don’t we wish we could get our hands on one of those!). Of course its got the terrorist element, so some fun action makes it worth checking out.
#2 – K2
I have to admit, we watched this movie almost weekly when I first got into climbing in high school. From the opening late night buildering to splitter granite cracks way off the deck to the intensity of climbing K2, we were hooked! Add in some witty banter, and this is a sure fire winner. It appears they did a decent amount of research for this one, as you wont find too many criticisms, like hey why is he clipped to this or doing it like that (See Take it To the Limit for that!)
#1 – The Eiger Sanction
Clint Eastwood and mountain climbing, how can it get any better? Clint Eastwood is an agent sent to “sanction” a climber in Europe. His training takes him up desert towers in Zion and Monument Valley and his mission comes to an exciting climax on the north face of the Eiger. This will probably stand forever as the best climbing related movie to ever come out of Hollywood. Enough said.
Yeah, but you'd need a 30' or 40' stick at the City! 
ha, coming off a 2 week climbing trip, climbing only the t-radest lines, i took a break from nuts and ...
Someone buy Sam a cordless grinder. Sheesh dude, retire the boltcutters! 
We took a couple photos of you guys on shan's phone, I will try to post them on facebook today, ...
Sounds like a post I wrote the last time I visited smith rock. That place can be pretty humbling. You ...
Great review Tracy! 
FYI, the Hadley Gulch Trail is open as of the beginning of August 
Dude. These things look freaking awesome. I want a pair. 
Washing the rope will remove, or mostly remove, whatever dry treatment was left on the rope. I thought someone sells, ...
Cliffhanger – best film, without a doubt!
You left out this classic, the James Bond thriller, For Your Eyes Only. It’s got a great climbing scene in it that takes place in Greece. Super classic. It’s perhaps only a little better than Take It To The Limit. Check out the trailer on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqLngSOGuTQ
[...] out SplitterChoss.com, where they’ve compiled a list of the top 5 Hollywood climbing movies of all [...]
What? No nod to “The Climb”, featuring the stunt talent of Michael Freeman?
I forgot about that one! I wonder if there is a trailer online anywhere?
Heh heh, I’ve never seen K2 before, but it looks fun! Can’t go wrong with hot-pink crampons and ice axes, that’s for sure.
No list of climbing movies is complete without my personal favorite, Touching the Void. I haven’t seen the movies listed above, so I’m not sure if this is a sarcastic list of “climbing” movies or a list of seriously good films. Touching the Void is seriously good. Here’s the trailer:
Hmm, the trailer didn’t imbed, so here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9Y6MNyWp6s
What about Masters of Stone 1 or 2? Steep routes, mullets, lycra, bad music, & hilarious antics.
Touching the void should be #1. It’s not even a close competition.
[...] week it’s been fun to revisit Hollywood’s portrayal of rock climbing in movies. Here’s a great glam-rock music video of David Lee Roth’s “Just Like [...]
No real climbing movies here. FAIL..
Big Up productions
Obviously we are talking about hollywood productions here, not the movies made specifically for climbers. touching the void was ok if you can stand listening to that self centered overly dramatic buffoon for that long.
I like many climbers came here looking for decent opinions about climbing films not failed overstated american hero ‘u can make it’ bullshit. Any thoughts on what to check out for real climbing film peeps? Masters of stone was crazy but old and dated. I wanna see what the world is doing now, where have we pushed the level
hooked and obsessed
hooked & obsessed,
I recommend buying ´Set in Stone´ with Dave Birkett or ´E11´ featuring Dave McLeod if you want the best trad climbing.
I don’t understand putting Vertical Limit behind Cliffhanger. I think Vertical Limit tried to use real climbing scenarios, even though they may have been exaggerated. In Cliffhanger there was not a chance of any of those things happening from start to finish; doing technical rock climbing in a hiking boot, running around in a t-shirt when the temperature was obviously well below freezing, etc. After watching Cliffhanger I was pretty well put-off and after watching Vertical Limit I felt good about the sport. A note about Eiger, as I understand Eastwood was into climbing at that point and things were done in as close to a real fashion as possible. I think George Kennedy (now gone sadly) being dragged up the rock was way past possible. Another note about Cliffhanger; the larger the body mass the less likely to be a climber; those guys in Cliffhanger had no chance where as Eastwood looked like a climber.
[...] and the majority of the people climbing 5.9 and under. I guess we can thank movies like Cliffhanger for furthering the stereotype that climbers need astronomical upper body strength, and if you [...]
The best climbing film of all time in my opinion is the German film “The North Face”, (Nordwand). Not only is it a true story, (Toni Kurtz and Andreas Hinterstoissers fateful attempt of the North Face of The Eiger),but the production is top class and the Music is fantastic.The climbing appears to be faithfully reconstructed and the cliff face action scenes are stunning. if you havn’t seen it, get it now!!
No question that Clint Eastwood in the Eiger Sanction is topnotch but for pure viewing pleasure it is hard to beat Take It to the Limit. The free-soloing scenes on “Little Dome” are worth the price of admission alone. Many thanks to TW for delivering this one to me.
Take it to the limit limit.
We have parties around this movie.
a MUST SEE.
Everyone seems to be chatting about modern movies…How about “The White Tower” 1948, “High Conquest” 1947 or even “The Challenge” 1939….Some good climbing scenes in these old flicks…Take a look if you can find them….Phil
One of my all time favorites is “Scream of Stone” with Stefan Glowacz climbing the Cerro Torre in Patagonia. Some say that Cliffhanger even borrowed some shots from “Scream of Stone”. Plus at the end there is a beautiful shot of Cerro Torre with Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” playing in the background. Again a highly recommended climbing film.
Some of the best Climbing Movies I have seen I found on this website:
http://sites.google.com/site/climbmovies/
Are you kidding? K2 is the only decent movie on this list!!! The best climbing movie of all time: Touching the Void!!! How’d ya miss that????
Someone should sanction the Eiger Sanction trailer. Egads, that’s some bad editing, filmmaking, acting, …just bad
There is a newer, German made movie, very decent: NorthFace. It seemed very intense and realistic.
I think people missed the tongue in cheek nature of this post. I loved the trailer for the Eiger Sanction, though. Looks classic. I’ll have to find that one.
The Eiger Sanction only had 1 mix up in the climbing. Clint went from lead to top rope in 2 sec….
North Face – is a very good “real” movie.
I may have come in late in this blog, but “Touching the Void” and “North Face” (a German-made Film) are new films that have no-nonsense Hollywood theatricks. And both were based on true actual facts. There’s another one – “The Ascent” a 1994 film with Benjamin Cross; sadly it’s not available on DVD. This one is also good if you could track it down. “Eiger Sanction” was mostly plot-based and not on the technical-mountain-climbing side. It was good during its time, but would pale when compared to the two newer films mentioned above.
Northface Dubbed in English.. Easily best realistic climbing Film.
All of those are good movie but I think that Touching the void should be included!
Sorry, I forgot to add the scene when Ace Ventura lets go the Racoon, Clifhanger style. Regards!
Just caught a climbing documentary called “180° South: Conquerors of the Useless”
It’s pretty damn awesome. You can stream it on netflix now. Do yourself a favor.
“Mission: Impossible II” has a “sweet” free solo sequence at the beginning. There’s a bit more here: http://www.backclip.com/questions/54/whats-your-favorite-climbing-movie
Whadup?!? Touching the Void, hands down number one!! While we’re at it, how about Steep for Extreme Skiing?? Ya, man.
I took the advice of previous repliers and loaded up North Face on Netflix instant play, and what a Delight!
The dizzying heights of climbing flicks is what really get’s my blood pumping. I know first hand the thrill of climbing and repelling from military training, and Cliffhanger was my first climbing movie (if you can call it that) that opened my eyes to the wonders of the sport.
Ever since I have been hooked and enjoyed Touching the void as well. Touching the Void was an amazing film as well that took a more documentary approach.
North Face is a straight film that captures all the elements of climbing, and apparently passes scrutiny among the real climbers.
So if I had to rank these two wonderful films, I would put North Face first then Touching the Void. I mean North Face even had a cute petite German chick for eye candy.
I just watched Norwand (translated North Face), a German film made a couple of years ago about the attempted first ascent of the Eiger in the Swiss Alps in 1936. It was well done.
Why do so many people believe this story ” touching” the void is true???? The story has a lot of holes and I don’t believe this story for one minute. PLEASE people, use your critical thinking skills and quit looking for heroes that aren’t there. There is NO proof these events really happened. Don’t believe it.
My favourite is Touching the Void. Most exiting movie I ever saw.
http://www.mountainproject.com/v/community_forum/take_it_to_the_limit_game/106848156
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