10 great walking films

Created by Igor_Brynner.

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Cinema loves journeys. As a structuring tool, creating a long or short journey is one of the commonest occurrences in film; one that provides a physical beginning and end to a narrative. While a multitude of directors and genres have toyed with the potential mapping various journeys via transport – the road movie in particular – there’s something far more dramatic in showing characters that determinedly walk to where they want to go.

Whether using it as a visual tool, just as British director Alan Clarke did in his many famed walking shots, or building whole narratives around a walk, as in many films by French directors Éric Rohmer and Agnès Varda, walking has always been a powerful way to not simply explore place and geography but also to explore character.

Considering the slow pace, at least in comparison to other possible methods of getting from A to B, walking can make for surprisingly powerful and dramatic visuals on screen, whether traipsing across dangerous industrial zones, guarded national borders or simply down the busy street of a capital city.

As the new British comedy The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry sends Jim Broadbent on an epic traipse from Devon to Berwick-upon-Tweed, here are 10 films it follows in footsteps.