Best 5 Movies You Can Watch to Know More About Survivalism

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Who doesn’t like a great movie? Movies are one of my favorite mediums to watch, even when I’m in the outdoors; there’s simply nothing better than a good drive-in. Since I am a survivalist, I really love a good flick that focuses on ways to survive tougher situations. With this in mind, I wanted to create this guide about my five favorite movies you can watch to know more about survivalism. 

• The Book of Eli
Denzel Washington serves as the lead in this post-apocalyptic thriller that has elements of faith and a larger view of man’s nature. Post-apocalyptic films are some of my favorite. They always have a feature of survivalism in them because the façade of man’s civilized society is often shed. 

In one of the most survival-centric scenes the film, Eli, Denzel’s character, is faced with a situation where he encounters a cat. In modern society, cats are our adored pets, but in a survival situation, they can be a food source as well. In the movie, Eli uses his bow on his feline friend and lives another day. It’s important to understand that this wasn’t a callous decision, but a practical one; the cat gave his life so that Eli could live.

• A Boy and His Dog
This film helped bolster Don Johnson into stardom and premiered nine years before his iconic role as Sonny Crockett on “Miami Vice.” In “A Boy and His Dog,” the two main characters, Vic, who was played by Johnson, and his dog, Blood (who was voiced over), sought to eke out a life in a post-nuclear war wasteland. 

Throughout the film, Vic and his beloved talking pet often find themselves scavenging for food in the most unlikely of places. While Vic does engage in cannibalism at a point, it’s his encounter with an attempt to rebuild a society that defines the film. Vic barely avoids the political intrigue of the city and eventually returns to the wasteland; making it the ultimate independent survivor’s tale.

• Swiss Family Robinson
This one is an icon. While it may be a little family-friendly for some, there are definitely some lessons that a survivalist can learn from the Robinson family. The family makes the best of a secluded and deserted island situation and starts to make a life after being shipwrecked. 

So, what are the survival skills that can be found in this older, 1960 movie? One of my favorite examples happens when the father of the family finds out that there are some bloodthirsty pirates coming to the island that will threaten their castaway life. First, he tries a bit of trickery and raises a black flag to indicate that their wrecked ship had the Black Death. Then, after this gambit fails, the family mounts a defense that includes several ingenious booby traps that are ultimately effective.

• The Grey
I’ll preface this by saying that this is one of my favorite Liam Neeson films. It even features one of my favorite survivalist-friendly poems:

Once more into the fray.
Into the last good fight I’ll ever know.
Live and die on this day.
Live and die on this day.

It’s great, right? Anyway, this film is all about surviving horrific odds; in fact, the circumstances that Liam’s character John Ottway faces throughout the story are, in my opinion, even more harrowing than those that are featured in most post-apocalyptic movies. He and his coworkers are involved in a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness and are forced to deal with the chance of hypothermia and a pack of hungry wolves.

While the situation is grim, the group uses impromptu tools to battle and escape the pack. This is one worthy film.

• Cast Away

The final film on my list is Tom Hanks’ Cast Away. This details a harrowing experience by a postal worker that gets stranded on an uninhabited island. During his experiences there, Hanks character is forced to learn how to survive the island’s pitfalls and feed himself until he can be rescued. 

One of the most difficult to deal with aspects of this type of survival is the loneliness, and one of the ways that Hank’s Chuck Noland survived without going mad was to create a companion that was just a volleyball that he named Wilson. Wilson gave Noland someone to talk to and kept the character from succumbing to despair.

What are some other movies you can watch to know more about survivalism?

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