Seafaring
see all genres ›Pirates, merchant seamen and sometimes incongruously glamorous island princesses in tight sarongs offer the landlubber a taste of salt-sea air and nautical adventure. Ocean-based films span decades, genres and hemispheres, from “exotic” tropical-romantic kitsch to docudrama tales of seal-hunting survival in the frequently frozen North.
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Genres / Action/Adventure / Seafaring
SUB-GENRES · Swashbuckler
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The White Meadows
The otherworldly salt islands of Iran’s Lake Urmia provide the fittingly surreal setting for director Mohammad Rasoulof’s mesmerizing fable. "I've come to listen to people’s heartaches and take away tears," says an old boatman as he rows among the gray waters and white salt...Watch Movie -
Maidentrip
14-year-old Laura Dekker sets out, camera in hand, on a two-year voyage in pursuit of her dream to be the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone. In the wake of a year-long battle with Dutch authorities that sparked a global storm of media scrutiny, Laura now finds herself far from...Watch Movie -
Flotsam/Jetsam
A grainy black-and-white adventure on the high seas turns into something else entirely in this typically idiosyncratic short from David and Nathan Zellner, their very first to appear at the Sundance Film Festival. Adrift in the open water, a man clings to some floating suitcases (along with a...Watch Movie
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Double Bunk
When newlyweds Jack (Ian Carmichael) and Peggy (Janette Scott) face eviction, they are tricked into buying a rundown houseboat. After rebuilding the engine they take their old friends Sid (Sid James) and Sandra (Liz Fraser) on a local trip down the river to Folkestone. But as the fog gets thicker...Watch Movie -
The Count of Monte Cristo
Edmond Dantes has been wrongly accused of a plot against the post-Napoleonic French government. Condemned to a prison cell in the impenetrable Chateau D'If, Dantes vows vengeance against the four conspirators who framed him. He is particularly anxious to give his ex-friend...Watch Movie -
Pearl of the South Pacific
B-movie legend Allan Dwan continued his odyssey through all the genres that Hollywood possesses in this jovial piece of South Seas hokum, one of three titles he released in 1955. Three treasure hunters (Virginia Mayo, Dennis Morgan and David Farrar) of varying levels of...Watch Movie
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Jamaica Inn
Alfred Hitchcock directed this classic tale adapted from a book by Daphne du Maurier. A young woman discovers that the people she has journeyed to Cornwall to live with are actually smugglers and murderers who arrange shipwrecks for profit. [Please excuse the poor source quality of this film. It...Watch Movie -
Behind the Door
Writer Gouverneur Morris's bizarre tale unfolds in a series of disquieting flashbacks that serve to continually ratchet up suspense and foreboding. Producer Thomas H. Ince and director Irvin Willat showed daring and imagination in their adaptation of the sensational material. U-boat captain...Watch Movie
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The Coffin Ship
A love story filmed in Long Island Sound with a stowaway and a shipwreck. Because of 1911 production convention, a sprawling adventure is truncated to one-reel length. Good location work, a strength of Thanhouser pictures, creates a visually strong seagoing story. Long Island Sound locations were...Watch Movie -
The Viking
Set against the backdrop of the icy, oceanic dangers of the Newfoundland seal hunt, this film is technically and thematically a remarkable example of maverick filmmaking in the north. An extraordinary portrait of a people's dramatic struggle for existence, with extensive actuality footage of...Watch Movie
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Captain Kidd
In this deviation from the historical account, Capt. William Kidd (Charles Laughton) is already a clever, ruthless pirate when, in 1699, he tricks the king into commissioning him as escort for a treasure ship from India. He enlists a crew of pardoned cutthroats, including Orange Povey (John...Watch Movie -
Tamango
John Berry was a member of the Mercury Theatre company in the 1940s before following Orson Welles to Hollywood. After running afoul of the blacklist, Berry relocated to France where he made this historical potboiler. Controversial for its bold depictions of revolt and interracial romance, TAMANGO...Watch Movie -
The Son of Monte Cristo
In 1865, General Gurko Lanen (George Sanders) is dictator of "Lichtenburg" in the Balkans. Rightful ruler Zona (Joan Bennett) hopes to get aid from Napoleon III of France. The visiting Count of Monte Cristo (Louis Hayward) falls for Grand Duchess Zona and undertakes to help...Watch Movie
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Decameron Nights
In the mid-fourteenth century, Boccaccio seeks his true love, the recently widowed Fiametta, and finds that she has fled Florence for a villa in the countryside. When he shows up on her doorstep, Fiametta does not want to invite him to stay, but her friends, bored and lacking...Watch Movie -
The Sea Lion
Hobart Bosworth, the pioneering movie director, writer, producer and actor, stars as John Nelson, a cruel sea captain who has harbored a grudge against humankind ever since his wife deserted him sixteen years ago. When Tom Walton is kicked out by his parents for his insidious behavior, he takes a...Watch Movie -
Manhunt of Mystery Island
Clues lead a young couple to a Pacific isle where they find Mystery Island. The girl's father is being held prisoner by the evil Captain Mephisto, a pirate from tw0-hundred years ago who uses his Transformation Machine to travel forward in time and disguise himself as one of...Watch Movie