Warner Brothers
Last Updated: August 30th
Movies are a big part of our daily lives. As such, they’ve inspired many of us to finally live out our travel dreams and go on our own adventures. That’s why we put together a list of our favorite travel-themed movies on Netflix right now. Of course, it should go without saying, this list will constantly be evolving as Netflix rotates its streaming library.
Let these travel movies be your guide and inspire your next adventure.
Paramount
Up In The Air (2009)
Run Time: 109 min | IMDb: 7.4/10
It’s hard not to love a good George Clooney movie. Add in a mentorship with Anna Kendrick about the ins-and-outs of traveling the country (to fire people) and you’ve got travel cinema gold. Jason Reitman’s glance into corporate America and the domestic airports that shuttle workers around the country is an emotionally deft and often hilarious look at life on the road.
New Line Cinema
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Run Time: 178 min, IMDb: 8.8/10
The first installment of Peter Jackson’s original epic trilogy has migrated to Netflix and with it, the chance to be engrossed in all things Middle Earth once again. By now the story is well-known: hobbit finds valuable piece of jewelry, goes on a quest to destroy said piece of jewelry, makes friends with elves, dwarves, and a few humans, makes enemies of orcs, evil wizards, and Satan himself. But watching Frodo, Gandalf, Legolas, and the rest traverse the dangerous landscape of Middle Earth never gets old.
You’ll want to wander those streets and eat next to those azure seas. Though you’ll probably want to leave the arguments behind.
Focus Features
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Run Time: 94 min | IMDb: 7.4/10
Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom reveals everyone’s favorite nebbish filmmaker in full-on teenage whimsy mode. Two young lovers strike out on an adventure with a map, a few supplies, and a lust for life. Pesky adults pursue. Capers explode around our traveling heroes as they find life and love on the open road in a very Wes Anderson fashion.
It’s the type of grand adventure that we fantasized about in our pre-teen dreams.
Paramount
Into The Wild (2007)
Run Time: 148 min | IMDb: 8.1/10
Your love or hate of this film probably depends on how you feel about the film’s subject, Chris McCandless. On the one hand, McCandless struck out on an adventure to eschew the doldrums of modern life in the Alaskan wilderness. On the other hand, his woeful underestimation of the wilds and unpreparedness is maddening and cost him his life. Still, the man gets a lot of points for living a life uncommon when so many don’t.
Cinema V
The Endless Summer (1966)
Run Time: 95 min | IMDb: 7.8/10
The ultimate 60s surfer film is streaming right now. Yes, it’s dated. It’s also a historical look into what surfing was like back in the 60s and the crazy kids who’d cross the entire earth looking for the best breaks. This is the perfect travel movie to put on when you need to cure some jet lag. It’s a relaxing and sometimes hypnotic film that a little cannabis will 100 percent make more enjoyable.
IFC Films
Y Tu Mama También (2002)
Run Time: 106 min, IMDb: 7.7/10
After a stint in Hollywood, Alfonso Cuarón returned to Mexico for this story of two privileged high school boys (Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal) who road trip with an older woman (Maribel Verdú) in search of an unspoiled stretch of beach. In the process, they discover freedom like they’d never imagined — and maybe more freedom than they can handle. Cuarón’s stylish film plays out against the backdrop of Mexican political upheaval and plays with notions of upturning the established order on scales both large and small, all the while suggesting that no paradise lasts forever.
IFC Films
The Trip To Italy (2014)
Run Time: 108 min | IMDb: 6.6/10
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s second edition of the “Trip” series sees the comedians galavanting around Italy. They eat amazing food, sing-a-long to Alanis Morissette, and make each other (and us) laugh at every turn. It’s the perfect combination of food, travel, comedy, and companionship.
IFC
The Trip To Spain (2016)
Run Time: 108 min | IMDb: 6.6/10
The third installment of the Coogan and Brydon’s series is also streaming on Netflix. This time the duo are driving the winding roads of Spain while eating at some of the most iconic restaurants in the world. This entry is as fun and enticing as ever and we can’t wait to see where these two go next.
Netflix
Kodachrome (2018)
Run Time: 105 min | IMDb: 6.8/10
Jason Sudeikis, Ed Harris, and Elizabeth Olsen star in this Midwestern road trip drama about an estranged father-son duo trying to reconnect. Harris plays a famous travel photographer intent on developing the rest of his unused film and the only Kodachrome photo lab in Kansas before it closes. Sudeikis and Olsen are dragged along, and along with some stunning vignettes of small-town America, we’re treated to a beautiful portrait of a father-son relationship.
The Weinstein Company
Carol (2015)
Run Time: 118 min | IMDb: 7.2/10
Patricia Highsmith stories always carry with them a sense of adventure. While this love story doesn’t reach the far-flung travel heights of The Two Faces of January or The Talented Mr. Ripley per se, there’s still a little road movie tucked away in the second act. Carol and Therese’s fleeing cross-country adds a road trip dimension to the film that deepens their relationship by putting them in a car together. It’s the power of that time spent in close quarters that can make or break a relationship and Carol pulls the dynamic off wonderfully.
A24
Slow West (2015)
Run Time: 84 min | IMDb: 6.9/10
Kodi Smit-McPhee plays a young Scottish man who travel from his home country to the dry, bleeding heart of the American West to find the woman he loves. Along the way, he meets a band of outlaws looking to collect the bounty on his intended’s head and a thuggish, slow-drawling Michael Fassbender who acts as his reluctant chaperone. It’s a fun, inventive take on the classic Western adventure, and it doesn’t hurt that the cinematography is gorgeous.
Sundance
The Fundamentals Of Caring (2016)
Run Time: 97 min | IMDb: 7.3/10
Paul Rudd is at his most charming and charismatic here. He plays a newly trained caregiver to a distant teenager with muscular dystrophy named Trevor. After some ice breaking, the two set out on a trip to see some of the most boring roadside attractions middle America has to offer. If you’re feeling down, this one will pick you up.
Plus… it’s Paul Rudd. That dude is always a ray of sunshine.
The Weinstein Company
Lion (2016)
Run Time: 118 min | IMDb: 8.1/10
We’re not crying! You’re crying! Dev Patel plays Saroo, a boy who was separated from his older brother while stealing coal from trains to trade for milk. Saroo takes a nap on the wrong train and ends up in Calcutta, where he’s put in an orphanage and eventually adopted by an Australian family. 20 years later, an Indian dish sparks Saroo’s memory about his life before he got lost.
He eventually decides to find his mother and brother in India. Tears ensue.
Warner Brothers
The Bucket List (2007)
Run Time: 97 min | IMDb: 7.4/10
Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson team up for this adventure comedy about a pair of terminally ill men who decide to escape their hospital confines and jet set around the world completing items on their bucket list. Nicholson and Freeman’s chemistry is off-the-charts here, and the adventures they undertake — skydiving, riding along the Great Wall, hiking pyramids, pit-stopping in India — will probably make it on your own bucket list by the end of the film.
The Weinsten Company
The Hateful Eight (2015)
Run Time: 187 min | IMDb: 7.8/10
Tarantino’s western is a quintessential road movie. A stagecoach picks up a rabble of passengers much like a bus. Those passengers end up a roadhouse which is the 1800s version of a hostel. Violence and monologuing ensue because… it’s Quentin Tarantino we’re talking about here. Yet, even with its quirks, the film is most notable for its sense of time, place, and adventure.
Every character is a traveler, crisscrossing along that dusty highway of life … and monologuing in sublime 70mm.
Miramax
Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 (2003, 2004)
Run Time: 111 min/137 min | IMDb: 8.1/8.0
The Kill Bill series is a loving homage to the Kung Fu cinema of Hong Kong and the Kurosawa classics with a good mix of western revenge thrown in. It’s also a globetrotting adventure film that takes the vengeful Bride from Southern California to Japan to the deserts of the American Southwest to Mexico to the Shaolin mountains of China.
A globetrotting fable with a nice slice of revenge.
The Weinstein Company
Gold (2016)
Run Time: 120 min | IMDb: 6.7/10
A balding and very sweaty Matthew McConaughey mining for gold in Indonesia shouldn’t be this fun to watch, yet he is. The film was shot in Thailand and calls you to tropic adventure, with a solid lesson intertwined about exploitation of local people and resources. That and good old-fashioned 1980s American greed.
Disney/Lucasfilm
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Run Time: 133 min | IMDb: 7.8/10
We couldn’t make a list of great travel movies and not include a sci-fi flick. The genre, at its core, is about exploration, adventure, and travel. Rogue One is a great call to adventure story that spans a galaxy of planets. Real life analogs in the Maldives, Iceland, Jordan, and Guatemala stand in for various planets — plenty of travel porn to inspire your own adventures.
Heyday Films
Paddington (2014)
Run Time: 95 min | IMDb: 7.2/10
Yes, this is a kid’s movie, but then again — cough, cough — so is Star Wars. Anyway, Paddington is a traveling bear who leaves the jungles of Peru for a new life of adventure in London. It’s a place he’s spent his life dreaming of one day seeing, so he goes post haste.
We can all learn a lesson there. Follow your travel dreams. Don’t be afraid of the unknown. Live that life.
Entertainment One
David Brent: Life on the Road (2016)
Run Time: 96 min | IMDb: 6.3/10
The Brentmaster General is back and as awkward as ever. This time, David Brent (Ricky Gervais) is on a music tour — funding the trip out of his own pocket, renting a bus completely unnecessarily, and making college kids cringe like crazy.
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