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.
Discover Seafaring Films
Genres / Action/Adventure / Seafaring
SUB-GENRES · Swashbuckler
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Alice the Whaler
This entry in the Alice Comedies was released near the end of the series. In it we can see the fourth and last of the girls who played Alice, the relatively little-known child actress Lois Hardwick. Notice that Ub Iwerks' drawing style has matured by 1927, and now looks very different from that in the 1925...Start your free trial to watch -
The Beloved Rogue
A swashbuckling John Barrymore, as 15th century poet Francois Villon, takes on King Louis XI to save his paramour in this silent classic. Full of action, adventure and lavish production values, THE BELOVED ROGUE showcases one of Barrymore's best performances. The great German actor Conrad Veidt...Start your free trial to watch -
The Bermuda Triangle
Director René Cardona Jr. has managed to make a very convincing horror tale set square in THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE, still one of the greatest mysteries on Earth. This place, which has reportedly swallowed up hundreds of ships, planes and human lives without a trace, now reached out to devour the Marvin family...Start your free trial to watch
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Between Calais and Dover
Having just completed a series of films imagining events from the 1897 Greco-Turkish War, including THE SURRENDER OF TOURNAVOS, MASSACRE IN CRETE and SEA FIGHTING IN GREECE, Georges Méliès reapplies the rocking-ship technique from the last of these to a pure amusement. Passengers crossing the English...Start your free trial to watch -
Bird of Paradise
From legendary Oscar®-winning director King Vidor comes BIRD OF PARADISE, an exotic tale of romance set in gorgeous Polynesia. Johnny (Joel McCrea) is an intrepid young sailor traveling the South Seas who falls in love with Luana (Dolores del Rio), the beautiful daughter of an island chief. But Luana is...Start your free trial to watch -
The Black Pirate
In the first grand-scale epic shot entirely in Technicolor, the sole survivor of a ship pillaged by buccaneers poses as the mysterious Black Pirate and infiltrates the nest of bandits. Michel (Fairbanks) mounts an elaborate ploy to recover the brigands' treasure, reclaim the ship and rescue the divine...Start your free trial to watch
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The Boat
THE BOAT, conceived as a companion piece to ONE WEEK, finds Buster Keaton building a thirty-five foot family cruiser. It was Keaton's most commercially successful silent two-reel comedy and ranks among his best works. The classic sequence of this boat launch has Buster (the proud owner and captain) standing at the nose of the...Start your free trial to watch -
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 Carradine), a fellow Kidd once...Start your free trial to watch -
Captain Kidd's Kids
After a popular run making shorts as the Chaplin-esque “Lonesome Luke,” Harold Lloyd had just started making films in what he termed his “glasses” character, the bespectacled milquetoast we remember him for, when he starred in this early classic. His hero wakes up hungover from his first and last “big...Start your free trial to watch
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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 near the studio. A review of...Start your free trial to watch -
Cyclone
An airplane goes down in the ocean during a storm and the few survivors find refuge on a small tour boat. Swept out to sea, these people slowly starve to death in the hot sun with barely any food or clean water. With no place to turn, the boat survivors resort to cannibalism to stay alive. That is‚ until the rescue planes...Start your free trial to watch -
Down to the Sea In Ships
Newly mastered from an archival 35mm print, DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS is an adventure film that conveys the dangers and excitement aboard the whaling ships of New England. Produced on location by the short-lived Whaling Film Corp., DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS is not only an engaging romance and rousing...Start your free trial to watch
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Enoch Arden
"Here on this beach a hundred years ago, three children of three houses: Annie Lee, the prettiest little damsel in the port, and Philip Ray the miller's only son, and Enoch Arden, a rough sailor's lad made orphan by a winter shipwreck, play'd among the waste and lumber of the shore, hard coils of cordage, swarthy...Start your free trial to watch -
The Lesser Evil
It's drama at sea in this Biograph short. THE LESSER EVIL follows a motley crew of smugglers and their nefarious, despicable actions. Starring Blanche Sweet as a young woman kidnapped by the pesky bunch and forced to choose (as the titles indicates) between the lesser of two evils.Start your free trial to watch
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The Love Nest
Buster Keaton's final silent short before moving into features, THE LOVE NEST takes to the high seas for slapstick verging on tragedy. Buster leaves on a seasick voyage after being spurned by his usual leading lady, Virginia Fox. He soon finds himself aboard a whaling ship working for a tyrannical skipper who thinks nothing...Start your free trial to watch -
The Mermaids of Tiburon
THE MERMAIDS OF TIBURON was produced and directed in 1962 as a fantasy-adventure by noted underwater cinematographer John Lamb. Two years later, he chopped out ten minutes, re-shot the close-ups and medium shots of the mermaids, revealing the enchantresses in the nude (with emphasis on actress Gaby...Start your free trial to watch -
Moran of the Lady Letty
MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY, based on the novel by Frank Norris, casts Valentino as Ramon Laredo, a pampered aristocrat who is shanghaied in contemporary San Francisco by Captain Kitchell (Walter Long), the brutal commander of a smuggling schooner bound for Mexico. The Moran of the title is a beautiful young...Start your free trial to watch




