Environmentalism in film and television

Environmental issues have increasingly become a topic in film and television.

Within the last twenty years, commercially successful films with an environmentalism theme have been released theatrically and made by the major Hollywood studios. The Annual Environmental Media Awards

Environmental Media Awards

The Environmental Media Awards have been awarded by the Environmental Media Association since 1991 to the best television episode or film with an environmental message....

have been presented by the Environmental Media Association (EMA) since 1991 to the best television episode or film with an environmental message.

List of films

Some notable films with an environmental message include:

Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World
Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World
Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World is a video by Harvard anthropologist David Maybury-Lewis.This refers to a series of 10 VHS videos of 60 minutes each...

(series of videos)
Hell and High Water
Hell and High Water (film)
Hell and High Water is a 1954 Cold War drama film starring Richard Widmark, Bella Darvi and Victor Francen. The film was made to showcase CinemaScope being used in the confined sets of a submarine.Before the credits, an off-screen, voice-over narrates:...

(1954)
Hinterland Who's Who
Hinterland Who's Who
Hinterland Who's Who is best known as a series of 60-second public service announcements profiling Canadian animals and birds, produced by Environment Canada Wildlife Service and the National Film Board of Canada in the 1960s and 70s, and re-launched by the Canadian Wildlife Federation in the 2000s...

(1960s)
The Last Paradises: On the Track of Rare Animals
The Last Paradises: On the Track of Rare Animals
The Last Paradises: On the Track of Rare Animals is the title of a German nature documentary from 1967. It was filmed by Eugen Schuhmacher and Helmuth Barth.-Background:The filming began in spring 1959...

(1967)
Minamata: The Victims and Their World
Minamata: The Victims and Their World
is a Japanese documentary made in 1971 by Noriaki Tsuchimoto. It is the first in a series of independent documentaries that Tsuchimoto made of the mercury poisoning incident in Minamata, Japan.-Film content:...

(1971)
Tentacles
Tentacles (film)
Tentacles is a 1977 Italian-American horror film directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis and starring John Huston and Shelley Winters.- Plot :The tourist spot Ocean Beach has come under attack by a giant octopus, which captures human swimmers and picks clean the skeletons of flesh and bone marrow...

(1977)
The China Syndrome
The China Syndrome
The China Syndrome is a 1979 American thriller film that tells the story of a reporter and cameraman who discover safety coverups at a nuclear power plant. It stars Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas, Scott Brady, James Hampton, Peter Donat, Richard Herd, and Wilford Brimley.The film was...

(1979), dramatizing the events of a nuclear meltdown
If You Love This Planet
If You Love This Planet
If You Love This Planet is a 1982 short documentary film recording a lecture given to SUNY Plattsburgh students by physician and anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott about the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. The movie was directed by Terri Nash and produced by Edward Le Lorrain for Studio...

(1982)
Cane Toads: An Unnatural History
Cane Toads: An Unnatural History
Cane Toads: An Unnatural History is a 47-minute documentary film about the introduction of Cane Toads to Australia. Cane Toads were introduced to Australia with the aim of controlling a sugar cane pest, but they over-multiplied and became a serious problem in the Australian ecosystem...

(1988)
Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment
Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment
Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment is a 1991 short documentary film directed by Debra Chasnoff. It won an Academy Award at the 64th Academy Awards in 1992 for Documentary Short Subject.-External links:*...

(1991)
Baraka
Baraka (film)
Baraka is a 1992 non-narrative film directed by Ron Fricke. The title Baraka is a word that means blessing in a multitude of languages....

(1992)
FernGully: The Last Rainforest
FernGully: The Last Rainforest
FernGully: The Last Rainforest is a 1992 Australian-American animated film directed by Bill Kroyer, produced by Peter Faiman and Wayne Young, and written by Jim Cox based on a book of the same name by Diana Young. It is a film with a strong environmental theme...

(1992)
Scientists and the Alaska Oil Spill (1992) http://www.textbookleague.org/36exx.htm
Once Upon a Forest
Once Upon a Forest
Once Upon a Forest is an animated film produced by Hanna-Barbera in association with HTV Cymru/Wales, Ltd. and released on June 18, 1993 by 20th Century Fox....

(1993)
On Deadly Ground
On Deadly Ground
On Deadly Ground is a 1994 environmental action-adventure film, co-produced, directed by and starring Steven Seagal, and co-starring in an all-star cast, Michael Caine, Joan Chen, John C. McGinley, R. Lee Ermey, Kenji Nakano, and Billy Bob Thornton in one of his early appearances. The film held a...

(1994)
Fly Away Home
Fly Away Home
Fly Away Home is a 1996 drama and comedy film directed by Carroll Ballard, the director of The Black Stallion . The film stars Anna Paquin, Jeff Daniels and Dana Delany. The story follows a young girl from New Zealand who survives a car crash that results in the death of her mother...

(1996)
Fire Down Below (1997)
A Civil Action (1998)
Butterfly
Butterfly (2000 film)
Butterfly, which first aired on public television in 2000, is a documentary film directed by Doug Wolens about the environmental heroine, Julia Butterfly Hill who has gained the attention of the world for her 2-year vigil 180 feet atop an ancient redwood tree preventing it from being...

(2000)
Erin Brockovich
Erin Brockovich (film)
Erin Brockovich is a 2000 biographical film directed by Steven Soderbergh. The film is a dramatization of the story of Erin Brockovich, played by Julia Roberts, who fought against the US West Coast energy corporation Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Roberts won the Academy Award, Golden Globe,...

(2000)
The Return of Navajo Boy
The Return of Navajo Boy
The Return of Navajo Boy is an award-winning documentary film produced by Jeff Spitz and Bennie Klain about the Cly family, Navajo who have suffered health problems due to environmental contamination from uranium mining on tribal land in Monument Valley, Utah...

(2000)
Koyaanisqatsi
Koyaanisqatsi
Koyaanisqatsi also known as Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance, is a 1982 film directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke....

(1982)
Chernobyl Heart
Chernobyl Heart
Chernobyl Heart is a 2003 documentary film by Maryann DeLeo. The film won the Best Documentary Short Subject award at the 2004 Academy Awards....

(2003)
Silent Storm
Silent Storm (film)
Silent Storm is an Australian documentary film. The documentary was directed and written by Australian documentary film maker Peter Butt.- Synopsis :...

(2003)
The Day After Tomorrow
The Day After Tomorrow
The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science-fiction disaster film that depicts the catastrophic effects of global warming in a series of extreme weather events that usher in global cooling which leads to a new ice age. The film did well at the box office, grossing $542,771,772 internationally...

(2004)
The Future of Food
The Future of Food
The Future of Food is a 2004 American documentary film which makes an in-depth investigation into unlabelled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have made their way onto grocery stores in the United States for the past decade...

(2004)
Oil on Ice
Oil on Ice
Oil on Ice is a 2004 documentary directed by Bo Boudart and Dale Djerassi. It explores the Arctic Refuge drilling controversy in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the impact of oil and gas development on the land, wildlife, and lives of the Gwich'in Athabascan Indians and Inupiat...

(2004)
Children of the Tsunami: No More Tears
Children of the Tsunami: No More Tears
Children of Tsunami: No More Tears is a 24-minute documentary film that was produced at the end of 2005. The program depicts the lives of eight children in four Asian countries during the year following the Indian Ocean tsunami that struck South and Southeast Asia on 26 December 2004...
Global Warming: The Signs and The Science
Global Warming: The Signs and The Science
Global Warming: The Signs and The Science is a 2005 documentary film on global warming made by ETV, the PBS affiliate in South Carolina, and hosted by Alanis Morissette...

(2005)
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...

(2006)
Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash
Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash is an award-winning documentary film about peak oil, produced and directed by Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack.-Overview:...

(2006)
Happy Feet
Happy Feet
Happy Feet is a 2006 American-Australian computer-animated family film with music, directed and co-written by George Miller. It was produced at Sydney-based visual effects and animation studio Animal Logic for Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures and Kingdom Feature Productions and was released...

(2006)
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil is an American documentary film that explores the Special Period in Peacetime and its aftermath; the economic collapse and eventual recovery of Cuba following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991...

(2006)
Dust to Dust: The Health Effects of 9/11
Dust to Dust: The Health Effects of 9/11
Dust to Dust: The Health Effects of 9/11 is an documentary film that was broadcast on the Sundance Channel. It was directed by Heidi Dehncke-Fisher and produced by Bruce Kennedy in 2006. The Executive Producer was Hal Gessner of CBS News Productions...

(2006)
The Toxic Clouds of 9/11: A Looming Disaster
Toxic Clouds of 9/11
The Toxic Clouds of 9/11: A Looming Disaster is a documentary film that was produced by Alison Johnson, the chair of the Chemical Sensitivity Foundation...

(2006)
Toxic Legacy
Toxic Legacy
Toxic Legacy is a Canadian documentary film that was produced by Susan Teskey for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It was broadcast on the CBC and Discovery Times in September 2006. The film deals with the toxic legacy of the Ground Zero dust following the September 11, 2001 attacks upon the...

(2006)
Ultimate Tornado
Ultimate Tornado
Ultimate Tornado is a documentary that first aired on the National Geographic Channel on April 12, 2006. It focuses on several unusually violent tornado events that have occurred in the United States: the Attica, Kansas tornado outbreak, the Pampa, Texas tornado, the Jarrell tornado outbreak and...

(2006)
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Who Killed the Electric Car? is a 2006 documentary film that explores the creation, limited commercialization, and subsequent destruction of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the mid 1990s...

(2006)
The Great Warming
The Great Warming
The Great Warming is a 2006 documentary film directed by Michael Taylor. The film was hosted by Alanis Morissette and Keanu Reeves and even before its November 3, 2006 première helped establish an alliance between Democrats and Evangelicals trying to shake the administration out of its inertia on...

(2006)
Captain Planet, Ted Turner
Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...

's animated television series
Biùtiful cauntri
Biùtiful cauntri
-Release and book:It was premiered in November 2007 at the Torino Film Festival, where it received a special mention. It was then released in ten Italian movie theaters in March 2008. On 15 July 2008 the film was released in France, where it received a positive review from Le Monde...

(2007)
The Chances of the World Changing
The Chances of the World Changing
The Chances of the World Changing is a 2007 Independent Spirit Award-nominated documentary about Richard Ogust's efforts to save endangered turtle species from extinction. It was directed and produced by Eric Daniel Metzgar and produced by Nell Carden Grey...

(2007)
Earth
Earth (2007 film)
Earth is a 2007 nature documentary film which depicts the diversity of wild habitats and creatures across the planet. The film begins in the Arctic in January of one year and moves south, finishing in Antarctica in the December of the same year...

(2007)
The 11th Hour (film)
The 11th Hour (film)
The 11th Hour is a 2007 documentary film, created, produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, on the state of the natural environment. It was directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners and financed by Adam Lewis and Pierre André Senizergues, and distributed by Warner Independent...

(2007)
The Great Global Warming Swindle
The Great Global Warming Swindle
The Great Global Warming Swindle is a polemical documentary film that suggests that the scientific opinion on climate change is influenced by funding and political factors, and questions whether scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming exists....

(2007)
What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire
What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire
What A Way To Go: Life at the End of Empire is a 2007 documentary film about the current situation facing humanity and the world. It discusses issues such as peak oil, climate change, population overshoot and species extinction, as well as how this situation has developed...

(2007)
Sharkwater
Sharkwater
Sharkwater is a 2007 Canadian documentary film written and directed by Rob Stewart, who also narrates it. In the film, Stewart seeks to deflate current attitudes about sharks, and exposes how the voracious shark-hunting industry is driving them to extinction.Filmed in high definition video,...

(2007)
The Story of Stuff
The Story of Stuff
The Story of Stuff is a short polemical animated documentary about the lifecycle of material goods. The documentary is critical of excessive consumerism and promotes sustainability....

(2007)
Super Comet: After The Impact
Super Comet: After The Impact
Super Comet: After The Impact is a 2007 speculative documentary produced by the Discovery Channel. It was directed by Stefan Schneider.The two-hour production hypothesizes the effects on modern-day earth of a large comet impacting in Mexico near the same location of the K/T extinction event, the...

(2007)
White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is an HBO documentary film that was directed and produced by Steven Okazaki and was released on August 6, 2007 on HBO, marking the 62nd anniversary of the first atomic bombing...

(2007)
A Delicate Balance - The Truth
A Delicate Balance - The Truth
A Delicate Balance – The Truth is a documentary created by Aaron Scheibner, released on 13 November 2008, outlining the effects of diet on health and the environment...

(2008)
An Inconvenient Penguin
An Inconvenient Penguin
An Inconvenient Penguin is a short film, released online in Amazon's UnBox store on August 11, 2008. The film is a spoof of An Inconvenient Truth and March of the Penguins...

(2008)
"Birdemic: Shock and Terror
Birdemic: Shock and Terror
Birdemic: Shock and Terror is a 2008 independent horror film written, directed, and produced by James Nguyen. The leading cast is made up of Alan Bagh and Whitney Moore...

" (2008)
Burning the Future: Coal in America
Burning the Future: Coal in America
Burning the Future: Coal in America is a 2008 documentary film produced and directed by David Novack. The film focuses on the impacts of mountaintop mining in the Appalachians, where mountain ridges are scraped away by heavy machinery to access coal seams below, a process that is cheaper and faster...

(2008)
Flow: For Love of Water
Flow: For Love of Water
Flow: For Love of Water is a 2008 documentary film directed by Irena Salina produced by Steven Starr and co-produced by Gill Holland and Yvette Tomlinson . The film features interviews with water and community activists Maude Barlow, Peter Gleick; and, scientists Ashok Gadgil, Rajendra Singh, and...

(2008)
Le Monde selon Monsanto (The World according to Monsanto
The World According to Monsanto
The World According to Monsanto is a 2008 documentary film directed by Marie-Monique Robin. Originally released in French as Le monde selon Monsanto, the film is based on Robin's three-year long investigation into the US agricultural giant Monsanto corporation's practices around the world...

) (2008)
Renewal
Renewal (documentary)
Renewal, a 2008 documentary film, is the first feature-length documentary film to capture the vitality and diversity of today’s religious-environmental activists. Directed and produced by American filmmakers Marty Ostrow and Terry Kay Rockefeller, the film includes eight stories that represent the...

(2008)
WALL-E
WALL-E
WALL-E, promoted with an interpunct as WALL•E, is a 2008 American computer-animated science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. The story follows a robot named WALL-E, who is designed to clean up a waste-covered Earth far in the future...

(2008)
Sizzle
Sizzle (film)
Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy is a feature film written and directed by Randy Olson that combines documentary narrative and fiction on the topic of global warming. Dr. Olson is a marine biologist turned filmmaker who, in Sizzle, plays a former scientist turned filmmaker. The movie premiered in...

(2009), about global warming
The Age of Stupid
The Age of Stupid
The Age of Stupid is a 2009 British film by Franny Armstrong, director of McLibel and Drowned Out, and founder of 10:10, and first-time producer Lizzie Gillett...

(2009), about climate change
The Happening
The Happening
The Happening is a 1967 American comedy film starring Anthony Quinn, Michael Parks, George Maharis, Faye Dunaway, Robert Walker Jr. that was released in March 1967 by Columbia Pictures....

(2008),
The Cove (film) (2009)
Dreamland
Dreamland (2009 film)
Dreamland is a 2009 Icelandic documentary film about politics, environmental preservation and damming, focusing on The Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Project and its environmental impact. The movie is based on the book Dreamland: A Self-Help Manual for a Frightened Nation by Andri Snær Magnason...

(2009)
Earth Days
Earth Days
Earth Days is a 2009 documentary film about the start of the environmental movement in the United States. It was directed by Robert Stone and is distributed by Zeitgeist Films while in theaters. Earth Days premiered on United States television April 19...

(2009)
Food, Inc.
Food, Inc.
Food, Inc. is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner. The film examines corporate farming in the United States, concluding that agribusiness produces food that is unhealthy, in a way that is environmentally harmful and abusive of both animals and...

(2009)
Avatar (2009)
No Impact Man
No Impact Man
No Impact Man is a 2009 American documentary film directed by Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein. The film, which premiered September 4, 2009, follows Colin Beavan and his family during their year-long experiment to have sustainable zero impact on the environment.-See also:* Appropriate technology*...

(2009)
2012
2012 (film)
2012 is a 2009 American disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich. It stars John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson. It was produced by Emmerich's production company, Centropolis Entertainment and was distributed by Columbia Pictures...

(2009)
The Idiot Cycle
The Idiot Cycle
The Idiot Cycle, a 2009 French-Canadian documentary, alleges six major chemical companies are responsible for decades of cancer causing chemicals and pollution, and also develop cancer treatments and drugs...

(2010)
What Is the Electric Car?
What Is the Electric Car?
What Is the Electric Car? is a 2010 documentary film that explains the benefits of electric cars. One reviewer stated that the movie "teeters on the brink of tedious but repeatedly saves itself with moments of cleverness or insight." The film features several actors, scientists, engineers and...

(2010)
Revenge of the Electric Car
Revenge of the Electric Car
Revenge of the Electric Car is a 2011 feature documentary film by Chris Paine, who also directed Who Killed the Electric Car?. The documentary, executive produced by Stefano Durdic, and produced by PG Morgan and Jessie Deeter, had its world premiere at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival on Earth Day,...

(scheduled for 2011)
Clouds of Smoke
Clouds of Smoke
Clouds of Smoke is a documentary directed and produced by Fatmir Terziu. It explores the recent phenomenon of global warming and asks several environmental questions. It mainly focuses on the environmental damage caused by Albania, especially its biggest industrial city, Elbasan...
An Inconvenient Truth...Or Convenient Fiction?
An Inconvenient Truth...Or Convenient Fiction?
An Inconvenient Truth...Or Convenient Fiction? is a documentary by Steven F. Hayward, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute...

Many anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

movies by Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki

is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...

carry a hidden environmentalist message. The best-known is Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, but also well known is Pom Poko
Pom Poko
is a 1994 Japanese animated film, the eighth written and directed by Isao Takahata and animated by Studio Ghibli.Consistent with Japanese folklore, the tanuki are portrayed as a highly sociable, mischievous species, able to use "illusion science" to transform into almost anything, but too...

as well as Princess Mononoke
Princess Mononoke
is a 1997 epic Japanese animated historical fantasy feature film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli. is not a name, but a general term in the Japanese language for a spirit or monster...

, which is based on a conflict between technology and nature.

External links

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List of films

See also

External links