The Most Epic Journeys in Film and TV

Whether you call them road movies or quest movies or epic journeys, they exist in every genre, from sci-fi to family dramedy. While some movies include an actual road trip or long voyage to a desired place, the best ones show us the external and internal need for the journey. Let’s take a look at some of the most iconic films that feature long journeys, including fantasy epics, introspective self-discovery stories and gritty real life adventures that take us along for the ride.

Scripts from this Article

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Thelma and Louise

Onward

Little Miss Sunshine

Logan

Sweet Tooth

Up

Saving Private Ryan

Finding Nemo

Wild

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

The Darjeeling Limited

The Last of Us

Life of Pi

Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films

No one can deny that the most epic modern story of a long journey comes to us in the form of a hobbit and his fellowship. From the fate of the world to the unbearable internal weight that Frodo contends with, the story is about the quest he’s taken on. The relationships built over that trek across Middle-earth become the crux of Frodo’s narrative and those of the others, ultimately creating the opportunity for him to bring the One Ring to its intended resting place.

Read More: The Hero’s Journey Breakdown: The Lord of the Rings

Thelma and Louise

Another movie about relationships, this road trip crime drama from Ridley Scott emphasizes a growing acceptance of freedom from the chains of society. As the titular characters embrace their rebellion, they become more able to express their needs and feel like themselves, even making choices at the end that they need to embrace their own willpower to achieve.

Read More: 3 Screenwriting Tips from Thelma and Louise Screenwriter Callie Khouri

Onward

Any good story about wizards, resurrections and dragons should involve a quest, right? Then it’s a good thing that Onward does that in spades, even down to acknowledging certain tropes. Rather than poking fun at convention, this buddy film uses long-standing ideas about quest movies to accent what makes the movie special: an emphasis on family.

Read More: Pixar Movies: The Digital Disney

Little Miss Sunshine

This flick emphasizes the importance of family, too — but there’s no magic unless you count the enchanting dark hilarity that comes from each character, beat and subversion of expectations. Little Miss Sunshine takes time to develop importance in each flaw of the cast. Once you recognize and empathize with those flaws, they become the source of conflict all along the way during this iconic road movie.

Read More: 5 Plot Points of Little Miss Sunshine

Logan

Dystopia is sometimes a great place for a road trip. The mutant-destitute future in Logan is no such place. Yet, Logan’s aged body (you read that right) must go through a harrowing adventure once more well after he’s tried to essentially retire. That adventure involves a mutant child, whose own predicament reminds Logan of his instincts as a protector — and whose safety now rests in his hands until he takes her somewhere she can escape this bleak futurescape.

Read More: From Script to Screen: Logan

Sweet Tooth

Some TV shows love a good journey — and Sweet Tooth is a great example. The world of this show imagines a return to strangeness as seemingly animal hybrids are born to regular humans in the wake of a terrible, ravaging viral pandemic. One of these hybrids, Gus, is forced to forge into the world from which he was so long protected once his father dies. It’s this trip Gus takes that forces him to reckon with the world he never knew — and the world that has come after.

Up

A “voyage and return” story of unique consequence, Up sees protagonists Carl and Russell go through their own changes as a result of their unintentional joint journey. Russell, having stowed away and intent on helping his elderly neighbor, goes through trial after trial to accomplish his goal before successfully touching Carl’s heart. Carl’s own difficulties mounted well before the events of his trip, so it’s through this accidental pairing that he learns to change his outlook for the better as well.

Saving Private Ryan

Every journey seems longer when danger is around every corner. In Saving Private Ryan, we see that in Captain Miller and his team as they’re forced to take a wartime trek through German occupation during World War II. For this journey, the destination is not just a location, it’s a state of affairs: that no man is left behind. That kind of mission makes this journey all the harder.

Read More: 5 Plot Point Breakdown: Saving Private Ryan

Finding Nemo

A good father would go to the ends of the earth to find his missing son — and that’s what Marlin does when Nemo is abducted. The agoraphobic clownfish must brave numerous new situations with a new companion in the deep, dark ocean to find himself at the Great Barrier Reef, where Nemo’s been taken. While it’s important to get to Nemo, Marlin’s journey brings about changes in himself that help him take hold of his life once more.

Read More: 5 Plot Points: Finding Nemo 

Wild

Sometimes, a journey is self-inflicted — and sometimes, it’s meant to do something internally for the person taking those steps. That’s the story of Wild, where Cheryl’s impulsivity was not only her downfall early on, but the reason why she takes her next adventure along the Pacific Crest Trail with no preparation or experience. Due to the kindness of the people she meets along the way, she’s able to survive and find herself transfigured — moving past the life she left in ruins.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

A journey to the end of the universe might be a long one. Thankfully, Arthur Dent gets to hitchhike his way there, looking for the meaning of life after watching Earth be destroyed due to ill-executed bureaucracy. He discovers on his adventure into the void of space that nothing he knew amounts to what is actually out there — and he gets some answers along the way, however unclear or unwanted they may be.

The Darjeeling Limited

Sometimes an emotional journey accompanies the physical one, and that happens for the Whitman brothers as they attempt a reconciliation on a train in India. With itineraries in hand, these three siblings have much to hash out, and they do so through various locations in the subcontinent. Unwittingly, two of the brothers have agreed to more of an emotional trip than they realized, as eldest brother Francis has planned a destination they didn’t have in mind.

Read More: Top 10 Wes Anderson Films (Features and Shorts)

The Last of Us

Within a world ravaged by a fungal pandemic, people afflicted become mindless hordes that consume on behalf of the fungus. Only one person known to a few has survived the infection, and she’s on a very long journey with a grudging protector. Based on the award-winning video game, The Last of Us depicts Joel and Ellie on their cross-country travel — all to help save humanity. The mounting understanding and affection that the two nurture on the way there fills a hole for each of them, making this journey exceptionally meaningful in numerous ways for both.

Read More: 10 Things That Make HBO’s The Last of Us Great

Life of Pi

Pi recounts his life story for an interviewer, with events evolving from a family trip into an adventure of survival as Pi finds himself drifting across the ocean with only a hungry tiger for company. As he forces himself to come to grips with his situation, Pi’s journey becomes more and more unbelievable — a choice he himself gives the viewer when he signs off from the interview.

Read More: Life of Pi: Engaging, Visually Stunning Fable

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Whether it’s discovering the meaning of life, the meaning of self, or the meaning of family, the journey itself becomes the catalyst that leads characters to that discovery.  That discovery, whatever it may be, becomes the crux of the perfect “long journey” story, and these films serve as great examples of how to craft them.