Welcome to 2026. Within the spirit of the New 12 months, we—the POWDER crew—determined to make notice of the current ski motion pictures we cherished most. This isn’t a judged, finely-tuned choice, as a result of none of us has watched the entire numerous ski motion pictures that got here out on the finish of 2025. As a substitute, for this checklist, we every wrote concerning the film that, personally, we discovered probably the most entertaining or impactful.
The 2026 POWDER Photograph Annual is right here! Search for a print copy on a newsstand close to you, or click on right here to have a replica shipped on to your entrance door.
Ornada
Matt Lorelli: There’s nothing like a stay ski film premiere to get the preseason juices flowing, however many movies have felt stale in recent times.
I used to be simply beginning to develop extremely uninterested in watching acquainted 40-something-year-olds ski the identical strains they did 20 years in the past when BAM, Armada Skis dropped Ornada and melted my face off.
Complimented by a stay rating performed by a band that appeared too good to be concerned with a ski film, the world premiere of Ornada in Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah, felt like a fever dream. Youngsters, teenagers, younger adults, and senior residents all bobbed their heads in unison as Sammy Carlson popped pillows whereas MC Dillon Cooper rapped with ardour. Cheers shook the venue when skiers resembling Quinn Wolferman, Rell Harwood, and Toby Rafford landed a giant line or trick.
21-year-old phenom Olivia Asselin’s numerous avenue segments despatched a bunch of crusty parkrat youngsters right into a frenzy. I believe I heard them say the phrase “bro” a minimum of 100 occasions in disbelief.
I’ve used this phrase too many occasions, however the power was, certainly, palpable.
No offense to the legends who carried ski motion pictures all through the aughts and teenagers, by the best way, however Ornada felt just like the contemporary begin the ski film business was determined for.
I haven’t watched the movie since that preliminary screening in SLC, however small moments are seared into my mind months later. If that’s not sufficient to be my private ‘Ski Film of the 12 months’, then I’m undecided what’s.
The live-scored performances of Ornada are over, however the movie shall be launched in 2026 with a recorded model of the rating. You have to watch it. I encourage of you.
The Fringe of Motive
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Izzy Lidsky: Again in 2020-ish, Cody Townsend and Michelle Parker launched a movie referred to as The Mountain Why that chronicled the 2 of them biking from their homes in Tahoe to Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier, and El Dorado Peak to examine off extra of Townsend’s FIFTY Undertaking strains. Lengthy story quick, it was some of the impactful ski movies I’d ever seen, singlehandedly satisfied me to purchase a gravel bike, and nonetheless lives rent-free in my thoughts.
Regardless of the influence of it, I by no means turned an avid FIFTY watcher, however relatively loved seeing episodes right here and there at Salomon’s QST movie tour when it will come to city or once they featured significantly attention-grabbing strains or fellow athletes.
When requested to write down about my favourite ski movie of the yr, my first ideas have been of movies that obtained me excited to ski, broke the normal movie mildew in a roundabout way, or have been simply plain previous sick. Titles like ORNADA (Armada Skis), Flipbook (Parkin Costain), Strains (Mallory Duncan),Chilly Calls (Clean Collective), and Slipstream (Alex Armstrong) floated round in my mind as movies I cherished watching.
Then, the QST movie tour’s cease in Bend this fall got here to thoughts. Right here, we have been handled to a different of Townsend’s movies that left me serious about it for days and weeks to return. The Fringe of Motive follows Townsend and his spouse and fellow skilled skier Elyse Saugstad to Norway within the Spring of 2025 as they meet up with Nikolai Schirmer seeking new freeride strains and a return to the kind of freeskiing that made their careers. Upon arriving in Norway, they get a name with the information of their associates’ passing in an avalanche. The information utterly modifications the power of the journey, and Townsend and Saugstad are left confronting questions on threat vs. reward within the mountains simply as they got down to ski new terrain.
The movie was a very susceptible have a look at how somebody like Townsend or Saugstad considers these items when their job is entwined with the mountains and extra broadly into that of how skilled athletes handle threat. It was additionally edited by Mike Douglas, who has an enhancing fashion I actually get pleasure from and a tremendous means of telling a narrative, so message apart, it was fantastically finished.
I really like shred porn as a lot as the subsequent skier, however I discover that the movies that follow me are those that make me actually really feel one thing and assume possibly there’s extra to snowboarding than we regularly take into account. The Fringe of Motive was deeply relatable, having misplaced associates within the mountains and questioned my very own selections quite a lot of occasions, and I cried my eyes out watching it.
The Jetskis Film
Ian Greenwood: The Jetskis Film was revamped the span of 5 years—an absurdly lengthy ski film timeline—that means the creators, presumably, had an enormous financial institution of footage to attract from. Consequently, there’s little, if any, filler throughout the film’s brisk 20-minute runtime. Every shot is spectacular and artistic in its personal proper. Uninteresting moments are uncommon, and the group behind it has honed the gritty avenue snowboarding lane they function in. As one YouTube remark beneath the video that I resonated with put it: “My consideration span is simply superb.”
The Jetskis Film could not, like another ski motion pictures, be FOMO-inducing—I gained’t be leaping down a stairway with out carrying a helmet any time quickly, for example (I would relatively go ski powder in Japan). However it’s a potent and much-needed dose of one thing I am unable to fairly put into phrases. Is it ardour, ski bummery, or the drained buzzword ‘authenticity’? I am undecided. Regardless, the opening shot, which reveals a doomed skier arising quick after hovering over a canal, units the punk-inflected tone that struck me. Quickly, I discovered that it was price sticking round for the remainder of the wild experience.
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