The Beach

The Beach (2000) is a British adventure thriller directed by Danny Boyle — watch online on iFILM. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Richard, an American backpacker who lands in Bangkok chasing the kind of experience that doesn't fit on a postcard. A stranger in a grimy guesthouse hands him a hand-drawn map to a secret island with a commune, a crop of cannabis, and no tourists allowed.

Richard convinces a French couple — Françoise (Virginie Ledoyen) and Étienne (Guillaume Canet) — to make the swim with him. The island is real: turquoise lagoon, shared meals, thirty or so expats governed by the cool-headed Sal (Tilda Swinton). It looks like paradise. Then Richard makes the kind of mistake that tends to unravel paradises — he tells people where it is.

Based on Alex Garland's 1996 novel, the film was shot on location at Maya Bay on Koh Phi Phi Leh. The beach became so swamped by visitors after release that Thai authorities had to close it for years to let the ecosystem recover — a real-world echo of the film's own warning about what happens when you can't keep a good thing to yourself. Stream The Beach (2000) online on iFILM.