Documentary films about ecology and environmental issues will inform you of ways in which you can help to preserve--and, in some cases, restore--Mother Earth's environment so it can sustain future generations of our species. Let these films inspire your resolutions to become an environmental activist--by altering your personal behavior or setting out to change public policy, or both.
An Inconvenient Truth
Paramount Classics
An Inconvenient Truth presents a convincingly rational approach to explaining the dangers of global warming. With the help of animator Matt Groening (of The Simpsons fame) and state-of-the-art flat screen monitors, the film lays out Al Gore's well-documented concerns that we are in the throes of a climate crisis that threatens life on Earth as we know it.
Arctic Tale
Fox Searchlight
Arctic Tale, an animal-centric documentary, uses unadulterated authentic footage to capture close up impressions of of a walrus pup and polar bear cub. With these lovable tykes leading the way, the film swims directly and deeply into disturbing environmental issues like global warming and pollution and, most especially, the shrinking arctic ice.
The 11th Hour
Warner Independent Features
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio produced and anchors this impressive documentary in which expert commentators like Stephen Hawking, James Woolsey and others explain how hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters are the result of negative climate and environmental changes that are spiraling out of control. A recent release, the film is still playing theatrically and is not yet available on DVD.
Empty Oceans, Empty Nets: The Race to Save Marine Fisheries
A project of Habitat Media, this film reveals environmental dangers that arise from current commercial fishing practices that threaten the ocean's healthy environments worldwide by depleting populations of fish. Unless the harvest is managed in the present, future nets will come up empty. Peter Coyote narrates.King Corn
Balcony Releasing
Eco-activists Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis plant and harvest an acre of corn, then trace their crop as it's processed into food products that nurture the increasingly obese and unhealthy--and always hungry--American population. The underlying theme is that extreme agro-engineering has a negative effect on the environment and its inhabitants. Still in theatrical release, the film is not yet available on DVD.
