10 Heaviest Adventure Movies of All Time

Plenty of adventure movies are fun, or if they’re not fun 100% of the time, the darker parts aren’t really overwhelming. You’ve got films like The Princess Bride that are pretty lightweight all the way through, and then maybe The Lord of the Rings is more what you’d expect tonally out of a standard adventure movie, since there are emotional highs and lows there, but ultimately more of a focus on the highs, once all is said and done (also, very little about that trilogy is “standard” in a technical sense, it has to be stressed).

Yet not all adventure movies are wholly fun, or even partly fun. The following ones, for example, are pretty downbeat all the way through, and some are genuinely soul-crushing. They’re the heaviest adventure movies ever made, basically, and maybe some you have to squint at a little, before you see they’re adventure films, but if “adventure” is listed as a genre on either Letterboxd or IMDb, then it’s fair game to be included here.

10

‘Gerry’ (2002)

Image via THINKFilm

The first entry in a bleak thematic trilogy directed by Gus Van Sant, Gerry does star two very recognizable actors, Casey Affleck and Matt Damon, but is otherwise a pretty difficult-to-approach movie. It’s about their two characters (both named Gerry, because of course they are; it’s that kind of film) getting lost in the desert, and finding it increasingly difficult to get back to somewhere familiar.

It’s not like you can read into it, but more that you have to read into Gerry and come up with something beyond the surface-level stuff here. It’s an art film, and a particularly aggressively artful one at that. Maybe it’s a bit pretentious, too, but it is technically a sort of adventure/survival film, and it’s a pretty anxiety-provoking and overall unhappy one, so it feels like it belongs here, even if its actual quality is kind of questionable and up for debate.

9

‘Beau Is Afraid’ (2023)

Image via A24

The title doesn’t lie, because Beau really is afraid throughout the entirety of Beau Is Afraid. What might be more surprising is just how long he’s afraid for, since Beau Is Afraid comes in at a kind of ridiculous three hours in length. Okay, technically, it’s a couple of minutes shy of three hours, but so are The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, respectively (at least the theatrical cuts of those films), so being hyper-fixated on the runtime here feels understandable.

It’s definitely an adventure movie, too, albeit a dark and consistently intense one, since the plot here involves a man having to undertake a long trip so he can attend his mother’s funeral, even though the idea of leaving his comfort zone (which doesn’t look too comfortable in the first place) is absolutely terrifying to him. Beyond all that, Beau Is Afraid is also a comedy, more or less, and does succeed at being both a tonal and general nightmare, so approach this one with caution… even if there is quite a lot here to appreciate; like, the sheer gutsiness of it all.

8

‘The Northman’ (2022)

If The Northman counts as an epic, then it is admittedly on the shorter side of things, by epic movie standards, but it does feel pretty big, and you can’t fault its ambition, either. It’s about a young boy whose father is murdered by his uncle, and he escapes while vowing revenge, once he’s older. Then, the film jumps forward, and he is older. Vengeance ensues, and then also, vengeance turns out to be a messy thing to try and get.

There are some strange fantastical elements at play throughout The Northman, and then it’s also got quite a bit of action for something so unusual and unsettling, with all of that adding up to make a fairly unique film, even if the narrative is familiar, what with it being based on the story that influenced the (also influential) Hamlet and all. It’s not quite as downbeat as some of the horror films Robert Eggers has directed, but it’s also not too far off, and is pretty savage and brutal when judged as a fantasy/action/adventure film.

7

‘El Topo’ (1970)

Image via ABKCO Films

El Topo is one of the most surreal Westerns ever made, and since it depicts a strange and drawn-out journey, it can technically count itself among the weirdest adventure films of all time, too. The central characters here are a violent man and his son, and they venture through a landscape that gets increasingly bizarre and difficult to navigate, with the whole movie feeling quite episodic, and frequently very violent, too.

For better or worse, El Topo does a very good job at feeling like a nightmare transposed to the big screen, with it being one of the trippiest films not just of its era (which, you know, was pretty trippy in the first place), but maybe even of all time. There are some very dark and unpleasant places it goes to, even for something that seems very willing to push boundaries while running the risk of offending people, so to say it’s not the sort of thing that’s for everyone would be a massive understatement.

6

‘Watership Down’ (1978)

Image via Cinema International Corporation

Sure, it’s an animated movie, and it features rabbits, but Watership Down is indisputably savage and overall a pretty feel-bad affair. The narrative centers on a group of rabbits who have to undertake a journey to some sort of new land after events transpire, and it turns out they can’t really live where they used to anymore. From there, things get dark pretty early on, and eventually, things also get surprisingly violent, too.

By this point, it’s probably well known that Watership Down is not really kid-friendly, or if younger viewers do watch it, they should be warned it’s not going to be sunshine and rainbows, or otherwise very “Disney,” for lack of a better word. It’s not going to surprise people in that sense anymore, because it’s known for being one of the darker animated movies out there that’s not technically only for older audiences, but still, it is surprising, to some extent, where this one’s willing to go, and especially where it eventually ends up narratively and thematically.

5

‘Deliverance’ (1972)

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

With Deliverance, you get something that starts out feeling a bit like an adventure movie, with the focus being on a group of friends who go on a river-rafting trip, but then things eventually take a turn that throws the film more into survival/psychological thriller territory. If you know, then you know, and if you don’t know, maybe you’re better off not knowing, because Deliverance – despite its age – is still incredibly confronting.

There’s a lot done here with a simple premise, and the way in which a handful of characters are pushed to their physical and psychological limits. It might well even seem a bit too straightforward, but in execution, Deliverance makes it all work brutally well. The whole movie inspires fear of things you might not have been fearful of before, yet post-Deliverance, such things can never be seen (or heard) through innocent eyes (or ears) ever again.

4

‘The Descent’ (2005)

Image via Pathé Distribution

The Descent is most easily classified as a horror movie, but it’s got adventure film qualities, too, since it revolves around a group of women going on a caving expedition through increasingly claustrophobic territory. The darkness and the general confinement are already tense enough, but then The Descent throws in some creatures to make the whole experience so much worse for the main characters, and in that way, it transitions from a survival thriller to more of a horror film.

Also, the main character in The Descent is grappling with a recent personal tragedy when she agrees to go on the expedition, so that leads to some extra heaviness, and heaviness that’s there right from the start. The Descent jumps around a lot, making you feel sad at times, unsettled at other points, and then sometimes genuinely terrified, too. It’s a lot to handle, and it’s also really good, so long as you don’t mind feeling on edge throughout, then more than a bit bummed out by the time it’s all over.

3

‘Sorcerer’ (1977)

Image via Paramount Pictures

There’s a bit of a dilemma here, and it comes down to not feeling comfortable including both The Wages of Fear and Sorcerer, just because they’re heavy-going and anxiety-provoking for similar reasons. The Wages of Fear came first, and might be the better film because it was more groundbreaking and admirable (considering its age), but Sorcerer, its remake, is perhaps even more downbeat and unapologetic with just how cynical it’s willing to get.

So, consider The Wages of Fear honorably mentioned, as something that pre-dated Sorcerer by about a quarter of a century, and was also about some desperate men trying to transport highly explosive material through dangerous terrain. Sorcerer is here, though, because William Friedkin admirably attempted to make the whole thing even darker and more vicious, and potentially succeeded, since Sorcerer stands a good chance at shocking and unnerving you even if you’ve already watched The Wages of Fear beforehand.

2

‘The Road’ (2009)

Image via Dimension Films

Cormac McCarthy wrote a post-apocalyptic book about surviving the aftermath of some sort of world-ending catastrophe called The Road, so of course the movie based on that book is a pretty darn bleak – and overall desolate – affair. Of all the movies here, this one feels like the biggest stretch, in terms of labeling it an adventure film, but there is a journey undertaken here throughout the whole thing, by a father and his son, even if the destination feels uncertain a good deal of the time.

For what it’s worth, it is a very effective film adaptation of some challenging source material, since both the book and movie versions of The Road manage to be bleak and upsetting in comparable ways. This is the sort of film you should probably watch, but it’s also maybe one of the least rewatchable films ever made. One viewing is more than enough, in other words.

1

‘Aguirre, the Wrath of God’ (1972)

Image via Filmverlag der Autoren

By all accounts, Fitzcarraldo was the more hellish adventure film to make, for Werner Herzog and everyone else involved, but the film itself is not quite as confronting and despairing as Aguirre, the Wrath of God. And, for what it’s worth, there were still some production problems when it came to making this, but the reason the movie’s here, in the #1 spot, is that it’s pretty much the quintessential “going on a doomed expedition” sort of film.

The journey here involves looking for the lost city of El Dorado, with basically nothing going right early on, and then things going more aggressively wrong, like, later on. It’s a psychologically harrowing and unusually gripping film about madness, and it’s sort of just the cinematic equivalent of a non-stop – and continual – downward spiral. Aguirre, the Wrath of God is also really good, even if it feels designed to make you feel kind of bad.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God

Release Date

April 2, 1977

Runtime

95 Minutes

• 

  Klaus Kinski

  Don Lope de Aguirre

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  Helena Rojo

  Inés de Atienza