Best movies like Packin' It In

Valley Girl Molly Ringwald meets the great outdoors.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Packin' It In Starring Richard Benjamin, Paula Prentiss, Tony Roberts, Andrea Marcovicci, and more. If you liked Packin' It In then you may also like: The Wild Country, Out of the Wilderness, Racing Dreams, Jeremiah Johnson, Keeping the Promise and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

In quest of a wholesome place to live: at first the Webbers laugh at their neighbors when they leave L.A. for the mountains of Oregon. But when they recognize the same symptoms in their family that made the neighbors leave, they follow them. However their new domicile is a bit more apart from the civilization than expected. Even then it's not a paradise: their neighbors are weird, the next shop is miles away and their house lacks even the most basic comfort. How long will it take until they're packin' it in again?

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The Wild Country

Uprooted from their comfortable home in Pennsylvania, James and Kate Tanner, along with their sons, Virgil and Andy, journey to the wild country of 1890s Wyoming to become farmers. Soon, they come face-to-face with tornadoes, bears and wolves. But through the hardships their love for each other endures, even when a local rancher sees the newcomers as "squatters" on his land, and will stop at nothing – including murder – to drive them out.

Out of the Wilderness

A raven becomes a family pet after it saves the life of a little girl. Later, the family repays the favor by saving the bird from their neighbors who demand its immediate destruction.

Racing Dreams

From go-kart champs, NASCAR winners are bred -- or so goes the thinking of the drivers (and their families) involved in the World Karting Association's National Pavement Series. This documentary follows three of the series' top contenders. Although small in stature, the adolescent racers harbor big dreams as they hit speeds of 60 to 70 miles per hour in their quest to ascend the first rung on their way to NASCAR in this film from Marshall Curry.

Jeremiah Johnson

A mountain man who wishes to live the life of a hermit becomes the unwilling object of a long vendetta by Indians when he proves to be the match of their warriors in one-to-one combat on the early frontier.

Keeping the Promise

A colonial family seeks a better life in Maine's wilderness in this powerful adventure. When William Hallowell leaves behind 13-year-old son Matt to safeguard their claim, the boy relies on his new friendship with the Penobscot Indians for survival.

The Adventures of the Wilderness Family

The story of a modern family bored with the hassles of the city life in Los Angeles. They head for the wilderness never to return.

Alaska

Jake Barnes and his two kids, Sean and Jessie, have moved to Alaska after his wife died. He is a former airline pilot now delivering toilet paper across the mountains. During an emergency delivery in a storm his plane goes down somewhere in the mountains. Annoyed that the authorities aren't doing enough, Jessie and Sean set out on an adventure to find their father with the help of a polar bear which they have saved from a ferocious poacher. Conflict ensues.

American Gun

Seemingly disparate portraits of people -- among them a single mother, a high school principal, and an ace student -- Distinctly American -- all affected by the proliferation of guns in American society.

The Aviator

A 1920s mail pilot and a rich man's daughter crash-land on a mountain full of hungry wolves.

Benji the Hunted

Benji has become stranded on a remote island after a boating accident. He finds himself struggling to survive in the wilderness, avoiding close encounters with a wolf, a bear, and a territorial female cougar with her cub.

Buddymoon

When David is left by his fiancé just days before the wedding, his relentlessly upbeat best man, Flula, insists that the pair go on David's previously planned honeymoon: a seven-day backpacking trip through the breathtaking mountains of Oregon. Their adventures are bookended with passages from William Clark's diary describing his friendship with Meriwether Lewis and the terrain they crossed during their expedition.

Those Calloways

Story of Cam Calloway and his family, who live in a densely wooded area in New England. Cam dreams of building a sanctuary for the geese that fly over the area each year, and he tries several schemes to buy a nearby lake for this santuary. He is thwarted at every attempt, it seems; he and his son try to get enough furs from their trapping venture to get the money, but the bottom falls out of the fur market. He uses the little money they get for a down payment on the lake, thereby losing their house when he can't make the mortgage payment. They move to the lake, where their friends help them build a cabin. A salesman stops in town, and tries to get the people to sell their land for a tourist venture; Cam is outraged at his tactics and takes desperate measures after he himself is tricked.

Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey

Remake of the popular Disney classic, this time featuring some well known voices as two dogs and a cat trek across America encountering all sorts of adventures in the quest to be reunited with their owners.

The Mosquito Coast

Allie Fox, an American inventor exhausted by the perceived danger and degradation of modern society, decides to escape with his wife and children to Belize. In the jungle, he tries with mad determination to create a utopian community with disastrous results.

Man in the Wilderness

In the early 1800s, a group of fur trappers and Indian traders are returning with their goods to civilization and are making a desperate attempt to beat the oncoming winter. When guide Zachary Bass is injured in a bear attack, they decide he's a goner and leave him behind to die. When he recovers instead, he swears revenge on them and tracks them and their paranoiac expedition leader down.

Death of a Salesman

Salesman Willy Loman is in a crisis. He's about to lose his job, he can't pay his bills, and his sons Biff and Happy don't respect him and can't seem to live up to their potential. He wonders what went wrong and how he can make things up to his family.

Leave No Trace

A father and daughter live a perfect but mysterious existence in Forest Park, a beautiful nature reserve near Portland, Oregon, rarely making contact with the world. But when a small mistake tips them off to authorities, they are sent on an increasingly erratic journey in search of a place to call their own.

Lord of the Flies

When their plane crashes, 25 schoolboys find themselves trapped on a tropical island, miles from civilization.

The Mountain Between Us

Stranded on a mountain after a tragic plane crash, two strangers must work together to endure the extreme elements of the remote, snow-covered terrain. When they realize help is not coming, they embark on a perilous journey across hundreds of miles of wilderness, pushing each other to survive and discovering their inner strength.

Elephant

Disneynature’s Elephant follows African elephant Shani and her spirited son Jomo as their herd make an epic journey hundreds of miles across the vast Kalahari Desert. Led by their great matriarch, Gaia, the family faces brutal heat, dwindling resources and persistent predators, as they follow in their ancestors’ footsteps on a quest to reach a lush, green paradise.

Further Adventures of the Wilderness Family

The Wilderness Family now face terrifying times in fierce winter storms, an avalanche, and being attacked by a ferocious pack of hungry wolves. Watch as America's favorite family stands strong together to prove that the best things in life are really free.

Gerry

Two friends named Gerry become lost in the desert after taking a wrong turn. Their attempts to find their way home only lead them into further trouble.

Meek's Cutoff

Set in 1845, this drama follows a group of settlers as they embark on a punishing journey along the Oregon Trail. When their guide leads them astray, the expedition is forced to contend with the unforgiving conditions of the high plain desert.

The River Why

A young man abandons his family for a solitary life of fly-fishing. His goal was to find his own way in the fishing world and thereby find himself and love.

My Side of the Mountain

Film adaption of the novel by Jean Craighead George. A family movie made by Paramount Studios, the story revolves around thirteen-year old Sam Gribley (Teddy Eccles), a devotee of Thoreau, as many were back in the in 1960's. Sam decides to leave the city (set in Toronto) to spend a sabbatical in the Canadian woods and see if he can make it as a self-sufficient spirit after his parents promise a summer trip that doesn't pan out.

Southern Comfort

A squad of National Guards on an isolated weekend exercise in the Louisiana swamp must fight for their lives when they anger local Cajuns by stealing their canoes. Without live ammunition and in a strange country, their experience begins to mirror the Vietnam experience.

To Brave Alaska

True story of a yuppie couple's Alaskan trip turning into a wilderness survival struggle.

8-Bit Christmas

In suburban Chicago during the late 1980s, ten-year-old Jake Doyle embarks on a herculean quest to get the latest and greatest video game system for Christmas.

Grizzly Mountain

Present-day Portland suburbs kids Dylan and Nicole go on the camping trip with their family, and when they enter a mysterious cave in the mountains, they're transported back in time to 1870, where they meet mountain man Jeremiah.

Snowbound: The Jim and Jennifer Stolpa Story

A San Francisco couple (Neil Patrick Harris, Kelli Williams) and their infant son are stranded in the snow-covered Nevada wilderness.

A Cry in the Wild

13-year-old Brian is the sole survivor of an unreported plane crash. Alone in the Yukon wilderness, Brian must learn to survive by his wits, find food and shelter, and brave wild, hungry animals until or if he is found.

A Home of Our Own

The story is located in Los Angeles in the sixties. An energetic widow, Frances Lacey, with her six children try to make a dream of theirs come true: to have a home of their own. Therefore they leave Los Angeles and head for the countryside, while facing all kinds of difficulties during their journey.

Survival Quest

A bunch of city slickers from different backgrounds go into the wild mountains to be one with nature, but basically to have a good time. However, a paramilitary group has chosen the same time to go camping. When one of the soldiers thinks their boss has been killed by one of the city slickers, he coaxes his team into exterminating all of them. They will have to rely on their wits and on each other in order to survive.

White Wolves - A Cry in the Wild II

A two-week trek through the Cascade Mountains tries the survival instincts of five adventurous teenagers. At first, it's all a good time. Shooting the rapids, exploring caves and making new friends. But when an accident occurs, Mother Nature raises the stakes and challenges the hikers to the greatest test of their young lives. Written by Concorde - New Horizons (with permission).

Seven Alone

A fictionalized account of the real-life adventure of the Sager family. Travelling with a wagon train from Missouri to Oregon, things are going well for the Sagers, until father Sager dies from blood poisoning following an Indian attack, and mother Sager dies soon afterward from pneumonia. The leaders of the wagon train decide to send the children back, but the oldest, John (who had been described by all the adults as lazy and worthless), decides to lead his siblings through the wilderness to complete the journey their parents started.

Mountain Men

Mountain Men is a comedy/drama that follows two estranged brothers, Toph and Cooper, as they journey to a remote family cabin in the mountains to evict a squatter. Buried resentment and bruised egos soon derail the plan and when the smoke clears they've destroyed their car and burned down the cabin, leaving them stranded in the cold Rocky Mountain winter. With their very survival at stake, they must learn to work together as brothers to get back to civilization.

The Legend of Wolf Mountain

Three children are kidnapped and taken to the forest by escaped convicts. There they escape but are pursued by the convicts. Forest rangers and police set out to rescue them.

Savage Land

Two women and two kids are stranded in the Old West when bad guys (posing as Indians) try to snag the stagecoach's cargo. Pitted against nature, time, and the pursuing baddies, this unlikely team must trek over the mountains to reach safety.

One More Mountain

Margaret Reed, a wealthy and proud woman of Chicago unwillingly finds herself a member of the Donner party - a group of pioneers making their way to California by covered wagon in the summer of 1846. One by one the odds begin to stack against Margaret and her family as precious days slip away and an early winter storm closes the passes through the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Trapped without adequate food and supplies, Margaret struggles to keep her family alive.

Frozen Impact

A plane, carrying the liver destined for a child's transplant, crashes in a hailstorm.

Avalanche

Duncan (Hasselhoff) is a murderous thief. When he jumps out of his plane, it crashes into the Rockies and produces an avalanche. A quiet family trapped inside their house will rescue him. They will have to survive the disaster and the madman.

Day of the Survivalist

Vietnam vet leaves the ugly congestion of Los Angeles and moves north to the "paradise" of rural Oregon. He is soon befriended by a group of hardcore paramilitary survivalists, who try to bring him into their circle of righteous Armageddon-ready warriors. Put off by their extreme views, he refuses their offer and, now knowing too much, becomes the target of their aggression... fighting to survive against the odds in the wilderness.

Into Thin Air: Death on Everest

An adaptation of Jon Krakauer's best selling book, "Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster". This movie attempts to re-create the disastrous events that took place during the Mount Everest climb on May 10, 1996. It also follows Jon Krakauer throughout the movie, and portrays what he was going through while climbing this mountain.

Cold River

Based on the novel Winterkill, by William Judson, Cold River is the story of an Adirondack guide who takes his young daughter and step-son on a long camping trip in the fall of 1932. When winter strikes unexpectedly early (a natural phenomenon known as a 'winterkill' - so named because the animals are totally unprepared for a sudden, early winter, and many freeze or starve to death), a disastrous turn of events leaves the two children to find their own way home without food, or protection from the elements.

The Alaska Wilderness Adventure

A family decides to move to the most remote place they can find and live for as long as they can. This is the true story of a family living off the land in remote Alaska with no modern tools or 'luxuries' (except a movie camera!). This documentary is a year in their life.

The Body Electric

Red Sector A was a paradise...for man's machines. The domed city was home to the last of the human race, where they lived in comfort, served by their robotic servants. Until one day a mysterious force turns the robots against their masters, and the machines cast the people out of Red Sector A into the wastelands outside. Years later, the robots have collapsed into dust without human maintenance, leaving two young people - Woody and Andrea - to live in the city. But the city is on the verge of a exploding as the shield generator approaches meltdown. Andrea and Woody have a few hours to escape Red Sector A, but the unknown force that caused the revolution is still present, and has it's own plans for them.

The Bed You Sleep In

Times are hard for Northwestern lumber-mill operators like Ray and his wife Jean. Ray and Jean's lives are thrown into chaos when their daughter writes home from college, claiming to have a horrifying revelation.

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