Great Adventure Movies
Great Adventure Movies from The Lord of the Rings to Shrek. These are the adventure movies that have stood out against the rest and reminded us all why the genre exists in the first place.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is objectively the best adventure movie. This is a scientific fact and if you disagree you are objectively wrong. While the later films did tend to, strangely, receive better reviews the first one is the truest adventure film. From interesting location to interesting location with a band of adventurers, a true adventure movie. The later films stray from adventure and into war film territory just a bit too often.
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Some would say that this is a Science Fiction film, but it really is an adventure film at heart. It has a Princess, a pirate and a knight in training alongside the force being clearly magic. If it were a little more clearly an adventure film it would probably have beaten out Lord of the Rings, but due to the muddle it must take second place.
Shrek
Shrek’s accessibility to children and its appeal to adults make it easily one of the best adventure films ever made. There is no rule that an adventure film cannot be a comedy and indeed some of the best are.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Based on the original adventures of King Arthur, this retelling of a kind pokes fun at typical adventure tropes and ideas of heroic quests in general. The Black Knight itself is particularly worth looking at.
The Princess Bride
The truth is that I do not much like The Princess Bride, but the cult status of this very popular film almost forces its inclusion on this list.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
What a long title, but an otherwise good film. Where the Pirates of the Caribbean films were great cartoony adventure films, this is a serious tale of naval adventure and warfare in the Napoleonic era.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
In my opinion the best of the Harry Potter films and definitely one of the more adventure focused of them. The journey to the cave was one of the best scenes of the entire franchise. What makes this film the best is that the stakes and twists in it are the best out of all the films and it also serves as an origin story for Lord Voldemort.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Critics did not seem to like them so much, but they also did not seem to get that they were just meant to be fun films to enjoy. As whimsical adventure films go, Pirates of the Caribbean is a good one thanks to great performances from the cast that give a twist on the various characters.
Conan the Barbarian
This film is basically made by a mixture of Arnold Schwarzenegger playing a strange, borderline amoral barbarian. One of his earlier roles, it no doubt in part lead to his stardom. Avoid the remake, which missed the fun and cheesy atmosphere of the first film completely, and watch the original.