12 Climbing Film Fests to Attend or Stream
We scoured theaters and streaming services for the best climbing film festivals and tours to help you catch the many quality climbing films dropping these days. Some festivals are dedicated to climbing storytelling, while others focus more broadly on adventure, including climbing. For this list, we prioritized film festivals that either go on tour or fests that offer virtual tickets. From Banff to BritRock, here are the climbing film fests to keep on your radar.
5Point Film Fest
When: April
Where: Carbondale, CO
Scope: Adventure films (including climbing) with heart
Virtual screening: No
With its mission of inspiring change and community-building, the 5Point Film Fest focuses on stories of adventure with a bigger message. While climbing films aren’t the focus on this Carbondale-based fest, several climbing films typically make it into the festival each year.
In 2025, 5Point showed a film about a group of Belgian climbers attempting the first free ascent of Riders on the Storm in Patagonia, and a portrait of the transgender alpinist Jamie Logan.
AlpinFilm
When: Mid-January
Where: Jackson Hole, WY
Scope: Mountaineering, climbing, and cinematographic storytelling
Virtual screening: Yes
Staged by the Teton Climbers’ Coalition and Teton Mountaineering, the newer AlpinFilm fest is inspired by its hometown’s identity as a hub of climbing and ski mountaineering history. The lineup is designed to pay homage to American mountaineering.
The annual festival showcases passion projects made in the mountains. The 2025 lineup included films about a second ascent of Eternal Flame (7c+/5.13-) in Pakistan’s Karakorum range and a family of four questing up a big wall on Norway’s tallest peak.
Banff Mountain Film Fest
When: November
Where: Banff, Alberta, Canada
Scope: Adventure films, including climbing/mountaineering
Virtual screening: Yes, both virtual tickets are available during the festival, as well as on-demand rentals and packages year-round
Since 1976, the Banff Film Fest has been showcasing some of the world’s best shorts and features set in the mountains. Due to popular demand, the festival now takes its program on tour after its in-person event in early November. You can look for screenings across Canada, the United States (mostly in mountain towns), and around the world from Finland to Japan. Luckily for those who prefer to screen films from their couch (or the back of their van), Banff now offers on-demand screenings and film rental bundles, too.
While films span a variety of mountain pursuits, 2024/2025 climbing-focused films featured Molly Mitchell’s dogged pursuit to send one of Colorado’s most dangerous trad lines, a senior Australian climber defying his age, and Kai Lightner’s mission to develop climbing in Jamaica.
BritRock Film Tour
When: November
Where: U.S. and Canada
Scope: Soulful climbing films with a sense of humor
Virtual screening: Yes, subscription based through BritRock+
The best climbing and adventure films out of the UK screen annually at the BritRock Film Tour, hosted by adventure filmmaker Alastair Lee’s BritRock Films. The tour kicks off in early November in England, then hits the world tour circuit through summer.
The 2025 program included Nose Job, about two comp climbers freeing the Nose as their first big wall, and the story of a blind climber and his sight guide climbing Devil’s Tower.
Climbing Film Tour
When: November
Where: U.S. and Canada
Scope: Climbing, mountaineering, highlining, etc.
Virtual screening: No
Formerly known as the Vertical Life Film Tour, the Climbing Film Tour focuses exclusively on climbing, mountaineering, and related disciplines. It hosts screenings across fall and spring.
A few of its 2024 films told tales of a comp-focused Belgian paraclimber and the joys of Scottish mixed climbing. The 2024 program also featured many of the same climbing films showing at other outdoor film fests, including Dropping Molly, Jamrock, and Freya about a family big wall adventure.
Kendal Mountain Festival
When: Late November
Where: Kendal, UK
Scope: All adventure films, including climbing
Virtual screening: No
The Kendal Mountain Festival is more than just a film fest—it also includes trail running races, speakers, and more. After kicking off in Kendal in November, the film program goes on tour around the UK from February through May.
Climbing films in the 2025 program include an animated short about a quest to climb the world’s hardest route above 13,500 feet, and the story of a climber designing a safety-forward crampon after an incident in the Dolomites.
Mountainfilm
When: Memorial Day Weekend
Where: Telluride, CO
Scope: Adventure/mountain films focused on changemaking
Virtual screening: No for current films, but you can stream select films from Mountainfilm’s archive online for free
Just a few years after Banff got its start, Mountainfilm launched in 1979 to “inspire audiences to create a better world.” This film fest does that by prioritizing films that not only tell stories of adventure, but portray tales of social justice, activism, and environmental advocacy.
The 2025 climbing-centric films include Anna, a story about alpinist Anna Pfaff pushing past the loss of her toes, and Girl Climber, the new feature about Emily Harrington’s pursuit of becoming the first woman to free climb Golden Gate (5.13b) on El Cap in a day (stay tuned for our reviews of Anna and Girl Climber later this month!).
Mountains on Stage
When: April and November
Where: Worldwide!
Scope: Mountain sports including climbing, alpinism, and paragliding
Virtual screening: Limited selection
Untethered to any specific mountain town, Mountains on Stage tours the world, with screenings across 23 countries and over 250 cities. French partners in life and mountaineering Cyril Salomon and Manon Grimwood founded this nomadic film festival in 2013. “Our goal is to inspire our audience to live their own adventures by watching the world’s best adventure documentaries,” Salomon says.
The April 2025 edition of Mountains on Stage includes a film about Bronwyn Hodgins 8c+ project La Rubia and the story of an “unknown” Belgian climber’s quest to send the Font’s hardest boulder problem.
No Man’s Land Film Festival
When: March
Where: Denver, CO
Scope: Adventure films featuring women and queer athletes
Virtual screening: Limited selection available from March through early May
No Man’s Land is the first adventure film fest to explicitly focus on stories about women, queer, trans, and BIPOC athletes. This pioneering film fest aims to address the overabundance of films featuring men and dearth of stories about more diverse adventurers and athletes. The annual flagship fest takes place in Denver in March during International Women’s Day Weekend, and then No Man’s Land goes on tour, mostly around U.S. mountain towns.
In addition to climbing films, No Man’s Land screens ski, snowboarding, running, conservation, and LGBTQIA+ focused films. Recently, Anna Hazelnutt won the “Wildest Adventure” award for her film Las Locas, about climbing a multipitch route in Sardinia with Alesandra Taistra. Climbing films in the 2025 program include a portrait of a climber aiming to become the first Cuban to tackle three venerable ascents in her homeland, and the story of one woman’s journey to return to the mountains after a paragliding accident.
Reel Rock
When: Screenings in March, streaming in April
Where: Worldwide
Scope: 100% climbing
Virtual screening: Yes (subscription-based)
Reel Rock continues to be the biggest film fest exclusively focused on climbing. While screenings are held early spring around the world, more climbers take in the films at home via a Reel Rock subscription, which provides access to a two-decade-old climbing film archive. While the festival has drawn criticism for a variety of things—from who stars in its films to how it brings its stories to life—it remains the dominating player in the climbing film fest world.
The 2025 Reel Rock lineup embraced controversial subjects, notably how Joe Kinder—a formerly cancelled member of the climbing community—struck up a friendship with Kai Lightner over the route Death of Villains. Another 2025 film profiled the complicated character Dider Berthoud and his pursuit to send Cobra Crack after a long hiatus that included missing out on his daughter’s childhood while serving as a monk in France.
ShAFF (Sheffield Adventure Film Festival)
When: March
Where: Sheffield, UK
Scope: Adventure and travel films from all over the world
Virtual screening: No
ShAFF calls its film selection process a “labour of love,” as it sorts out the best 100 films to include in each year’s program. This UK film festival prides itself on working with up-and-coming filmmakers and members of the industry. They break their expansive program down into several categories, including Adrenaline, Spirit of Adventure, and Young Adventurer. Climbing films might appear in a variety of those categories, including Mountain Films, Climb Films, and Adventure Bites.
Two of the 2025 climbing-related films told the stories of search and rescue operations on New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, and Seb Berthe’s sail-to-climb expedition to send Dawn Wall.
Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival (VIMFF)
When: Late-Feb through early March
Where: Vancouver, Canada
Scope: Adventure films, including climbing
Virtual screening: Yes
Banff isn’t the only Canadian community hosting a world-class film fest with a focus on the mountains. This film fest aims to celebrate adventures and mountain culture through its film selection. In late winter, VIMFF premieres in Vancouver, then goes on tour around Canada, the U.S., and some select international locations (like Taiwan in 2025). The festival also offers limited online screening tickets as well.
In 2025, its climbing lineup was over a dozen films deep, including the story of how climbing has shaped a Welsh community during the last 100 years, and a short profile of “Dr. Jeff,” a Vancouver-based ER doctor and avid climber.
Happy viewing—or streaming. And looking for climbing festivals that cover more than just films? Right this way.
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