For the next three decades piracy would continue to grace the silver screen in a variety of genres from adventure to comedy to musicals. Films of the 1960s ranged from Steve Reeves as Henry Morgan in Morgan the Pirate to Ricardo Montalban in Rage of the Buccaneers and Christopher Lee in The Devil-Ship Pirates. One of the more acclaimed pirate films of the era was Swashbuckler, starring Robert Shaw, James Earl Jones, and Peter Boyle.

Still a popular pirate family film is Peter Ustinov's unforgettable turn as Blackbeard in Disney's 1968 adventure Blackbeard's Ghost. Equally revered is William Goldman's screen adaptation of his classic fairy tale novel The Princess Bride, which found the Dread Pirate Roberts desperate to return to his beautiful love, Buttercup. The 1987 film, starring Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, and Mandy Patinkin, remains a cult classic.

Piratical comedy also took center stage with the 1983 film Yellowbeard, a satirical treasure hunt overloaded with the humor of Monty Python's Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, and the irrepressible Madeline Kahn as Yellow-beard's wenchy wife. The following year audiences saw the campy futuristic pirate comedy, The Ice Pirates, starring Robert Urich, Mary Crosby, and one unforgettable space herpe.

Other popular pirate films include:

• The Boy and the Pirates (1960) with Charles Herbert and Susan Gordon

• Pirates of Tortuga (1961) with Ken Scott and Leticia Roman

• The King's Pirate (1967) with Doug McClure and Jill St. John

• The Island (1980) with Michael Caine and David Warner

• Nate and Hayes (1983) with Tommy Lee Jones and Michael o'Keefe

• Pirates (1986) with Walter Matthau and Cris Campion

• Shipwrecked (1990) with Stian Smestad and Gabriel Byrne

• Magic Island (1995) with Lee Armstrong and Abraham Benrubi

• Cutthroat Island (1995) with Geena Davis and Matthew Modine