Film

Around the World in 80 Days

Name: Around the World in 80 Days
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Romance
Released: 1956
Cast: David Niven, Cantinflas, Shirley MacLaine, Robert Newton, Finlay Currie

A three-hour, Oscar-winning victory lap for the roadshow era: Niven's impeccably unflappable Fogg wagers his fortune on circling the globe by rail, balloon, elephant and steamer, while a small army of movie stars pop up for a scene apiece. It's less thriller than travelogue - gorgeous, leisurely, gently comic - built for the pleasure of watching the world unfurl in Technicolor. For anyone who loves old-fashioned spectacle over modern urgency.

TMDb rating

6.7

If you liked this

Lawrence of Arabia1962

If you loved the desert-to-horizon scale of Fogg's journey, this is the same widescreen wanderlust turned serious and sublime - vast landscapes, a mesmerizing lead, and pacing that lets the world breathe.

But It's austere and demanding where 80 Days is playful - nearly four hours with almost no comic relief.

Murder on the Orient Express1974

Same appetite for glamorous international travel and a cast stuffed with stars, but swap the wager for a whodunit aboard a snowbound train - equally lavish, more tightly wound.

But The pleasures are cerebral rather than scenic; if you came for landscapes and spectacle, the train mostly stays put.

The Great Race1965

The closest thing to a spiritual sequel - an all-star, wildly overstuffed comic race across continents, played almost entirely for laughs and pratfalls.

But It leans harder into slapstick and less into scenery; some of the humor has aged more broadly than gracefully.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Amazing Race2001

Same premise, stripped of fiction: a race around the world against the clock, contestants replacing Fogg's wager with cash prizes and airport meltdowns.

The literal descendant of Fogg's wager: real people racing real airports and real deadlines around the actual globe, with all the mess and joy a scripted film could never risk.

But It's reality TV with all that entails - product placement, manufactured drama, contestants you'll want to strangle by episode three.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World1963

Another cameo-crammed, big-budget comic race against the clock, this time for buried treasure instead of a wager - the same joy of watching famous faces collide.

But It's frantic and shouty where 80 Days is genial; the comedy is broader and considerably less elegant.

Raiders of the Lost Ark1981

If it was the globe-trotting exoticism you loved, here's the same appetite for far-flung locations wrapped in pulp adventure and real momentum.

But It trades charm and leisure for speed and peril - there's no lingering to enjoy the scenery.

The African Queen1952

An earlier, scrappier journey adventure with real romantic chemistry - Bogart and Hepburn navigating a river instead of a continent, unlikely companions thrown together.

But It's intimate and small-scale where 80 Days is enormous; don't expect spectacle, expect two people and a boat.

The Man Who Would Be King1975

Connery and Caine adventuring through an imagined, empire-era frontier with the same appetite for far-off kingdoms and grand folly, but darker and wittier.

But The empire-era exoticism now reads more uncomfortably than charmingly, and the ending is considerably less cheerful.

Out of Africa1985

Swap the wager for a love story, but keep the sweeping vistas and old-world romanticism of a foreign land rendered in golden light.

But It's a slow, aching romance rather than an adventure - if you wanted momentum and jokes, this isn't it.

The Grand Budapest Hotel2014

A modern, candy-colored descendant: a globe-hopping farce stuffed with starry cameos and meticulous whimsy, proof the formula still works dressed up differently.

But Wes Anderson's symmetry and deadpan irony are an acquired taste, and the humor is drier and stranger than 1956's.

Deep Water2006

Both follow a race to circle the earth against a clock; one is cheerful fantasy, the other a true story where the wager cost a man his sanity and life.

The same round-the-world premise turned real and mortally serious: the true story of amateur sailors racing solo around the globe, one of whom simply vanished.

But It's bleak and unresolved where 80 Days is jaunty - a tragedy about obsession, not a romp.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea1954

Both adapt Jules Verne's fascination with circling and exploring the globe by improbable transport, made within a couple of years of each other but pitched to wildly different registers.

Made two years earlier from the same author's imagination, this Disney spectacle swaps the wager for a submarine and gives Verne's love of exotic machinery and far horizons a sci-fi spin.

But It's moodier and more menacing - James Mason's Nemo is no genial Fogg, and there's real menace beneath the wonder.