El Sendero Luminoso

Years before Free Solo, Alex Honnold walked to the base of El Sendero Luminoso, 1,500 feet of sustained 5.12+ limestone in El Potrero Chico, Mexico, and climbed it without a rope. The North Face's short film about that January 2014 morning remains one of the most beautiful pieces of free solo footage ever shot.

At six minutes it wastes nothing: Honnold in the pre-dawn dark, tiny against an ocean of gray limestone, edging up terrain where most strong climbers would want a double rack and a prayer. Renan Ozturk's cinematography turns the wall into something abstract and enormous. Brief, terrifying, essential.