There are a few kicking around but the difficulty of underground filming conditions does mean that many are not Cinematic quality.
Cavers will be aware of the Sid Perou films, mostly documentary in nature and filmed for TV long before the more powerfu, compact, lightweight lighting of today and of the advanced digital camera technologies.
Many of the YouTube amateur videos are high image quality as compared to those of Sid Perou in some respects although perhaps lacking in the full gamut of cinematic skills.
Broadly speaking cinematic and TV films fall into two categories: Documentary and fictional. Of those there’s also a split now between “live” filming and CGI generated, for example Lord of the Rings could be considered to include “caving” scenes but far removed from reality.
So for this page I want to focus on cinematic standard films where “real” caves or caving are a key aspect.
I have been a strong advocate of SHAFF (Sheffield Adventure Film Festival). That only occasionally features Caving films but I recommend it to cavers (and anyone interested in outdoor adventure activities). Its a great few days of high quality material and activities I have no interest in whatsoever like Parkour or Mountain Biking are brought to life when the participants are entertaining and skilful. I’d draw a parallel with the way many of us spend hours in front of the TV for olympic activities we are never likely to try like Bobsled, Biathlon and even Curling. If you watch that then if you can get to a SHAFF event, do! I should add that SHAFF is involved with Adventure Film performances beyond Sheffield and at dates other than the Festival (usually March). If you can’t attend in person some of the movies are available on-line too.
Writing this in 2022 the obvious focus of recent high quality productions has been on the 2019 Thailand schoolboys cave rescue, especially with the involvement of so many of the British Cave rescue diving community. “The Rescue”, released in late 2021 documents the story. I understand Netflix bought the rights to the story from the boys who were rescued and will release a series in 2022 whereas the focus of “The Rescue” is on the rescuers.
Let me know of any other movies worth adding (I’m disregarding the purely fictional films like The Cave a 2005 American horror/action film Trailer)
THE RESCUE the enthralling, against-all-odds story of the daring rescue of twelve boys and their coach from deep inside a flooded cave in Northern Thailand in 2018. British cave divers played the leading role in the rescue. Trailer
The Ario Dream: The Quest for Europe’s Deepest Cave trailer
Il Buco (The Hole) trailer
Cave of Forgotten Dreams Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film the prehistoric cave paintings inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France Trailer
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