🔗 Share this article

20. Abyssal Attack (1998)

Stephen Sommers' science fiction thriller follows a group of memorable supporting players acting as mercenaries contracted to demolish the cruise ship a fictional ship. However a giant mutant octopus has got there first! Featuring the potential cephalopod fodder are Famke Janssen as a jewel thief.

19. The 1900 Story (1998)

A newborn, left on the transatlantic liner a fictional ship, develops to be a talented keyboardist (the main star) who refuses to leave the ship. The peak moment of the director's fantastical tale is the protagonist competing in a keyboard contest with a historical figure, somewhat unjustly portrayed as a arrogant character.

18. Ocean Planet (1995)

Kevin Costner plays a samurai-like drifter with webbed feet and a souped-up sailing vessel in this big-budget sci-fi B-movie, taking place in a distant time where disappearing glaciers have submerged the Earth. Everyone is hunting for mythical Dryland while fending off the villain and his band of chain-smoking marauders.

17. Titanic (1997)

Two hours of romantic interludes between a upper-class woman (Kate Winslet) and an working-class man (Leonardo DiCaprio) are saved by the director's impressive reconstruction of a famous most infamous disasters. It's impossible not to respect the chutzpah of a director who successfully transforms a death toll of 1,500 into an heartening narrative of freedom.

16. Vessel of Madness (1965)

Working-class people, flamenco dancers and German ideologists interact on a ocean liner sailing from Mexico to Europe in 1933. The director's large-scale film features Vivien Leigh, in her final role, as a sad divorcee, but it's a co-star, as the medical officer, and Simone Signoret, as a radical countess, who supply the motion picture with its dramatic punch.

15. Ultimate Trip (1960)

The central vessel is ripped apart in an detonation and Robert Stack's partner (the actress) is stuck in their quarters in this compelling precursor to disaster movies. Can the main character and a courageous worker (the supporting player) free her before the vessel goes down? Curious detail: the fictional ship is embodied by the famous European vessel a real ship.

14. Nile Killing (1978)

Angela Lansbury are among the murder suspects on board a African vessel in this ensemble cast Agatha Christie murder mystery. The main star, as the Belgian sleuth, cannot prevent several passengers being shot, which whittles down his potential killers to a limited selection. Significantly better than the 2022 remake.

13. Ocean Stillness (1989)

Sam Neill act as a husband and wife attempting to recover from the trauma of their son's death by sailing their boat for a journey in the sea, where they save another actor from a foundering ship. Poor decision! Phillip Noyce's suspense film is essentially a slasher movie at on the ocean, but an exceptionally well-made one that launched her career.

12. The Maggie (1954)

An UK citizen, moving goods for an US businessman, is manipulated into using a poor condition "type of boat" in this filmmaker's harsh Ealing comedy in the rebellious tradition of his own earlier film. Predictably, the ship's British skipper and crew take the two landlubbers for a trip, in every meaning of the word.

11. Overwhelming Power (1974)

This filmmaker imparts his disaster thriller a political dimension perspective in this anxiety-inducing story of explosives positioned on a luxury liner, the fictional ship. Which wire to cut? Richard Harris portray bomb disposal experts; a supporting player, as the cruise director, delivers a heartbreaking depiction in tragicomic desperation.

10. The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

This film version of this writer's literary work is among the peaks of the 1970s disaster genre. The fictional ship is overturned by a tsunami, and it's up to the main protagonist to lead his flock through the flipped vessel to security. Shelley Winters is unforgettable as a small business owner's partner with a practical history of athletic swimming.

9. Everything's Gone (2013)

Robert Redford provides a late-career masterclass in single character portrayal as a person fighting to survive in the specific sea after his yacht, the main setting, is damaged in a collision with an lost shipping container. It's anxious enough to watch, so one can only imagine how physically gruelling it must have been for the elderly actor to shoot.

8. Captain Phillips (2013)

Tom Hanks does excellent performance in one of his ordinary-person-in-extraordinary-circumstances characters, as the commander of an American cargo ship commandeered by maritime criminals off the geographical area. He has great chemistry by Barkhad Abdi ("Now I'm in charge"), making a outstanding film debut as the criminal boss in Paul Greengrass's tense movie, inspired by real events. If the final sequence doesn't make you blub, you're not human.

7. Triangle (2009)

{Freak weather conditions|