▲Described by some critics as the ultimate lost-in-the-desert film, 'Gerry' stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck as two buddies (both called Gerry) in this Gus Van Sant-directed drama.

▲After starting out on a hike the pair quickly become disorientated and without food or water, soon lose purpose.

▲The movie deals with disillusioned youth and the dying hippy scene, using the desert as a metaphor for escape and the emptiness of American life.

▲Director Nicolas Roeg's film is about two white school children who are left to fend for themselves in the Australian outback before stumbling across a teenage Aboriginal boy who helps them to survive.

▲Director Michelangelo Antonioni's film deals with radical student politics before moving to Zabriskie Point in Death Valley.

▲Travis reunites with his brother (Dean Stockwell) and then reconnects with his son. Together, man and boy embark on a journey across the American Southwest to track down Travis' absent wife Jane, played by Nastassja Kinski.

▲Arriving in Oran, Algeria, in 1947, the pair head out on an expedition to the Sahara Desert unaware of the dangers that surround them.

▲Debra Winger and John Malkovich star as a couple who journey to northern Africa in the hope of salvaging their marriage in this drama directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.

▲The romantic comedy-adventure features Danny DeVito (who also appears in 'Romancing the Stone'), as a fast-talking conman. Together the trio risk life and limb in pursuit of the gemstone.

▲A follow-up to 1984's 'Romancing the Stone,' this film again teams up Michael Douglas with Kathleen Turner, who this time end up in an African desert in a effort to unearth the fabled "Jewel of the Nile."

▲A young Reese Witherspoon gets top billing in this adventure set in the Kalahari Desert. Australian actor Jack Thompson and Austrian-Swiss actor Maximilian Schell costar.

▲Nonnie Parker (Witherspoon), her young friend Harry (Ethan Embry), and a local bushman guide face ruthless poachers, plenty of angry wildlife, and a very inhospitable landscape as they make their way across the Kalahari.

▲From his bed the dying English patient recounts the story of his life to a young nurse (Juliette Binoche). It's a tale of intrigue, espionage, and a doomed prewar love affair.

▲Set during the Second World War in the Sahara Desert, but also taking place in Italy, the film tells the story of a wounded stranger (Ralph Fiennes) who speaks English but is later revealed as a Hungarian citizen.

▲Australian troops commanded by a British captain (Burton) are faced with the daunting prospect of trying to stop Rommel (Mason) and his Afrika Korps attacking the Libyan port.

▲Starring Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving, and Guy Pearce, the film is named for the trio's tour bus Priscilla. The movie's positive portrayal of LGBT individuals was widely acclaimed.

▲Along the way one of their party, a South African officer picked up during the retreat, arouses suspicion for his unwillingness to reveal the contents of his backpack. Is he a German spy?

▲Richard Burton and James Mason star in this gritty drama that centers on the Siege of Tobruk in North Africa during the Second World War.

▲The plot of this hilarious Australian comedy-drama follows the adventures of two drag queens and and a transgender women as they journey across the Outback from Sydney to Alice Springs.

▲White law enforcement authorities pursue the girls as they make their way to their remote community in a moving story that's loosely based on fact.

▲George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, and Ice Cube play the mischievous combatants who between planning the theft, help free anti-Saddam dissidents and their families.

▲Set in 1931, three mixed-race Aboriginal girls embark on a nine-week 2,400-km (1,500-mi) trek across the Outback to escape being trained as domestic staff.

▲Much of the action takes place in the Arabian Desert as Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) successfully unites diverse and often warring Arab tribes to fight the Turks.

▲

Starring Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg, and David Gulpilil, the film, regarded as a masterpiece, takes place in and around Alice Springs.

▲A gold heist with a twist. The robbery is perpetrated by three US soldiers serving in Iraq at the end of the Gulf war.

▲Much of Sergio Leone's epic western, set during the civil war and starring Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef, takes place on the fringes of empty desert.

▲

This classic British Second World War drama follows a motor ambulance unit as it evacuates to Alexandria in the face of advancing German troops during the North Africa campaign.

▲

The scene where a vagabond named Travis (Harry Dean Stanton - pictured) mysteriously walks out of the West Texas desert and back into reality sets the tone for this influential road movie directed by Wim Wenders.

▲

One of the greatest and most influential films in cinema history, 'Lawrence of Arabia' is based on the exploits of British army officer T.E. Lawrence and his experiences in the Ottoman Empire's provinces of Hejaz and Greater Syria during the First World War.

▲One of the survivors comes up with a plan to rebuild the plane using wreckage. James Stewart and Richard Attenborough head the cast.

▲A plane crash-lands in the Sahara Desert leaving a small group of passengers wondering how they are going to survive searing daytime heat, freezing nighttime temperatures... and each other!

▲In one of the movie's set pieces, the bandit Tuco (Eli Wallach) uses the desert as a form of torture when he forces the captive Man with No Name (Eastwood) to walk across a blisteringly hot landscape with no access to water or shade.

▲

Some of the most celebrated films in cinema history have been set in the desert. These vast, arid, and barren landscapes have provided the backdrop for numerous movies embracing genres as diverse as war, survival, and romance. Many are well known to the movie-going pubic. Others less so. But all are set on a stage of shifting sand, as beautiful as it is dangerous.

Browse the gallery and take a look at these movies made in the desert.