Over the years, there have been dozens of skateboarding movies but it’s pretty rare that a skateboarding movie comes along that actually does skateboarding justice.
You can tell that most of the time that skateboarding movies are made, the people involved have no idea about skateboarding, which makes them super hard to watch if you’re someone who actually skates.
Now I’m not exactly a film critic, but I am a skateboarder with a lot of free time, so i decided to put together a list of the best skateboarding movies to watch.
Lords Of Dogtown
Lords of dogtown is one of the most iconic skateboarding movies out there.
Now it’s supposed to be based on a true story, but I wasn’t around back then, so I don’t really know how much of it happened. I’m sure the general outline is real, but they probably just exaggerated certain things just for the sake of the movie.
Lords Of Dogtown takes place in southern California in the 70s around the time skateboarding first became popular.
The movie is based around the Zephyr skate team which included Stacey Peralta, Tony Alva, and Jay Adams. The movie was written by Stacey Peralta based off of his firsthand experience, and you can tell that the movie was made by someone who actually skates.
Lords Of Dogtown basically follows the initial rise skateboarding and how it came about. Since the movie takes place around the time polyurethane wheels got invented, it really focuses on the whole era of skating pools, and you’re almost guaranteed to want to go skate a backyard pool after watching it.
It’s definitely hard to show skateboarding accurately while still forming a plot that makes for a good movie, but overall Lords of Dogtown did a pretty good job at it.
Most skateboarders would agree that Lords of Dogtown is a pretty good movie, and even if someone doesn’t skate, I could still see them liking it.
Lords of Dogtown was also one of the first skateboarding movies to actually did skateboarding justice, so if you haven’t seen it then I definitely recommend watching it.
All This Mayhem
“All This Mayhem” is a skateboarding documentary made by Vice back in 2014. It’s technically a documentary and not a movie, but close enough.
All This Mayhem follows the Papas brothers who were two of the top vert skaters in the 90s. A lot of young skateboarders might not know about the Papas brothers, but at the time they were some of the most famous skateboarders in the world.
The Papas brothers were really good at the time, and they were definitely up there with Tony Hawk, Bob Burnquist, Danny Way, and all of the other top pros of the 90s. Not only were they were two of the best vert skaters, they were also two of the first major names to come out of Austrailia.
For as good as it is, “All This Mayhem” is a bit of a sad documentary to watch, and it shows what can happen when the skateboarding lifestyle is really taken to the extreme.
Now when All This Mayhem was first released, it got mixed opinions because it kind of goes after Tony Hawk for being the first person to land the 900.
Without getting into details, just keep in mind that you’re only getting one side of the story, and Tony Hawk did a full interview with Transworld explaining his side of the story.
Overall, “All This Mayhem” is a great skateboarding movie and even if you aren’t into vert skating in particular, it’s still an interesting watch.
Grind
Even though Grind only got an 8 percent on rotten tomatoes, and it wasn’t made by actual skaters at all, it’s still worth watching.
Grind is about a group of skaters trying to go Pro by following around a skate demo tour a on a summer road trip, basically like every other teen comedy out there.
It’s funny how cliche the movie is, and it’s almost like the set out to make the most stereotypical skateboarding movie they could. A lot of the skating clips don’t even make sense, and the same thing goes for the script, but thats kind of what makes it so good in the first place.
You can tell that the actors in the movie don’t actually skate but there are cameos by Bam Margera and a really young Ryan Sheckler, and also a few other pros from the early 00’s.
Maybe I just like it because its the first skate movies that i watched growing up, but i feel like Grind is a skateboarding movie that every skater should watch.
It might be bad, but it’s almost so bad that it’s good if that makes sense.
Street Dreams
Street Dreams is another classic skateboarding movie that follows an up and coming street skater who’s trying to go pro. In the movie the main character (who’s played by Paul Rodriguez) is working on a street part, going on skate trips, and trying to win contests, which is kind of how it is for a lot of up and coming skaters.
Most of the cast is made up of professional skaters, and they even go to a few famous parks and spots in the movie. For example, they hit the DC skate plaza in Ohio, as well as the Skatepark of Tampa.
Out of all of the skateboarding movies out there, Street Dreams definitely has some of the best skateboarding, which makes sense since the cast it made up almost entirely of pros. The skateboarding footage is also filmed way better. Since the people in the movie actually skate, they don’t only film skate clips from the waist down like most other skate movies.
Even though the plot of Street Dreams is a bit more accurate than some of the other skateboarding movies, it still is a little cheesy. Again though, it’s hard to make a skateboarding movie thats accurate and still interesting to watch, so for what it is it’s not too bad.
It’s worth mentioning that Street dreams was produced by Rob Dyrdek, so it makes sense that it’s a little more accurate than a lot of the other skate movies out there.
When it first came out, it didn’t do that well because it was only in a few theaters, but if Netflix was more popular at the time, it likely would’ve done a lot better. It’s definitely not a Hollywood blockbuster by any means, but as far as skate movies go, it’s pretty decent.
Mid90s
Mid90s is an indie style coming of age skateboarding movie that was written and directed by Jonah Hill. Most people didn’t even know Jonah Hill skated, but according to Jenkem Magazine he grew up skating in LA, and the movie does seem like it was made by skateboarders.
Now since mid90s just came out a few years ago, most skateboarders are well aware of it. Almost all of the main actors are skateboarders, and there’s even a few pros in the movie.
As you probably could of guessed by the name, Mid 90s takes places in 1990’s Los Angeles. It follows the journey of a 13 year old who finds out about skateboarding and starts hanging out at his local skate shop with a few older skaters.
Rather than making the movie about someone trying to go pro, Mid90s focuses on what it’s like for someone who’s just starting out, and how it is trying to make your way into a group.
Like a lot of coming of age movies, Mid90s doesn’t really have a plot, but it does show a semi-accurate account of what it’s like to grow up as a skateboarder. Also, Mid90s arguably has one of the best soundtracks out of all of the skateboarding movies on this list, which makes it way more watchable.
Most skateboarders would agree that Mid90s is definitely one of the best skateboarding movies to come out over the past few years, so if you haven’t already seen it, it’s worth spending a couple dollars to rent it on Amazon.
Skate Kitchen
Skate kitchen is another good skate movie that has an indie vibe similar to Mid90s. Now unlike Mid90s which is set in 1990’s La, Skate Kitchen takes place in present day NYC.
Skate kitchen is essentially a movie about a girl skater without any friends who gets welcomed into a group of girl skaters who live in the city.
Without going to go over the whole movie, it’s safe to say that if you’re into coming of age films then you’ll probably like it.
One thing that sets Skate Kitchen apart from some of the other good skateboarding movies out there is that it’s focused around a group of girl skateboarders. It makes sense that most skateboarding movies are about guys since skateboarding is predominately male, but it’s nice to see the female skateboarders get some representation in the skateboarding movie world.
Aside form being based on a group of girl skateboarders, another cool thing about Skate Kitchen is that pretty much the entire cast skates. Other than Jaden Smith and a few others, most of the cast aren’t even professional actors, and a lot of the skaters in the movie are friends who actually skate together in real life.
The Bones Brigade Documentary
The Bones Brigade Documentary is another skateboarding movie made by Stacy Peralta.
The doc shows how the Bones Brigade was formed, and how the skate company Powel Peralta came to be. Now depending on when you started skating, the Bones Brigade might not seem like a big deal, but it definitely played a major role in the way skateboarding developed.
The Bones Brigade was the first team that brought together the top guys from different parts of skateboarding. At the time they were winning just about every contest, and they were in almost every magazine. Also, the guys on the team were some of the biggest innovators in skateboarding, and they’re the ones who invented a lot of the tricks that people do today.
Some of the team members included Tony Hawk, Rodney Mullen, Lance mountain, Steve Cabelerro, Mike Mcgill, and Tommy Guerro. I mean just those guys alone invented like half the tricks in skateboarding.
Overall, even though its a skateboarding documentary and not a skateboarding movie, it’s still cool to watch.
Thrashin’
Thrashin was one of the first major skateboarding movies made, and it’s arguably one of the best skateboarding movies of all time. It came out in 1986, and it’s what got a lot of older skaters into skateboarding in the first place.
Thrashin had all of the top pros at the time including Tony hawk, Tony Alva, Christian Hosoi, and Steve Cabalero. The red hot chili peppers also make an appearance, and apparently Johnny Depp was almost in it too, which would’ve been pretty cool to see.
Even though Thrashin is a pretty dramatized version of what skateboarding is like, it’s still a great skateboarding movie and many skateboarders consider it a classic.