Best Survival Movies & TV Shows

A poor single mother, who is trying to turn her life around, is thrust into a fight for survival when her ex-husband relapses and spirals out of control.

Survival expert Ray Mears takes an epic adventure into Canada’s unforgiving yet stunning wilderness, covering over 1,000 miles

Lars Monsen travels across Canada, encountering wildlife around every corner.

How Sex Changed the World is a documentary series exploring how sex has changed history: from Ghengis Khan using it to expand the Mongol Empire to the survival of harems for thousands of years and even how Hoover used it to blackmail top level politicians.

Two survivalists-turned-wilderness-private-eyes are on a mission to solve history's greatest mysteries in places inaccessible to the common man. Brothers Casey and Chris Keefer use their unique blend of survival and tracking techniques to enter the heart of these dark recesses and pick up the trail that can finally put long-lost legends to rest.

Imagines prehistoric life in this entertainment series about dinosaur battles. Computer-generated dinosaurs engage in conflicts choreographed using paleontological evidence from 70-million-year-old crime scenes. Jurassic Fight Club was hosted by George Blasing, a self-taught paleontologist.

Continuing the compelling saga of the heartstring-tugging, dramatic tale of survival revolving around three families of meerkats who are descendants of the legendary meerkat matriarch, Flower. Neighbors and rivals who share a bloodline are forced to compete for food and resources in an environment that is undergoing a great deal of change: the Kalahari Desert in South Africa.

Pioneer Quest: A Year in the Real West was Canadian documentary television series which aired on History Television and the Public Broadcasting Service in 2001. It is the first entry of producer Jamie Brown's "Quest series" which includes Quest for the Bay, Klondike: The Quest for Gold and Quest for the Sea. It was filmed on a site just north of Argyle, Manitoba

A drama centred on three people: Sarah is a barista who finds the love of her life in Mark. Her mother Barbara depends on Mark to keep her in Sarah's life while resenting her daughter's deep love for him. When severely traumatised by the sudden death of Mark Sarah's relationship with her mother finally cracks. Now faced with losing her struggle to cope Sarah feels Mark's presence return. Based on true events Transition is the story of a love that transcends this realm and the strength of human character in survival.

Ex-Navy SEAL Joel Lambert is pit against the world's most elite military and law enforcement tracking teams. With only what he can carry on his back, Joel will play an extreme version of hide-and-seek in unknown treacherous terrain with nothing but a basic survival kit and canteen of water as he attempts to evade capture in 48-hours or less.

The series drops 10 adventurers on an island with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a million dollars in cash. Those who survive for 40 days filled with gut-wrenching journeys and demanding physical challenges will split the money as their prize. The catch? They can buy all of the survival supplies and creature comforts they desire, but everything is crazy expensive (think $30K for a tent), all decisions to make a purchase require a group majority and the cost comes out of their shared prize money.

Wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan travels to the remotest regions on three continents to join three tribal families, learning their unique traditional survival skills and how they live alongside the world’s most iconic and dangerous animals.

Rose McGowan, artist and activist, documents the work being done to spread her message of “bravery, art, joy and survival.”

In official collaboration with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, this documentary series takes viewers through harrowing moments of the historic morning of September 11, 2001.

Twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed, Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse the United States and depend on each other for survival.

A caveman forms a bond with a dinosaur as they struggle to survive in a hostile world.

The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.

David Attenborough celebrates the amazing variety of the natural world in this epic documentary series, filmed over four years across 64 different countries.

When a deep space freighter is damaged by a solar flare its surviving crew are stranded on a beautiful and unforgiving planet. They begin to learn the true nature of this planet as they try to survive long enough to escape or be rescued.

Four professional bakers leave their modern businesses behind to bake their way through the Victorian era. They set up shop in 1837, when their trade was vital to the survival of the nation.

Four people return to the haunted woods where their friend was eaten by an ancient monster. Because they want to fight it. Because they're stupid.

A poor, elderly white woman living in a tenement in a black ghetto is befriended by a neighborhood boy, and the two of them form a mutually beneficial relationship: he provides her companionship and protection, and she becomes the mother he never had.

In a mysterious primeval land populated by dinosaurs and other extinct creatures, people from throughout human history have been resurrected. When 21st century Australian paleontologist Helena Walker awakes there after tragedy, she must learn to survive and find new allies, or die again at the hands of ruthless warlords, all while trying to uncover the true nature of their strange new world.

Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal: Tales of Savagery features a caveman and a dinosaur on the brink of extinction. Bonded by tragedy, this unlikely friendship becomes the only hope of survival.

The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.

Reach the top, and everything will be yours. At the top of the tower exists everything in this world, and all of it can be yours. You can become a god. This is the story of the beginning and the end of Rachel, the girl who climbed the tower so she could see the stars, and Bam, the boy who needed nothing but her.

Think you know your baby? Think again. This beautifully shot, heart-warming and scientifically revealing film, narrated by Martin Clunes, brings you babies as you've never seen them before. The first two years of our lives are the most critical of all. We grow more, learn more, move more and even fight more than at any other time in our life. We have to master the complex skills of walking, talking and relating to the world around us. But we are not yet built like an adult. We have more bones in our body at birth than an adult does, yet we don't have kneecaps. We laugh 300 times a day as a baby, but in the first few months we can't produce tears when we're upset. Secret Life of Babies reveals all these facts and more, telling incredible stories of babies' resilience and survival skills to boot.

The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.

A sheltered girl gets a crash course in survival when a mutant attack sends her to the surface, far from the safety of her underground home.

Francis Urquhart's survival at the top is threatened by the new king's populist agenda.

A cinematic experience bringing you the most amazing human stories in the world. Humans and wildlife surviving in the most extreme environments on Earth.

A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.

Maggie and Negan travel to post-apocalyptic Manhattan - long ago cut off from the mainland. The crumbling city is filled with the dead and denizens who have made it a world full of anarchy, danger, beauty, and terror.

They are some of the toughest, most extreme survivalists from across the nation. In the second season of Ultimate Survival Alaska, four teams - woodsmen, mountaineers, military veterans, and endurance athletes go head-to-head in an epic arctic competition that only National Geographic could inspire.

Soldiers find themselves trapped and in mortal danger behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. Their only hope for survival is to board a specially-designed bus. THE WAR BUS!!!!

One morning, the high school student Takashi Komuro enjoys the silence at school when he's suddenly interrupted by strange noises and a shaky-legged person who tries to enter the school grounds. Subsequently, several teachers come to the school gate to shoo the person away. All of a sudden, a teacher is bitten by the person and within seconds the school campus becomes a place of violence, blood, death and undead zombies. Takashi, shocked by the scenery, runs for his life to save his schoolmates and childhood love, Rei Miyamoto. The struggle for survival has just begun…

A woman struggles with the death of her lover. He was killed by South-American fascists.

Gyeongseong, 1945. In Seoul's grim era under colonial rule, an entrepreneur and a sleuth fight for survival and face a monster born out of human greed.

Two isolated families meet for a summertime celebration. Food is abundant and the future seems bright, but Ningiuq, a wise old woman, sees her world as fragile and moves through it with a pervasive sense of dread. Ningiuq and her grandson Maniq are dropped off on a remote island, where, every year, the family dries the catch and stores it for winter. The task is soon finished. As summer turns to fall, they wait in vain for the others to pick them up. Written by Anonymous (IMDb.com)

WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Zain, a 12-year-old boy scrambling to survive on the streets of Beirut, sues his parents for having brought him into such an unjust world, where being a refugee with no documents means that your rights can easily be denied.

With his two friends, a video-game-obsessed young man finds himself in a strange version of Tokyo where they must compete in dangerous games to win.

A virus has decimated humankind. Those who survived emerged blind. Centuries later when twins are born with the mythic ability to see, their father must protect his tribe against a threatened queen.

On the night she plans on taking her own life, 17-year-old 'Lisa McVey' is kidnapped and finds herself fighting to stay alive and manages to be a victim of rape. She manages to talk her attacker into releasing her, but when she returns home, no one believes her story except for one detective, who suspects she was abducted by a serial killer. Based on horrifying true events.

During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortunate host is birthed.

Sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes awakens from a coma to find a post-apocalyptic world dominated by flesh-eating zombies. He sets out to find his family and encounters many other survivors along the way.

The Maximals awaken on their home planet of Cybertron and are chased by mindless Vehicons created by Megatron. The Maximals must free the planet from Megatron and restore it to its real way of living.

Tom Hardy narrates this thrilling natural history series following five apex predators facing the ultimate test of survival in drastically changing environments across the globe.

Life's extraordinary journey to conquer, adapt and survive on Earth across billions of years comes alive in this groundbreaking nature docuseries.

Follow the true stories of five of the world's most celebrated, yet endangered animals; penguins, chimpanzees, lions, painted wolves and tigers. Each in a heroic struggle against rivals and against the forces of nature, these families fight for their own survival and for the future of their dynasties.