Terrifying, beautiful, desolate, and romantic all at once, the sprawling Namibian desert with its almighty saffron-hued dunes and sweltering skies has provided the magnificent backdrop for a diverse range of films. We take a look at the best ten films shot in the stunning south-east African sands.
10. The Cell
In American psychological thriller The Cell, Dr Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) operates a virtual reality device which allows her to temporarily enter the minds of coma patients in an attempt to coax them back into consciousness. The Namibia Desert provided the ethereal landscape for the film’s opening dream scene – Lopez is an angelic, windswept vision as she wanders the dunes trying to communicate with the young victim of a boating accident, lost in the bleak desert of his sub-conscious mind.
9. Flight of the Phoenix
Despite being set in Asia’s Gobi desert, director John Moore selected Namibia as the location for his 2004 film Flight of the Phoenix, a remake of the 1965 movie of the same name. Starring Dennis Quaid and Giovanni Ribisi, the film follows a group of plane crash survivors who must construct a new aircraft from the wreckage in order to escape. Though not well received by critics, Namibia’s shadowy pallid-yellow dunes and hazy skies certainly make for an aesthetically pleasing setting.