Pirate Movies, Books and Drinks
What to watch, read, listen to and drink on 19 September, chosen by people who have actually sat through all of them.
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Films
- Treasure Island (1950)
- Disney, with Robert Newton as Long John Silver. The performance that invented the pirate accent. Start here.
- Captain Blood (1935)
- Errol Flynn's breakout. Sword fights, ships, a wrongly convicted doctor turned pirate.
- The Crimson Pirate (1952)
- Burt Lancaster doing his own acrobatics. The most fun of the old ones.
- The Princess Bride (1987)
- The Dread Pirate Roberts, and the best explanation of pirate branding ever filmed.
- The Goonies (1985)
- One-Eyed Willy's ship. Kids, a treasure map and a lot of shouting.
- Hook (1991)
- Dustin Hoffman's Captain Hook against a grown-up Peter Pan.
- Muppet Treasure Island (1996)
- Tim Curry as Long John Silver. Genuinely one of the best adaptations, and the songs stick.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
- The one that made pirates cool again. The first film is the good one.
- The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)
- Aardman stop-motion. The Pirate Captain, a dodo and Charles Darwin. Perfect for kids.
Most of these stream on Prime Video, which comes with a Prime membership; a 30-day free trial covers the whole pirate season.
Start a 30-day Prime free trial · Browse Prime Video · Browse pirate films on Amazon
Series
- Black Sails (2014 to 2017)
- A prequel to Treasure Island set in the real Nassau of 1715. Serious, violent, superb.
- Our Flag Means Death (2022 to 2023)
- A gentleman pirate, Blackbeard and a workplace comedy at sea.
Books
- Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (1883)
- Where almost every pirate trope comes from: the map, the parrot, the peg leg, the black spot.
- Peter and Wendy, J. M. Barrie (1911)
- Captain Hook, the crocodile and the origin of the hook hand.
- A General History of the Pyrates (1724)
- The original source on Blackbeard, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, written while some of them were still alive.
- Under the Black Flag, David Cordingly (1995)
- The best single book on what pirates were really like, myth by myth.
- The Republic of Pirates, Colin Woodard (2007)
- The real Nassau pirate republic that Black Sails is based on.
- The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, Gideon Defoe (2004)
- Very short, very silly, the basis of the Aardman film.
Books for children
- How I Became a Pirate, Melinda Long and David Shannon
- Ages 4 to 8. A boy joins a crew and learns pirates do not tuck you in.
- Pirates Love Underpants, Claire Freedman and Ben Cort
- Ages 3 to 6. It is exactly what it sounds like, and they will want it every night.
- Treasure Island, abridged
- Ages 8 and up. Look for an illustrated edition; the full text is fine from about 11.
Audiobooks for the commute
Treasure Island is a book that was written to be read aloud, and a good narrator doing Long John Silver is the single best way to get the accent into your head before the day. Under the Black Flag and The Republic of Pirates both exist as audiobooks too and make a long drive fly by.
Grog: the real thing
In 1740 Admiral Edward Vernon of the Royal Navy ordered the sailors' daily rum ration diluted with water to cut down on drunkenness. The crews named the result after his nickname, "Old Grog", which came from the grogram cloak he wore. The proportions were roughly one part rum to four parts water, and lime or lemon juice was added later, which is where "limey" comes from. So:
- 30 ml (1 oz) dark rum
- 120 ml (4 oz) cold water
- A squeeze of lime and a teaspoon of brown sugar, stirred until dissolved
- Serve in a tin mug or a tankard; ice is historically wrong and entirely welcome
It is weak on purpose. That is the point of grog and it is why you can drink it all evening.
Rum punch: the Caribbean rhyme
The old planters' recipe is a rhyme: one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak. That is one part lime juice, two parts sugar syrup, three parts rum and four parts water or juice. For a bowl for eight: 125 ml lime juice, 250 ml sugar syrup, 375 ml golden rum, 500 ml pineapple juice, plus a grating of nutmeg on top. Chill it, serve over ice.
Kids' grog
Ginger beer topped with pineapple juice and a squeeze of lime, in the same tin mugs as the adults. Add a gummy worm on the rim ("sea worm"). The mugs matter more than the drink.
Running a party around all of this? See party ideas. Want the jokes to go with the drinks? Here they are.