What Are The Best Pirate Movies?

When you're a little kid, one of the topics they have you read about is pirates. I feel like I had pirate books (shoutout Terry Deary, Horrible Histories changed my life), pirate costumes, Legos, and birthday parties.

Then, as you get older, piracy just becomes something you knew a ton about as a kid. Or that happens on the high seas around the Horn of Africa.

But in film and TV, pirates come in all shapes and sizes. We even see them in new video games, like Assassin's Creed.

Pirates are sort of back in a big way for adults, and I am glad all that knowledge I had as a kid is finally paying off.

Today, I want to dig into my favorite pirate movies and talk about what makes them so special and watchable.

Let's dive in.

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

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• Director: Gore Verbinski
• Screenwriters: Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio

The Takeaway: Character dynamic is everything.

Okay, I really can't fathom a list of pirate movies that doesn't have this at number one. When this came out, the gals in my high school went like three times a week. They were in love with all the men who were handsome swashbucklers.

By the way, the guys went too, into the action and Kiera Knightley.

This felt like a movie and then a franchise that had something for everyone. It was so much fun and so entertaining. Depp has never been better.

Before 2003, Hollywood considered pirate movies box-office poison, ad after, people wanted to make these kinds of movies, at least for a while.

Verbinski crafted masterclasses in set-piece choreography. I mean, study this film, and you will learn so much. From the dockside duel to the moonlight skeleton reveal—proving that clarity of motion keeps high-concept action engaging.

2. Captain Blood (1935)

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• Director: Michael Curtiz
• Screenwriter: Casey Robinson

The Takeaway: The birth of the cinematic swashbuckler.

From the ultra-modern to the easy-back machine, Pirates have been cultural icons for quite sme time. This movie hails from Michael Curtiz, the director behind Casablanca.

You might be able to call this movie the first swashbuckler. At least, in cinema history.

It was in this movie that he launched Errol Flynn into superstardom.

If you nail a pair of shoes, you'll become famous. And this film kind of sets up all the pirate tropes we know and love, too. It had the handsome guy at its center and lots of swordplay. I love how much charisma Flynn has on the screen, too.

3. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

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• Director: Peter Weir
• Screenwriters: Peter Weir & John Collee

The Takeaway: Realism breeds immersion.

We tend to think of pirate movies as these big ideas that have kind of magic and jokes and other wondrous thoughts. But this film takes all that and grounds it in a reality that gives us a taste of history.

I wish they made ten of them. There were so many more books in the series.

Now, I think some people might come at me for technicalities here. Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) is a Royal Navy Captain rather than a classic buccaneer. But Master and Commander stands as the gold standard for maritime cinema.

And we have him taking over boats and fighting enemies; I think that's enough. I mean, he actually does plunder them!

For writers and directors, it’s a brilliant study in how character friction inside a closed, isolated setting can drive tension just as effectively as cannon fire.

4. The Princess Bride (1987)

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• Director: Rob Reiner
• Screenwriter: William Goldman

The Takeaway: Subvert genre tropes by mastering them first.

This is the kind of movie you put on when it's raining outside, or it's Friday night, and no one in your family can pick. It has something for everyone, including the person who is obsessed wth pirates.

The great Rob Reiner directed William Goldman’s wonderful adaptation of his own book. You get these fairy-tale conventions, which open us up to a kingdom where it feels like anything can happen.

5. Treasure Planet (2002)

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• Directors: Ron Clements & John Musker
• Screenwriters: Ron Clements, John Musker, Rob Edwards

The Takeaway: Worldbuilding through genre mashups.

This is such a good way to take IP like Treasure Island and completely update it for the 21st Century. It just takes all the major characters and beats and puts them into space. The look and feel of the movie rely on traditional hand-drawn animation with CGI environments, mixing old and new into something that felt groundbreaking at the time.

It didn't make a ton of money, but it got us some space pirates, and that's all that matters.

6. Captain Phillips (2013)

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• Director: Paul Greengrass
• Screenwriter: Billy Ray

The Takeaway: Tension through realism and modern stakes.

Based on a true story! Modern pirates are still around, and they're still attacking boats. This movie is about Somali piracy, and it's shot by Paul Greengrass in his signature style, which makes us feel like we're really there with them the whole time.

It's all handheld, tight, and claustrophobic, and then you have the open sea, and help is so far away.

Barkhad Abdi’s terrifyingly grounded performance opposite Tom Hanks is like the most naturalistic performance I have ever seen. It's so wild to see him hold his own here, and it makes Hanks's fear and emotion all the better.

This is not a swashbuckler but almost like a war movie.

7. The Crimson Pirate (1952)

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• Director: Robert Siodmak
• Screenwriter: Roland Kibbee

The Takeaway: Lean into physicality and spectacle.

Again, another dip back into the pirate movies of the Golden Age of Hollywood. We get this classic starring Burt Lancaster, who did all his own stunts with his former circus acrobat skills.

This is one of those movies that just makes you smile when you see how ambitious they were back in the day, and how they had no CGI and just had design set pieces around the actual ability of the people they had on screen.

It's a kinetic movie with a lot of comedy and some sneaky good cinematography.

Summing It All Up

These movies are a wide array of how we see pirates in movies, and prove that they never really go out of style, as long as you have an interesting twist or way to work them into your narrative.

It also shows just how many filmmaking lessons you can take from every one of them.

Let me know what you think in the comments.