5 Forgotten Pirate Movies That Still Hold Up Today

What's a pirate's favorite movie? Anything rated Arrrrr. 

It's been a good 18 to 20 years since the internet was properly obsessed with pirates. I merrily recall the "pirates vs. ninjas" debate with clarity, with the two professions eternally locked in a dead heat. What was more appealing: Plundering, looting, drinking rum, and living on the high seas? Or living in the shadows of Japan, mastering hundreds of awesome oblique weapons and killing people for a tidy payment? 

When it came to cinematic evidence to argue both points, however, pirates always had the advantage. Pirate movies are practically as old as the medium, with some pirate classics stretching back to the 1920s and 1930s. Ninjas didn't become a proper cinematic fixture until unleashed by certain Cannon Group movies in the early 1980s. Of course, a certain generation grew up watching those ninja movies, so the profession was just as deeply entrenched in their subconsciousness. The argument essentially boils down to youth vs. experience. Of course, given that pirate movies and TV shows are still being made and ninja films seem dated, pirates have, overall, won the internet's debate. 

If that's true, let's look back over pirate movie history and find some of the genre's classics that you might not have heard of. It's likely you've seen the massively popular "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies from the '00s (those things have made billions of dollars), and most everyone has at least seen Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi, and Wilfred Jackson's 1953 animated "Peter Pan" film from Walt Disney Studios. But there are many pirate movies that neophytes may want to catch up on. Avast, ye swabs! Here be five cinematic treasures to plunder. Tuck in, me hearties. 

Hungarian director Michael Curtiz is best known by cinephiles as the pilot behind "Casablanca," one of the best American movies ever made. "Casablanca" is a war drama with a romance embedded in the center, and it still plays like gangbusters to this day. Some critics might argue that the reason Curtiz was able to make "Casablanca" work so well is because he had a background in action/adventure films, making him familiar with efficiency of character and pacing. 

That's certainly true of his 1935 Errol Flynn vehicle "Captain Blood," a high-seas adventure that also still plays like gangbusters over 90 years later. "Captain Blood" is an origin story of a pirate king named Peter Blood (Flynn), who began his professional career as a doctor in the 1680s. Blood is arrested for treason and sent to live on a prison colony in the West Indies. Through a series of dramatic circumstances, Blood stages a major prisoner escape, seizes a Spanish galleon, hoists a jolly roger, and begins his career as a pirate. 

The film then turns into a complex adventure with warring pirate captains. Blood fights with the French pirate captain Levasseur (Basil Rathbone) and attempts to get a playful revenge against Arabella (Olivia de Havilland), the woman who once owned him as a slave. Naturally, the film climaxes with a violent ship-to-ship battle and a lot of crossed cutlasses on the decks of said ships. "Captain Blood" was amazingly expensive to produce, but earned millions at the box office. One might hold it up as one of the templates by which all other pirate movies can be gauged. And many may not have seen it. Check it out! It's still a great adventure film, and it came years before the Curtiz/Flynn/de Havilland wonderment of "The Adventures of Robin Hood."

Gilbert & Sullivan's operetta "The Pirates of Penzance" was first staged in 1879, and it has been a musical standard across the English-speaking world ever since. The whimsical wordniess of William Gilbert's lyrics paired with the tinkling, hummable music-box tunes of Arthur Sullivan have some kind of comedic alchemy that can wear through even the toughest of exteriors. In 1983, Wilford Leach wrote and directed the cinematic standard of "The Pirates of Penzance," boasting awesome musical performances from Kevin Kline (as the Pirate King), Angela Lansbury (in one of her best films, playing Ruth), and Linda Ronstadt (as Mabel Stanley). 

The plot of "Penzance" is light and fun. The young Frederic (Rex Smith) has lived a boyhood of servitude under the fun but oppressive Pirate King. Now 21, he vows to devote his life to justice, team up with the local constabulary, and fight the pirates. He is additionally dismayed to learn, when he meets them for the first time, that maidens are young and fair and look like Linda Ronstadt. As far as women go, he had previously only known his nursemaid Ruth. Mabel Stanley is the daughter of Major General Stanley (George Rose), whose performance of "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" is one of the most impressive things you will ever, ever see. 

Naturally, the Pirate King finds that he misses Frederic and comes back to tell him that his contract wasn't until his 21st year, but his 21st birthday, and that he was born on February 29th. Kevin Kline gives one of his best performances, which is saying something. How this is not a slumber party standard alongside films like "The Princess Bride," I'll never know. It's brisk and bright and funny all the way through. 

Okay, so this isn't a pirate adventure set on the high seas on great three-masted frigates preparing for broadside and firing cannons. Instead, Stewart Raffill's 1984 film "The Ice Pirates" is a low-budget, silly, borderline slapstick sci-fi comedy in the Mel Brooks mold. And it was released three years before "Spaceballs." "The Ice Pirates" takes place in a distant galaxy where water has become a rare and coveted resource. An evil empire called the Templars of Mithra controls all the galaxy's water supply and has destroyed all of the water-rich planets, hoping to corner the market entirely. 

Naturally, in such a desperate place, water piracy has become common, and the movie follows Jason (Robert Urich), the head of a pirate vessel that halts and infiltrates Templar ice ships transporting water. He and his partner Roscoe (Michael D. Roberts) begin a merry misadventure when they realize that one of their targets houses the comatose body of the princess Karina (Mary Crosby). Eventually Jason and Roscoe are sold into slavery, barely escape being castrated and lobotomized, and find that Karina has been looking for a mythic, faraway planet that might still be a viable water source. 

To let you know the tone of "The Ice Pirates," know that Jason's ship is infected with space herpes, which takes the form of giant, pancake-sized super-evolved vermin. He just doesn't know what to do when the herpes flares up. Also, the film's climax involves an unusual time warp conceit that ... well, I'll let you find out for yourself. "The Ice Pirates" is cheeky and a little dumb, but golly is it entertaining. Raffill has made multiple kooky cult movies like "Mac and Me," "Tammy and the T-Rex," and 2010's "Standing Ovation." "The Ice Pirates" is merely the feather in his cap. 

P.J. Hogan's 2003 film rendition of "Peter Pan" may be the best live-action version of J.M. Barrie's celebrated 1911 novel. In it, Rachel Hurd-Wood plays Wendy, who is whisked off to Neverland by the story-loving Peter Pan (Jeremy Sumpter), the boy who has never grown up. A lot of notable international actors round out the cast, with Olivia Williams playing Mrs. Darling, Jason Isaacs playing the stern Mr. Darling, and Kenneth Branagh regular Richard Brier playing the pirate Mr. Smee. Lynn Redgrave plays the kids' old aunt. French actress Ludivine Sagnier plays Tinkerbell. 

As with most stage productions of "Peter Pan," Captain Hook is played by the same actor who plays Mr. Darling, and Jason Isaacs tears into the role with wicked glee. He is evil and sadistic, but never loses sight of the fact that he's a cartoon villain. Isaacs is, for my money, the best Captain Hook in film history. He is scary and campy all at once, and Sumpter counterbalances him well as the irascible Pan. While Hogan's "Peter Pan" is playful, it's also psychologically real, and acknowledges the underlying tragedy of Peter Pan, a child who is magically trapped in preadolescence, unable to form new ideas or mature thoughts. This "Peter Pan" might serve as the new standard by which other Pans can be measured. 

Sadly, Hogan's film was overshadowed in the pirate department by the release of Gore Verbinski's "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" five months earlier. Verbinski's film was busy, over-plotted, and full of elaborate action and giant performances. The relatively subdued "Peter Pan" would be insubstantial in comparison, and the flick bombed. It's a pity, as it's quite a good film.

Peter Lord's 2012 animated film "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!" (released as "The Pirates! Band of Misfits" in the United States) is one of the lightest, silliest, most fun depictions of piracy ever committed to film. It follows a character named Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) who leads a ragtag ship of pillagers and looters, and who dreams of being awarded Pirate of the Year by the local pirate board of directors. The problem is that Pirate Captain is kind and polite, and treats his crew with care. He enjoys celebrating Ham Night on his ship, and is always in a good mood. His crew have credited names like the Pirate with the Scarf (Martin Freeman), the Pirate Who Likes Sunsets and Kittens (Al Roker), and the Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate (Ashley Jensen). That last character is a woman in disguise, and the film never really acknowledges that. 

The plot of the movie involves the Pirate Captain infiltrating the HMS Beagle and kidnapping Charles Darwin (David Tennant). Darwin points out that the Captain's parrot is actually a dodo bird, believed to be extinct, and that the bird itself might be very valuable. This, Captain feels, might win him Pirate of the Year. Naturally, however, the British Crown cannot abide by pirates floating around England, and the angry, vicious Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) puts out a bounty on all pirates, even if they are polite and plummy and kind. 

"The Pirates!" arrived when goodwill for Aardman animation was weirdly contracting. The stop-motion studio was still doing amazing work (2015's "Shaun the Sheep" and 2018's "Early Man" were both hilarious), but audiences stayed away regardless. Now, however, is the time. The film is so delightful, it's hard to resist. Pour yourself a flagon of something and enjoy, scallywags.