Best Wilderness Survival

Deliverance is a 1972 American survival thriller directed by John Boorman and adapted from James Dickey's 1970 novel. It follows four Atlanta men whose canoe trip through the Georgia wilderness becomes violent and desperate, with Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, and Ronny Cox in the principal...

Life Below Zero is a National Geographic series (premiered 2013) documenting several individuals and families living in remote areas of Alaska and surviving extreme subarctic conditions throughout the year.

Survivorman is a reality survival television series created by and starring Canadian filmmaker and outdoorsman Les Stroud. In each episode, Stroud is stranded alone in a remote wilderness location for exactly seven days with minimal food, no access to water, and limited survival gear. Unlike many ot...

Cast Away is a 2000 survival drama directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks as Chuck Noland, a FedEx systems analyst stranded on an uninhabited Pacific island after a plane crash. Much of the film follows his solitary efforts to obtain food, make fire, preserve his sanity, and escape. The...

Wild Pork and Watercress is a 1986 New Zealand adventure novel by Barry Crump. The story centers on a rebellious boy and his foster uncle, whose time together in the New Zealand bush forms the basis for a wilderness and relationship narrative. Taika Waititi adapted the novel into the 2016 film Hunt...

'My Side of the Mountain' is a 1959 young adult novel by American author Jean Craighead George. It follows Sam Gribley, a boy who leaves his home in New York City to live independently in the Catskill Mountains. The story details his survival skills, including foraging, building a shelter inside a h...

Brian's Winter is a 1996 young adult survival novel by Gary Paulsen and an alternate continuation of Hatchet. It imagines that Brian Robeson was not rescued at the end of the earlier novel and therefore had to remain alone in the Canadian wilderness as autumn gave way to winter. The story follows hi...

Jeremiah Johnson (1972) is an American Western directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Robert Redford, based loosely on the life of fur trapper John Garrison Johnston and depicting mountain man survival in 19th-century Wyoming.

"Wild" is a 2014 biographical survival drama film directed by Jean-Marc Vallée and adapted from Cheryl Strayed's 2012 memoir. The film stars Reese Witherspoon as Strayed, who embarks on a solo hike of over 1,000 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail following a period of personal tragedy and destructive...

On the Far Side of the Mountain is a 1990 novel by Jean Craighead George, serving as the sequel to her 1959 Newbery Honor book My Side of the Mountain. The story continues the adventures of Sam Gribley, a boy living independently in the Catskill Mountains of New York. In this installment, Sam's sist...

The Island with Bear Grylls is a Channel 4 series (premiered 2014) in which groups of volunteers are stranded on a remote uninhabited island and must survive without professional help or camera crews guiding them.

Frightful's Mountain is a young adult nature novel written by Jean Craighead George and published in 1999. It serves as the third book in the My Side of the Mountain trilogy, shifting the narrative focus to a peregrine falcon named Frightful. The story is told largely from the bird's perspective as...

Naked and Afraid XL is a Discovery Channel spinoff (premiered 2015) of Naked and Afraid in which larger groups of survival veterans endure up to 40 days in the wilderness without clothing or supplied resources.

Brian's Hunt is a 2003 young adult survival novel by Gary Paulsen and a later continuation of the story begun in Hatchet. Brian Robeson returns to the Canadian wilderness, where he discovers that a bear attack has devastated a family he knows and sets out to confront the animal. The novel emphasizes...

The Edge is a 1997 American survival thriller directed by Lee Tamahori and written by David Mamet. Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin play men whose plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness, forcing them to contend with exposure, mistrust, and a pursuing Kodiak bear. The film combines wilderness surviv...

Brian's Return is a young-adult wilderness novel by Gary Paulsen, published in 1999 as part of the series that began with Hatchet. Brian Robeson finds ordinary life difficult after surviving alone in the Canadian wilderness and ultimately decides to return north, where his experience and sense of id...

For the ultimate adventure seeker, Namdapha offers a glimpse into India's wildest, least-touched corners. Located in the Eastern Himalayas, it boasts unparalleled biodiversity, including rare species and dense, unexplored rainforests. The experience is rugged, requiring significant logistical planni...

Naked and Afraid is a Discovery Channel survival reality series that premiered in 2013. Its standard format places two strangers, usually one man and one woman, in a wilderness environment for 21 days without clothing, food, water, or conventional equipment. Participants must find shelter, obtain wa...

The Wolves of Winter is Tyrell Johnson's first novel, published by Scribner in 2018. It is a post-apocalyptic survival story set in the Canadian Yukon, where Lynn McBride and her family live in isolation after nuclear war and a devastating flu pandemic. When a mysterious stranger named Jax arrives,...

Scary Interesting is a YouTube channel dedicated to presenting historical true crime stories and paranormal investigations through meticulously researched documentaries featuring archival footage and expert analysis.

Yukon Men is a reality television series associated with the Discovery Channel that documents life in Tanana, Alaska. The program follows residents as they hunt, trap, gather supplies, and maintain their households through the region's severe subarctic winters. It is intended for viewers interested...

Emily Kellers memoir details her journey into self-sufficiency after a significant life upheaval. It chronicles the physical and mental challenges of living off the land and rebuilding a sense of self outside conventional society. The narrative is grounded in tangible survival skills and the quiet d...

The Mountain Between Us is a 2017 survival drama directed by Hany Abu-Assad and starring Idris Elba and Kate Winslet. The story follows two strangers who survive a small-plane crash in the Rocky Mountains and must cross a remote, snowy wilderness while dealing with injuries, limited resources, and t...