There are lots of ways to find film suggestions. See our page on film
And check out the trailers for the films below.
Did you know that you can ask for films to be shown? Have a look at the Demand Film site
Films about the climate
Commonsense media has ideas for kids
Short films
Short films to get you up to speed
Here’s a link to lots of short films:
James Cameron’s Climate change
Greenpeace film with Morgan Freeman on Climate Change
Morgan Freeman also did the film to open the UN conference ‘What’s Possible’: The U.N. Climate Summit Opening Film
General Environmental films
Sustainable 2016
A vital investigation of the economic and environmental instability of America’s food system, from the agricultural issues we face – soil loss, water depletion, climate change, pesticide use – to the community of leaders who are determined to fix it. Sustainable is a film about the land, the people who work it, and what must be done to sustain it for future generations.
To see a trailer IMDB rating 7.3
Wasted 2018
WASTED! THE STORY OF FOOD WASTE aims to change the way people buy, cook, recycle, and eat food. Through the the eyes of chef-heroes like Bourdain, Dan Barber, Mario Batali, Massimo Bottura, and Danny Bowien, audiences will see how the world’s most influential chefs make the most of every kind of food, transforming what most people consider scraps into incredible dishes that create a more secure food system. WASTED! exposes the criminality of food waste and how it’s directly contributing to climate change and shows us how each of us can make small changes – all of them delicious – to solve one of the greatest problems of the 21st Century.
To see a trailer
Queen of the Sun 2014
QUEEN OF THE SUN: What Are the Bees Telling Us? is a profound, alternative look at the global bee crisis from award-winning filmmaker Taggart Siegel. Taking us on a journey through the catastrophic disappearance of bees and the mysterious world of the beehive, this engaging and ultimately uplifting film weaves an unusual and dramatic story of the heartfelt struggles of beekeepers, scientists and philosophers from around the world including Michael Pollan, Gunther Hauk and Vandana Shiva. Together they reveal both the problems and the solutions in renewing a culture in balance with nature.
More information and trailer
Down to Earth
Leaving the rat race behind, a family of five embarks on the journey of a lifetime. They travel the ends of the earth searching for a new perspective on life. During five years on six continents they seek out tribal sages never filmed or interviewed before. DOWN to EARTH reveals the deep wisdom they found and its power to transform lives.
This film is the starting point for a people-powered change, based on the wisdom of the Keepers of the Earth.
Blue 2017
BLUE is the story our generation need to hear. The industrialization that has occurred in the oceans over the last century mirrors the events that triggered mass extinctions on land. Industrial scale fishing, habitat destruction, species loss and pollution have placed the ocean in peril. The very nature of the sea is being irretrievably altered. BLUE is a provocative journey into the ocean realm, witnessing this critical moment in time when the marine world is on a precipice.
To see the trailer
The True Cost 2015
This is a story about clothing. It’s about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost is a groundbreaking documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the untold story and asks us to consider, who really pays the price for our clothing?
Filmed in countries all over the world, from the brightest runways to the darkest slums, and featuring interviews with the world’s leading influencers including Stella McCartney, Livia Firth and Vandana Shiva, The True Cost is an unprecedented project that invites us on an eye opening journey around the world and into the lives of the many people and places behind our clothes.
1 hr 32 mins
Human
Using testimonies and aerial images, filmmaker Yann Arthus-Bertrand confronts the realities and diversity of human conditions.
Living the Change
Living the change explores solutions to the global crises we face today – solutions any one of us can be part of – through the inspiring stories of people pioneering change in their own lives and in their communities in order to live in a sustainable and regenerative way.
The Staging Post
The Staging Post follows two Afghan Hazara refugees, Muzafar and Khadim. Stuck in Indonesia after Australia ‘stopped the boats’ and facing many years in limbo, they built a community and started the school which inspired a refugee education revolution.
A real-life, real-time, multi-platform documentary. The Staging Post is about friendship, connection and the power of community.
Human Flow
More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II. Filmmaker Ai Weiwei examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Over the course of one year in 23 countries, Weiwei follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretch across the globe, including Afghanistan, France, Greece, Germany and Iraq.
The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire 2017
Documentary
At the demise of empire, City of London financial interests created a web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and hid it behind obscure financial structures in a web of offshore islands. Today, up to half of global offshore wealth may be hidden in British offshore jurisdictions and Britain and its offshore jurisdictions are the largest global players in the world of international finance. How did this come about, and what impact does it have on the world today?
Seed: the Untold Story 2016
Few things on Earth are as miraculous and vital as seeds — worshipped and treasured since the dawn of humankind. This documentary follows passionate seed keepers who are protecting a 12,000 year-old food legacy. In the last century, 94 seed varieties have disappeared. A cadre of 10 agrichemical companies, including Syngenta, Bayer, and Monsanto, controls over two-thirds of the global seed market, reaping unprecedented profits. Farmers and others battle to defend the future of our food.
Seasons 2016
River Blue 2016
RiverBlue chronicles an unprecedented around-the-world river adventure, led by renowned paddler and conservationist, Mark Angelo, who ends up uncovering and documenting the dark side of the global fashion industry.
Awake! A Dream from Standing Rock 2017
Capturing global attention, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe leads a peaceful protest against an oil pipeline threatening the drinking water of millions
Thankyou for the Rain 2017
“Thank you for the Rain (2017)”, a powerful new film that follows Kisilu, a Kenyan farmer as he documents the changes to his life and community brought by climate change and how we can work together to build resilient communities and fight back.
Mountain 2017
An experience about the highest peaks around the world. …. Calling Mountain (2017) a documentary shows how inadequate labels can be for what is a film meditation on nature that leaves viewers to create their own message. Mountain is a visual and aural ode to the beauty, mystery, and power of mountains. It draws on 2,000 hours of filming across twenty-two countries
Makala 2017
A young man from a village in the Congo hopes to offer his family a better future. His only resources are his own two hands, the surrounding bush, and an iron will.
The Land Beneath Our Feet 2016
Landgrabbing in Liberia with interesting and important archival footage
The Land Beneath Our Feet follows a young Liberian man, uprooted by war, who returns from the USA with never-before-seen footage of Liberia’s past. The uncovered footage is embraced as a national treasure. Depicting a 1926 corporate land grab, it is also an explosive reminder of eroding land rights.
In post-conflict Liberia, individuals and communities are pitted against multinational corporations, the government, and each other in life-threatening disputes over land. What can this ghostly footage offer a nation, as it debates radical land reforms that could empower communities to shape a more diverse, stable and sustainable future?
Vanishing of the Bees (2009)
Known as Colony Collapse Disorder, honeybees have been mysteriously disappearing across the planet, literally vanishing from their hives. Vanishing of the Bees follows commercial beekeepers as they strive to keep their bees healthy.
Nothing Like Chocolate (2012)
Anarchist chocolatier and visionary Mott Green makes a delicious and radical difference to challenge the industrial giants who often use cocoa harvested by exploited child labour. Change never tasted so good!
Trailer
Death by A Thousand Cuts (2016)
A Dominican Republican park ranger’s gruesome murder leads to a journey into Dominican-Haitian charcoal trafficking, mass deforestation, and escalating human conflict on the border.
Demain (2015)
Director: Cyril Dion and Melanie Laurent / Country: France / Language: FrenchMost documentaries about the environment show the overwhelming amount of problems we have to solve, and scare us with the irreparable consequences that would result from not changing anything. Cyril Dion (writer, environmentalist and director) and Melanie Laurent (actress and director) have chosen to step away from this methodology which for many is more depressing than action-igniting. Instead, they decided to film already-existing efficient solutions, and to think and plan a better, more respectful, more solidary and more human future.
Trailer
When Two Worlds Collide (2016)
USA, Dir. Heidi Brandenburg & Mathew Orzel
In this tense Sundance award winner, audiences are taken directly into the line of fire between powerful, opposing Peruvian leaders who will stop at nothing to keep their respective goals intact. On the one side is President Alan Garcia, who, eager to enter the world stage, begins aggressively extracting oil, minerals, and gas from untouched indigenous Amazonian land. He is quickly met with fierce opposition from indigenous leader Alberto Pizango, whose impassioned speeches against Garcia’s destructive actions prove a powerful rallying cry to throngs of his supporters. When Garcia continues to ignore their pleas, a tense war of words erupts into deadly violence.
How To Let Go Of The World and Love All The Things Climate Can’t Change (2016)
In How To Let Go of the World and Love All The Things Climate Can’t Change, Oscar Nominated director, Josh Fox (Gasland) continues in his deeply personal style, investigating climate change – the greatest threat our world has ever known. Travelling to 12 countries on 6 continents, the film acknowledges that it may be too late to stop some of the worst consequences and asked, what is it that climate change can’t destroy? What is so deep within us that no calamity can take it away?
The Age of Consequences (2016)
USA, Germany, Spain, Jordan,
Dir. Jared P. Scott
The Age of Consequences explores the risk of climate change and resource scarcity through the lens of US national security and global stability. Through unflinching case-study analysis, distinguished admirals, generals and military veterans take us beyond the headlines of the conflict in Syria, the social unrest of the Arab spring, the rise of radicalised groups like ISIS, and the European refugee crisis, and lays bare how climate change stresses interact with societal tensions, sparking conflict.
Trailer
Daughter of the Lake (2015)
Peru, Bolivia, Netherlands,
Dir. Ernesto Cabellos
At the height of the Peruvian gold rush, Nelida, an Andean woman able to communicate with the water spirits, uses her powers to prevent a mining corporation from destroying the body of water she consider her mother. A Gold deposit valued at billions of dollars lies just beneath Nelida’s lakes and leads farmers and Latin America’s biggest gold producer into conflict.
Trailer
The Beekeeper and his Son’ (2016)
There’s an intimate quality to director Diedie Weng’s new documentary, “The Beekeeper and his Son,” that is at once both touching and intriguing. The film focuses on a beekeeper in rural Northern China struggling to maintain the traditions and sustainable aspects of his profession, but faced with environmental deradation, dying colonies and a son who seeks to take the business in a more intensive direction.
“I hope the film will give people a sensual feeling of the beekeeper’s home environment in China, and an intimate experience of their family life with its ups and downs, sweetness and bitterness,” shared Weng.
The Diver (2016)
“The Diver” from director Esteban Arrangoiz is the kind of film that will make you want to take a shower immediately afterwards. The documentary focuses on Julio Cesar Cu Cámara, a specialized diver who works the heavily polluted waters of Mexico City’s sewage system. For over 30 years, Cámara has ventured deep into these garbage-strewn nightmares to unclog drains and retrieve everything from furniture to corpses. According to the film’s synopsis, he cleans an astounding 7,000 miles of sewage over the course of 80 dives a year.
Trailer
Death by Design (2016)
“Death by Design,” the latest film from director Sue Williams, explores the human and environmental cost of our growing appetite for computers, cellphones and other electronics. Williams’ investigation takes viewers all around the globe –– from the factories that create our gadgets to the waste that’s generated from our obsession over upgrades. “I wanted to present this as a problem that concerns us all and that implicates us all,” she told The Observer.
It’s enough to make you think twice about purchasing that next, shiny iPhone.
Guided (2016)
“Guided,” from director Bridget Besaw, profiles Ray Reitze, a long-time Maine wilderness guide. While the film is loaded with gorgeous scenery, it’s Reitze himself who steals the show, inspiring with his reflections on nature, humanity’s divorce from it and his hopes for the future as he starts to slow down with age.
“You’re standing in Eden and you disregard it,” he says in the trailer. “You have to look deeper to see the color. You have to look deeper to feel it. That’s why you’re here. There’s nothing wild. There’s no wilderness. It’s all home.”
Trailer
Freightened (2016)
Much like “Death by Design” pulls the curtain back on the underbelly of the electronics industry, “Freightened” does the same for the lesser-known industry of cargo shipping. Directed by Denis Delestrac, the film dives into everything from the environmental costs of these mega-freighters to the industry’s influence on international policy and legislation.
Incredibly, 90 percent of the goods we consume are manufactured in other countries and brought to our shores by ship.
“I hope this film helps to shed some light on this part of our globalized society and inspires a change in our habits as consumers to turn the tide and create a more sustainable development scheme, whether you live in the East, the West, the North or the South,” said Delestrac in a statement.