Some people go looking for adventure, others collide into it. Either way: Mother Nature always proves to be a fearsome foe. No matter how great our technical advances may be, you can’t outwit a snowstorm or outrun a tidal wave. If even moderately unprepared, the beasts in the wild can rip you to shreds. And this isn’t even counting the most dangerous animal of all: man, whose varying knowledge of the wilderness can make us both apex predator or easy prey.
Of course, onscreen, not every fight for survival is automatically a survival thriller. One could argue that war movies are as much about survival as is any slasher movie. The below films are specifically about the wilderness—and, moreover, they’re about moderately real threats. Part of the appeal of the survival thriller is that you have and can use only what nature gives you. And even if you do manage to survive—you won’t be the same afterwards.