Hollywood has been making submarine movies almost since the beginning of the medium. Usually, they are war movies, but not always. The Beatles' movie Yellow Submarine is almost the opposite of a war movie, for example. No matter what, if you're a little claustrophobic like I am, these movies can be hard to watch, but oh-so-good! So batten down the hatches, turn those red lights on, and let's dive into some of the best submarine movies of all time.
The Hunt For Red October
Any list about submarine movies has to include what I think is one of the best movies of all time, a movie I consider a "remote dropper," The Hunt for Red October. Just look at the cast: Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Tim Curry, Sam Neill, James Earl Jones, Scott Glenn, Stellan Skarsgård, Courtney B. Vance, and the late Fred Thompson... It's just insane. Seeing as how the boat, The Red October, is so huge, it's not as claustrophobic as others, but shooting guns around nukes is pretty scary, right?
K-9: The Widow Maker
K-9: The Widow Maker is an underrated movie. I think it takes a beating from some viewers because of Harrison Ford's...um...weird Russian accent. Ford plays a Soviet sub captain at the height of the Cold War in 1961, and while the accent is bad, the performance otherwise is fantastic, and it's one of the best sub movies of the 21st Century, thus far.
Das Boot
The granddaddy of all submarine movies has to be the Wolfgang Petersen-directed masterpiece Das Boot. It gives viewers everything that terrifies and exhilarates us in the genre. It's hot, sweaty, cramped, dark, and really scary. Not scary like a horror movie, but scary in a visceral way. It's astounding.
Yellow Submarine
I had to include Yellow Submarine! The Beatles movie (that doesn't feature the voices of the actual Beatles except in the songs) is super trippy and truly defines an era both in music and in film. It's true that it's not really a claustrophobic movie, and it has more tropes related to his flower-power message than life in the Navy, but I can't leave it off the list.
Hunter Killer
Many of the critics of Hunter Killer have pointed out that it's filled with cliches, and... it does, but it's still a really fun movie, as so many of Gerard Butler's movies are. They aren't high art, but that doesn't mean they aren't good, and Hunter Killer is the perfect example of this. It's a great rainy Saturday afternoon movie.
U-571
Sure, it may be one of the most historically inaccurate movies of all time (almost offensively so), but U-571 does provide some exciting submarine action. The film, with a cast led by Matthew McConaughey, is great in a lot of ways, but it's really hard to look past the history.
The Enemy Below
The Enemy Below is a true classic. It is, in many ways, the epitome of great submarine movies. It has it all: the cat-and-mouse of a sub and a surface ship hunting each other, the fear of being in a sub, especially during World War II, and the struggle to live through it all in every way.
The Spy Who Loved Me
Okay, okay, I'll admit I'm pushing the envelope here, but there are just so many reasons to include the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me starring Roger Moore. It's not about life on a submarine, per se, but it is about 007 chasing down a villain who has stolen a couple of subs, and there are plenty of scenes involving subs. It's not only my favorite Moore-era Bond film, but it also has that Lotus that turns into a submarine! So come on! Let me have this one!
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
I'm old enough to remember when my parents bought our first VHS machine in the early '80s, and I will never forget that the very first movie I ever rented at the local rental store was Disney's classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. When I first got a Disney+ subscription, the first movie I watched was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It's probably the reason I love sub movies, so there was no way I wasn't including this.
Down Periscope
Sure, Down Periscope is a silly movie, but it's also... well... no, it's just a silly movie starring Kelsey Grammer as the captain of a hapless crew on a submarine. It's fun, even if it's not all that funny.
Crimson Tide
In the pantheon of great submarine movies, Crimson Tide is on, or close to being on, the Mount Rushmore of the genre. It's basically a back-and-forth between a ship's crusty veteran captain, played by the late Gene Hackman, and his executive officer, played by Denzel Washington. There's no way you can't enjoy a movie with those two heavyweights acting off each other. It's wonderful. Hopefully, we'll get a sequel one day.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
I've written before about how I don't run right out to catch the latest Wes Anderson movie anymore, but there was a time when I couldn't wait for one. That was the case with The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. I was soooo excited for this movie, and it didn't disappoint at all. It's a wonderful addition to this genre.
In Enemy Hands
In Enemy Hands is one sub movie that I think a lot of people have missed, and that's too bad. It's not the best movie in the genre, but it's an intense movie with a great cast that keeps you on the edge of your seat for an hour and a half. It's full of sub movie tropes, in a good way, and it'll definitely make you uncomfortable (again, in a good way).
The Abyss
Not every movie that I consider part of this genre is in a sub the whole time. The Abyss is really like an underwater space station, for lack of an easier description. It still has all that a great sub movie needs, though, like high stress situations, pressure, sweat, and water. Director James Cameron knows submarines, so this one definitely counts.
Run Silent, Run Deep
Another movie on this list that is near the top of the mountain in the submarine movie genre is the classic Run Silent, Run Deep, starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster. A lot of amazing submarine movies came out in the years following World War II, as submarine battles were a big part of the war. This is among the very best. A true classic.
Greyhound
Hear me out here. Greyhound, starring Tom Hanks as a ship captain being chased by German U-boats, is, in every way but the type of ship, a submarine movie. It features an unseen enemy that leads to that "hunted" feeling. It has the classic cat-and-mouse game that is key to the genre. It just so happens that the mouse in this case is the surface ship. It's a sub movie in reverse, and it works surprisingly well.
Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is a great example of a movie that critics didn't love, but audiences loved. The movie is a great example of a submarine movie mixed with a disaster film, a Cold War movie, and even has a little bit of a horror vibe. It was popular enough that a TV series was launched by the same name, using the same submarine set.
The Meg
2018's The Meg is a great undersea monster movie. Well, maybe "great" is a strong word, but it's a super fun spectacle, like lots of Jason Statham movies. It's a horror movie with a lot of the same vibes as other submarine movies.
The Hunley
The real-life H.L. Hunley, a warship in the Confederate Army during the U.S. Civil War, is considered by most historians to be the first combat submarine in history. The made-for-TV movie The Hunley, which aired on TNT in 1999, does a decent job telling the true history of the submarine. The movie has a great cast that includes Armand Assante, Donald Sutherland, and The Wire's Chris Bauer. It shows just how brutal it must have been to serve on the new bit of tech.
Operation Petticoat
Director Blake Edwards is most famous for his comedies like The Pink Panther and Blind Date. One of his earliest comedies, Operation Petticoat, was about a broken down sub during WWII, where everything goes wrong. The cast is led by Cary Grant and Tony Curtis, and even includes Gavin MacLeod, who would later captain his own fictional ship as the captain in The Love Boat
Ice Station Zebra
Legendary director John Sturges made a lot of amazing movies, like The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, and A Bad Day at Black Rock. Ice Station Zebra, about a nuclear submarine on a secret spy mission under the ice in the Arctic. It's a really fun popcorn-chomper with a stellar cast and great action.
Below
2002's Below brings something that few other submarines bring: a true horror element. Setting a horror movie in a confined space isn't in and of itself unique, but in a submarine? It adds a whole new element of being in tight quarters hundreds of feet underwater. There is nowhere to escape to, at all.
Fantastic Voyage
Now this is a unique addition to this list. Fantastic Voyage isn't about a submarine in the ocean, but rather, a submarine-like vessel going off on a voyage into a human body. It's science fiction more than, say, a war movie, but it has all the same tropes and vibes of a great sub movie.
Black Sea
2014's Black Sea isn't about a military vessel, but the submarine in the movie and the relationships between the crew members play out just like a movie with one. In the movie, a search and recovery mission to get rich goes wrong in every way, leading to all the great tension that one expects from the genre.
On The Beach
On The Beach adds a crossover genre that we haven't discussed on this list: a post-apocalyptic spin on the submarine film—the 1959 classic starring Gregory Peck as the commander of the USS Tigerfish, who must navigate his ship to the Southern Hemisphere to escape nuclear fallout after World War III has left the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable.
Torpedo Run
Any movie from the 1950s called Torpedo Run belongs on this list. The movie, about World War II, just like so many other submarine movies in the era, came out in 1958. While it's overshadowed by some of the bigger movies in the genre that were released around the same time, you can see where so many of the tropes of the genre came from when you watch it.
Around The World Under The Sea
One of the key elements in any submarine film is that the confined space creates tension between crew members. Around the World Under the Sea has that, for sure. The movie isn't a military movie; instead, it's a fantasy adventure film with all the elements that make a sub movie a sub movie.
The Neptune Factor
1974's The Neptune Factor is a science fiction adventure movie with some of the most incredible underwater cinematography for the era. It's a little cheesy at times, but it's still a really fun movie that actually harkens back to a bygone era of adventure movies in Hollywood.
Hellcats Of The Navy
Ronald Reagan made a lot of military movies during World War II as he served. Hellcats Of The Navy came much later, in 1957. Reagan plays a sub commander in a fairly straightforward WWII submarine movie. It's not the best in the genre, nor the worst. It was also one of Reagan's last roles in a movie before he got into politics.
Submarine Command
Submarine Command is a classic submarine film from one of the greatest eras for the genre. Like so many others, this 1951 flick is set during World War II, and while it has less action than some of the others on this list, it was really ahead of its time when exploring the stress and tension that military men faced in submarines during the war.
Sphere
Like a couple of other movies on this list, Sphere is technically in a station at the bottom of the sea, but it has all the same vibes as a great submarine movie. The Michael Crichton book, which I read before the movie was originally released, was one of my favorite books at the time, and I couldn't wait once the movie was released. The movie is...good. It's got a fun cast, but I wouldn't call it my favorite book-to-screen adaptation I've ever seen.
The Land That Time Forgot
While The Land That Time Forgot is not a war movie, it's really a sci-fi/fantasy film; it is set in World War I, which doesn't actually have many submarine movies, certainly not compared to WWII. But again, it's not really a war movie. It's based on a novel by sci-fi pioneer Edgar Rice Burroughs, and in that respect, it's a ton of fun.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
