Film

Deliverance

Name: Deliverance
Genre: Drama, Adventure, Thriller
Released: 1972
Cast: Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox, Ed Ramey

Four Atlanta men take a canoe trip down a soon-to-be-dammed Georgia river before it disappears under a reservoir, and the wilderness — plus the people already living in it — turns their weekend into something none of them survive unchanged. It's tense, brutal, gorgeously shot, and still shocking fifty years on. Best for anyone who wants their outdoor adventure story with real menace and moral rot underneath the scenery.

TMDb rating

7.3

If you liked this

Southern Comfort1981

National Guardsmen play war games in the Louisiana bayou and stumble into the wrong ecosystem entirely, with the same slow curdle from cocky bravado into primal terror.

But Walter Hill's pacing is grinding dread rather than plot momentum, and the ending offers no catharsis.

The River Wild1994no page yet

Same white-water setting, same idea that the trip was never really about the wilderness — but the vulnerable protagonist is now Meryl Streep, and the villain is charming before he isn't.

But It's a glossier studio thriller with a much tidier resolution than Deliverance ever allows itself.

A Simple Plan1998

Swap the river for snowbound Minnesota woods and assault for a bag of cash, but the engine is identical: ordinary men make one bad decision and keep making worse ones to cover it.

But Quieter and more procedural, with dread built from silence and guilt rather than physical action.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Naked Prey1965

Deliverance's back half is a man alone in hostile terrain, hunted by someone who knows the ground better than he does — this made that exact film six years earlier, stripped of every subplot.

A safari guide is stripped of everything and hunted across the African bush by the men he wronged — almost wordless, pure chase, pure body against land.

But Its colonial-era framing and treatment of its African characters are of their time and haven't aged comfortably.

Wind River2017

Taylor Sheridan's frozen Wyoming reservation carries the same suspicion that civilization is a thin veneer over something older and colder, and the violence lands with the same unglamorous weight.

But It's a grief-and-justice drama first, thriller second — slower burn, less physical peril.

The Edge1997

Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins stranded in the Alaskan wilderness, hunted by a bear and by each other's resentments — machismo tested by nature and by men who don't actually like each other.

But More pulpy adventure than art film; it wants you thrilled, not shaken.

The Descent2005

Trade the river for a cave system and the hillbillies for something worse, but the structure holds: a trip into remote terrain that reveals which of the friends were never really friends.

But It commits fully to horror-movie logic and gore, a different flavour of nasty than the original.

Wrong Turn2003no page yet

The most direct descendant of Deliverance's city-people-meet-backwoods-menace premise, filed under horror instead of drama — cruder, faster, and completely unashamed about it.

But B-movie stock, gore over dread, none of the moral weight of the original.

Backcountry2015no page yet

A low-key Canadian survival thriller about a couple whose wilderness weekend goes wrong in the most banal, terrifying way — no villains, just nature indifferent to their planning.

But Small and unglamorous; it won't give you the star power or the scope.

Rescue Dawn2007no page yet

Christian Bale as a pilot surviving the Laotian jungle after being shot down — Herzog's version of men stripped of comfort and tested by terrain that doesn't care who they were before.

But A true-story survival drama rather than a thriller; more endurance, less menace.

Touching the Void2003

Same terrain-as-antagonist plot, same test of what a man will do or leave behind to make it out — delivered as testimony instead of fiction.

Real mountaineers reenact their own near-death ordeal in the Andes, narrating over restaged footage — the same question about how far you'd go to survive, except this actually happened.

But It's a documentary, talking heads and reconstruction rather than drama; the tension is physical and intellectual, not narrative suspense.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil2010

It takes the civilized-people-versus-terrifying-locals premise and turns the camera around, asking who's actually the monster — a funny, direct argument with Deliverance's legacy.

Two sweet, well-meaning hillbillies are mistaken for backwoods killers by college kids who assume the worst — a gleeful, gory dismantling of exactly the stereotype Deliverance helped cement.

But It's a broad horror-comedy with cartoonish violence; if you want dread, this isn't that.