Survival is one of those words that gets tossed around quite a bit since it’s a very adaptable word. We can use it to mean one of many things or many thing at once, and as a rule it’s usually something quite dire in our own minds when it is brought to bear. In the movies however survival tends to be something that is life-threatening, horrifying, terrible, and an experience that is nothing less than do or die when it comes right down to it. The act of survival in any film usually comes with high stakes and a take no prisoners kind of mentality that pits the heroes, protagonists, survivors, whatever you’d like to call them, against insurmountable odds that they either take on willingly or have thrust upon them in an act so random and so destructive to their way of life that they have no choice but to either survive or succumb.
With that being said, here’s a few of the best survival movies from the 2000s.
5. Flight of the Phoenix
Though technically it’s a remake, this film does manage to update the story into something that a lot more people from this era can relate to with stars that a lot of people recognize. The idea of going down in the middle of a desert that offers days worth of travel in any direction, with limited supplies, and with people that can’t stand each other, is something that seems like a recipe for disaster no matter which way you cut it. But tack on the presence of a socially-inept genius that doesn’t realize that the people around him are to be valued as much as his intellect and it’s almost a sure bet that no one should have survived solely based on the in-fighting that would have occurred.
4. Dawn of the Dead
Ah yes, the dread zombie apocalypse. Keep in mind that most of these movies are predicated on the idea that people know nothing about zombies before everything kicks off. That was how they did it in the Walking Dead as well and it seemed to work. If you don’t know to shoot a zombie in the head because you know nothing about zombies then it’s kind of forgivable. But if someone’s trying to gnaw on you and shooting them in the heart isn’t cutting it, try aiming a little higher. Plus, the guy that owns a GUN SHOP? Half of those buggers in the parking lot should have been dead the first few days, if not more. But hey, that would make sense and kind of kill the movie.
3. The Road
Following an extinction-level event, a man and his son are forced to take to the road to survive, scavenging whatever they can in order to keep moving. Along the way they are pursued by a gang of marauding cannibals that are one of the only groups left and are armed and dangerous. Throughout their travels they have run-ins with several people that are either intent on taking what they have or sharing with them what they can. Near the end of the film the man dies and the boy is taken in by another family that’s been following them, thereby insuring that he’ll survive a bit longer at least.
2. Into the Wild
The act of ‘finding yourself’ is something that’s hard to deny when it comes to the purity and necessity for it, but one thing that many upon many people never seem to consider when rejecting humanity and the creature comforts is that nature is not bound to care about you. There’s no safe space in nature, no comfort zone other than what is made by the individual, and it can be stripped away without rhyme or reason simply because that’s the way the world is. Those that exist within the folds of civilization have forgotten this thanks to the coddling so many have received, but those that try to exist in nature are given a much harsher lesson when it comes to understanding just what it means to survive.
1. Castaway
Being forced into survival mode such as happens in this movie is something that reveals what a person is truly made of. We take for granted so many different parts of civilization that going back to simplicity, simply trying to make fire as an example, is something that many upon many people wouldn’t be able to do given just a few minutes and a refresher course. The act of learning how to survive is a rather tense and uncertain process that many individuals simply wouldn’t find enjoyable at all, not that it’s meant to be. But Tom Hanks certainly sells it in this movie, and he does such a great job that many people have actually wondered if they could do the same thing.
Survival is in many ways what we’re born to do, but many of us forget what it really means over the years.
Follow Us
