Mountaineering movies on Netflix Instant, ranked.

I like watching movies about mountain climbing, and I think I’ve seen all the ones avail on Netflix Instant.

1) Touching The Void

See Touching The Void.  One of the best documentaries, period.  Incredible story, great twists, so intense but also there’s a lovable semi-schlub who got caught up in things.

2) Beyond The Edge 

Very cool.  Doc/reenactment about the first successful Everest ascent.  Worth watching just for the fashion, the style on these guys was rad.

A great story of internal competition as well, as the team members were vying to be the guy who got to make the final ascent.  The brash New Zealanders against the stuffy English public school guys.  Edmund Hillary and Tenzing such cool examples of calm badassery.  Hadn’t occurred to me that Hillary, who in his old age was usually portrayed as a kindly old hero, was also of course an extremely intense, driven, and competitive athlete, more Kobe than Dalai Lama.

There’s lots too on the great John Hunt, who organized the expedition.

Also has some of the clearest visualizations of Everest’s geography I’ve seen.  You can really wrap your head finally around, like, where the Khumbu ice fall is.

3) Nordwand/Northface

Some great shots of old school climbing.  But it’s set in 1936, it’s in German, and the characters are not not Nazis enough to really get behind.

4) The Summit

Compelling characters, a good story, kind of frustratingly told.  Odd editing choices botch a compelling narrative of how fuckup x fuckup x fuckup + misfortune = catastrophe.

5) Everest IMAX

Some cool shots I guess but this is elementary stuff.  We’re past this.

Would most like to have on Netflix:

Valley Uprising

The Blue Light

K2.  What is this movie?  It started as a play?