About Climbing Movies

Climbing Movies is a curated library of climbing films that are free to watch online. It started as one person's watch list. Good climbing films are scattered across brand channels, festival channels and climbers' own uploads, and the platforms surface the same three videos every time. This site is the list I wished existed, with a note on each film that says what it actually is.

Who makes it

I'm Avi Flombaum, a climber and software developer in New York. I watch every film before it goes on the site and I write the notes myself. They are opinions. If you think I'm wrong about a film, tell me.

How films are chosen

1. It has to be free to watch and legally online: uploaded by the filmmaker, the production company, the brand that funded it, or the climber in it.
2. It has to be about climbing as it is actually done, not stock footage or a compilation.
3. It has to be worth its runtime, whether that is 6 minutes or 60. Trailers, teasers and clip reels do not qualify.
4. Every film gets a writeup that says what kind of film it is: a redpoint film, a portrait, an expedition diary, an ascent shot in one take.

How embedding and credit work

Nothing is hosted or re-uploaded here. Every film is embedded from the original YouTube or Vimeo upload, the channel is named and linked on the film page, and each channel has a filmmaker page that collects its films. The best way to support the people who make these films is to subscribe at the source.

If a film is yours and you would like it removed or the credit corrected, email im@avi.nyc and it will be done the same day.

What the site does not do

No ads, no accounts, no affiliate links, no paid placement. Video embeds load only when you press play, through youtube-nocookie.com or Vimeo's player.

Submissions

Know a film that belongs here? Use the submission form. Every suggestion is reviewed by hand and nothing is published automatically.

Where the profile and route facts come from

Climber and location profiles draw on Wikidata and Wikipedia, with photos from Wikimedia Commons credited on each page. Route histories draw on Wikipedia, Mountain Project, theCrag, 27 Crags, UKClimbing, climbing news sites and the filmmakers' own descriptions, with links on each route page. Corrections are welcome at the same address.