The pirate is one of our most durable fantasies, and it is easy to see why. Strip away the law, the king and the dry land, and what is left is the purest version of an outlaw dream: a ship, a crew, a horizon and no one to answer to. The genre has always known that the romance is the point, even when the reality was short, brutal and doomed.
From Errol Flynn's grin to a cursed Caribbean galleon to a co-op deck you crew with friends, the appeal never changes. We do not want to be the navy. We want to be the ones they are chasing.
Essential pirates
The high-seas canon across every medium
The myth and the history
The genre lives in two registers. There is the swashbuckler, all flashing swords and impossible escapes, and there is the harder, saltier truth of how these crews actually lived and died. The best pirate stories know exactly when to switch between them.
Swashbuckling on the big screen
Cutlasses, broadsides and buried gold
Treasure for all ages
Family adventures and Treasure Island retold
No medium makes you feel like a captain like a game. Trimming the sails, calling the broadside, splitting the loot: piracy is a fantasy that begs to be played, not just watched.
Pirates on TV
Series that hoisted the black flag
Set sail: pirate games
Plunder, broadsides and point-and-click grog
And it began in books. The whole iconography (the map with the X, the parrot, the buried chest) was largely invented on the page before any camera rolled.
On the page
Pirate history and high-seas fiction
More salt water and stolen gold
Treasure Hunts & Adventure
Explore the Treasure Hunts & Adventure guide →We do not really envy the pirate's plunder. We envy the horizon, and the terrible freedom of having nothing left to lose.