Free Solo

"Live beyond fear."

2018 1h 40m EN

🙌

7.9

BANGER

★7.9TMDB · 1,583

DocumentaryAdventure

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Follow Alex Honnold as he attempts to become the first person to ever free solo climb Yosemite's 3,000 foot high El Capitan wall. With no ropes or safety gear, this would arguably be the greatest feat in rock climbing history.

“Live beyond fear.”

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Where to watch · US

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Cast

Alex Honnold
Self
Tommy Caldwell
Self
Jimmy Chin
Self
Sanni McCandless
Self
Mikey Schaefer
Self
Cheyne Lempe
Self
Mark Synnott
Self
Peter Croft
Self

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Jimmy Chin
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 7

ERA

Did you know

Released 8 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Jimmy Chin, shot by Jimmy Chin. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Marco Beltrami. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Bob Eisenhardt shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 7

ERA

Did you know

Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell and Jimmy Chin carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 7

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Live beyond fear.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 7

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt7775622 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Jimmy Chin directs. Jimmy Chin behind the camera. Marco Beltrami scores. Bob Eisenhardt cuts. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Released 8 years ago.
2Directed by Jimmy Chin, shot by Jimmy Chin. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
3Original score by Marco Beltrami. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
4Editor Bob Eisenhardt shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
5Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell and Jimmy Chin carry the top of the cast.
6Marketing tagline: "Live beyond fear.".
7IMDB entry: tt7775622 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
8Classified under 10 themes, including "california", "extreme sports", "mountain", "yosemite".

The technical file

Cinematography: Jimmy Chin
Original score: Marco Beltrami
Editing: Bob Eisenhardt
Runtime: 100 min · 1h 40m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Box office: $21,790,193
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG-13
IMDB: Free Solo (2018)

Awards

Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Jimmy Chin

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

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Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Luis_9892019-12-22
★ 8/10
Alex Honnold made a huge feat and this documentary shows it to you in an excellent way. It never lets you go and at all times I was surprised and excited. Deserved winner of the Oscar for Best Documentary.
CinemaSerf2026-02-13
★ 7/10
Did you see “The Alpinist” (2021) with the audacious, and now late, solo climber Marc-André Leclerc? Well in that nerve-wracking feature there is an interview with Alex Honnold, by then an already successful climber for whom fear held no bounds, explaining just how addictive and dangerous this perilous activity is. This film, made three years earlier, reveals to us something of Honnold’s own fearlessness as we watch him set off to scale sheer rock faces like Yosemite’s 3000 foot “El Capitan” armed with little more than a T-shirt, shorts and some especially adapted shoes. He is well aware that the slightest error, or perhaps even just a sudden gust of wind, could leave him squished. Again, like Leclerc, he comes across as quite a selfish man, and you do feel for his girlfriend Sanni McCandless with whom he is frank. As he puts it, he sees no imperative in prolonging his own life at the expense of his career, even for her, and of course she struggles with the worry of him not coming back one day. There are also interviews here with fellow climbers who expertly provide the astonishing video footage that gets us up close and personal with a man who seems to take the pressure and the danger effortlessly in his stride. There is the real question for them, though: if he falls what do they film? Honnold comes across as an engagingly ordinary man, and therein lies part of his charm but also part of what makes his single-minded focus something that must make him an impossible candidate for fatherhood. He is simply too addicted to his climbing, and it seems it’s accompanying solitude too. I don’t usually suffer from acrophobia, but some of his daredevil activities here made the souls of my feet tingle.