Movies and TV shows might get in the way of your free time spent well in the great outdoors. Rather than educational documentaries that show you the landscapes and animals alone, I would like to bring light of nature with a few movies on how human beings relate to their exploration of adventure and their surroundings of solitude. Whether it's for recreation or environmental activism, you may get motivated enough after going through one movie at a time before each time you make for yourself for some fresh air and sunlight.
"Wild"
After four years of her mother's death, Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) sets out on a lonely journey to become "the woman her mother raised her to be." Based on her memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Strayed spent the entire summer of 1995 backpacking along the West Coast with little experience to overcome the lengthy trail's obstacles.
"Without A Paddle"
In this buddy comedy, three guys get caught up in the Oregon woods while searching for "lost treasure." The story pokes a lot of fun in the means of trio's survival from a bear wrecking their campsite and having to huddle together in a cave for warmth.
"127 Hours"
One of the most shocking survival stories centers around the Colorado canyoneer Aron Ralston. Even before this movie came out in 2010, Ralston told his story on a Dateline special and in his memoir, Between a Rock and a Hard Place.
"Into the Wild"
This movie brought the story of Christopher McCandless (also based on a book of the same title) into the light of his own survival skills. It follows a journey of high risks from hitchhiking across America leading up to living off the land of Alaska. I first heard of this story from one of Aron Ralston's own inspirations of nature he referenced in his own memoir I previously discussed.
"Grizzly Man"
Nobody should ever go as far into reconnecting with animals as Timothy Treadwell did with grizzly bears in Alaska. May him rest in peace now, but most people stuck in their comfort zone too much might've thought that he was crazy for living off the bear reserve. In his respect, he was an expert of the bears' behaviors and his own survival skills on the account of spending 13 summers before a tragic bear attack.
"A Birder's Guide to Everything"
As a millennial, I'm touched by this movie for showing some hope for younger generation doing the right way into reconnecting with animals. A group of high school friends all forget about their problems at home for one weekend to find a rare Labrador Duck to increase local conservation.
"Hoot"
Lastly, this film adaption also raises the conservation concerns of rare birds. After discovering an upcoming restaurant's location being placed over the home of burrowing owls, three teenagers team up together to convince the local authorities to stop the greedy land development.
