Best Yosemite Climbing Films

Reel Rock's 2011 record of Alex Honnold free soloing The Phoenix, a dead-vertical 5.13a finger crack above Cascade Falls, on June 11, 2011, in about eight minutes. It shows chalk, jams, wet rock at the lip of a waterfall, and a crew trying to stay out of the way, without the polished arc of the later Honnold films. Watch it if you want the hardest solo of its time in the Valley, shot raw. It opens the list because the Valley's short ascent films start here.

Peter Mortimer's behind-the-scenes account of the same day, and how you film a solo without getting in the way. It shows the logistics and the weight of putting a camera near someone who cannot fall, from the filmmaker's side. Watch it only after the original, because it is commentary on climbing you are assumed to know. It sits second as the footnote to the first entry, and it is a good footnote.

Dean Potter on The Rostrum in 2008, ropeless, with a parachute instead, and seven minutes on the Alien Roof finish, a 5.12b roof at the top of a 700-foot route. It shows the move from a jam to an undercling and the twin finger cracks above, with a BASE rig on his back as a last resort rather than protection. Watch it if you want the strangest idea in Valley soloing done by the person who had it. After two Phoenix films it is the other soloist of that era, and the one the sport still has not caught up with.

Forty-five meters of stemming up a Valley corner that steepens the higher you go, on Randy Leavitt's 5.13d test piece from 1999, in nine minutes from Scarpa. It shows opposition and body tension rather than pulling, with small trad gear through the overhanging crux, and the fact that Warme climbed it with a fully ruptured A2 pulley she did not know about. Watch it if you want a style of climbing that rarely gets filmed properly. After the solos it is the first roped ascent on the list, and the most technical.

Sharma and Tommy Caldwell on a Leaning Tower project, and Sharma's second ascent of Everything Is Karate, 5.14c/d, in eight minutes from Sharma Climbing. It shows Cashus Puhvel's drone work over the Leaning Tower more than it shows either climb, and that scale is the reason to watch. Watch it if you follow Sharma and want the Valley chapter. It follows Book of Hate as another short Valley record, but it is the thinner of the two.

Jordan Cannon and Sam Stroh on Leaning Tower's steep 5.13d free line, nine pitches and roughly 900 feet, and a single high-stakes day on one of the Valley's least visited walls. It shows Cannon falling near the top of a crux pitch, Stroh completing the fifth free ascent, and Cannon returning in December to redpoint the route over two days. Watch it if you want the clearest record of modern Valley free climbing on the site. It gives the Leaning Tower the time Sharma's short could not.

Taylor Martin rope soloing a new route on Sentinel Rock over July and August 2025, and recording it herself with no narration and no polish. It shows hauling, jugging and the slow logistics of a wall with no partner, at length. Watch it if solo aid climbing is what you came for and you can follow footage without a voice. After Wet Lycra Nightmare's produced day it is the raw version of Valley work, and the more honest one about how slow it is.

Jacopo Larcher comes back to the Valley to learn its trad culture and history rather than to chase a big wall objective, in a North Face film by Andrea Cossu. It shows gear work, belaying, route reading and conversation about what hard trad means when local ethics are in play. Watch it if you want a climber who has freed Zodiac and Magic Mushroom asking the Valley what it thinks. It follows Martin's film as the second about learning the place, but this one talks.

A portrait of Dean Potter's life inside the Valley: climbing, slacklining, highlining, and the free ascents that anchored it, with Half Dome and El Capitan linked in a single day at the center. It shows the daily practice and the lines strung across air, and it takes forty-four minutes to sit with him rather than summarize. Watch it if you know Potter mainly from his death and want the other side. With this entry the list moves from ascents to portraits, and Potter is the Valley's portrait.

Patagonia's five portraits of people keeping climbing's culture alive, with the Valley's dirtbag tradition at its center in a couple living out of a van. It shows belonging, stewardship and what climbers owe the places around them, with almost no grades. Watch it if you only watch one film on this list. After Potter's portrait of one person it is the portrait of the community he came from.

Nicolas Favresse and Sean Villanueva, three weeks into learning trad, free Freerider, 5.13a and roughly 1,000 meters of El Capitan, in a five-day push, and it is the origin story of the Belgian big wall crew. It shows two young climbers discovering what they will do with their lives, on rough footage with no thought of a film. Watch it if you know what they went on to do in Greenland and Baffin. It is the first El Cap film on the list, and the one most about the people on the wall.

Thirty days in the Valley in October 2014 working toward a free ascent of The Nose, with Lynn Hill and Tommy Caldwell on the history. It is on the El Cap list too, but it belongs here, because the Valley's most famous route is the Valley. It shows the Great Roof and Changing Corners as two separate problems to solve in one day. Watch it if you want the most complete account of one free ascent. After Yosemite Experience's memory it is the chronicle.

The first ascent of Wings of Steel in the early eighties and the Valley locals who tried to stop it, with threats, sabotage and chopped bolts, and Ammon McNeely's second ascent in 2011 after nearly three decades unrepeated. It shows how Camp 4 decided what was legitimate, through interviews with both sides, as much as it shows the hooking. Watch it if you want the Valley's ethics fight told properly. It follows The Nose as the other El Cap feature, and the one about politics rather than pitches.

Ben Ditto and Mason Earle return to a line they equipped in Tuolumne's high country in 2012, the Valley's summer neighbor, with Connor Herson joining to revive the project after Earle's life was interrupted. It shows route development, Ditto's photographer's eye for light and granite, and the work of coming back to something unfinished. Watch it if you like long projects and collaboration. It closes the list by leaving the Valley floor for the high country, which is where Valley climbers go in July.