Since 1997, the biggest shopping day of the year in North America has also been known as Buy Nothing Day - a playful protest against the cultural and commercial pressures that compel us to consume more every year, grow more in debt to prove our love to our loved ones and find temporary happiness in that euphoric moment of purchase.

It's a movement that has been growing internationally every year, and will likely see its biggest year yet from all the creative energy coming from the Occupy Wall Street movement (Adbusters, the Canadian based magazine that first put out the rallying call for occupying Wall Street on September 17th also launched the BND meme in North America over a decade ago and is calling on occupiers to add Black Friday to their global days of action).

In the spirit of the shopping-free holiday, here are 10 of the best documentaries or short films that give inspiration to the day:

1. What Would Jesus Buy? (2007)
http://www.filmsforaction.org/Watch/What_Would_Jesus_Buy/
"Rob VanAlkemade’s ‘What Would Jesus Buy?’ is a rousing, irreverent and simultaneously sobering documentary about the year round destructive shopaholic obsession that spins into an out of control buying and spending orgy by the time Christmas rolls around. The movie follows performance activist Reverend Billy and his ragtag cross country caravan, The Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, to bring the voice of reason a few holiday seasons ago, to compulsive consumers everywhere. The intent of this countdown to Christmas is to save the holiday from what Reverend Billy has dubbed only slightly in jest, the Shopocalypse. Ironically, many of his group are injured when one of their buses collides on a highway with a truck rushing to deliver Christmas merchandise to stores. Meanwhile, the Reverend muses, ‘everyone in a car is driving to a television."

2. The Story of Stuff
http://www.filmsforaction.org/Watch/The_Story_of_Stuff/
"From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever."

3. The Good Consumer
http://www.filmsforaction.org/Watch/The_Good_Consumer/
"We funded the boom. We funded the bank bailout. Now we're expected to fund the recovery. But we cannot shop our way out of the long term problem: Over-consumption contributes to almost all global challenges. As nice as our luxury lifestyles are, we cannot ignore the elephant in the room much longer. Green capitalism and green consumerism isn't going to cut it. We have to consume less."

4. Surplus: Terrorized into Being Consumers  (2003)
http://www.filmsforaction.org/Watch/Surplus_Terrorized_into_Being_Consumers/
"Why is the lifestyle of consumerism a source of such rage today? How come the privilege of buying goods does not automatically lead to happiness? Why all this emptiness despite our wealth? Erik Gandini's approach through Surplus is to portray this issue from an emotional rather than a factual perspective. Shot in the US, India, China, Italy, Sweden, Hungary, Canada and Cuba during three years. Surplus is the result of a complicated editing process by talented music composer/editor/percussionist Johan Söderberg."

5. The Century of the Self, Episode 1: Happiness Machines (2002)
http://www.filmsforaction.org/Watch/The_Century_of_the_Self_Episode_1_Happiness_Machines/
"The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests? Episode 1 discusses how Freuds theories started the industry of public relations."

6. No Logo: Brands, Globalization, Resistance (2003)
http://www.filmsforaction.org/Watch/No_Logo_Brands_Globalization_Resistance/
"No Logo, based on the best-selling book by Canadian journalist and activist Naomi Klein, reveals the reasons behind the backlash against the increasing economic and cultural reach of multinational companies. Analyzing how brands like Nike,The Gap, and Tommy Hilfiger became revered symbols worldwide, Klein argues that globalization is a process whereby corporations discovered that profits lay not in making products (outsourced to low-wage workers in developing countries), but in creating branded identities people adopt in their lifestyles."

7. Teenage Affluenza! What Can You Do To Help?
http://www.filmsforaction.org/Watch/Teenage_Affluenza_What_Can_You_Do_To_Help/
Are you suffering from teenage affluenza? Do you know anyone that is? This video takes a satirical look at the modern and very serious problem of Western affluence, and how the consumer-oriented values and culture of Western economies are having detrimental effects on our children's ability to feel empathy, to realize what's really important in life, and to care about the "we" more than the "me." Despite the complaints we, in the Western world, have about our ailing economy, by relative standards most of us all lead incredibly fortunate lives. Is is time to break the trance? To do something real?

8. Manufactured Landscapes (2006)
http://www.filmsforaction.org/Watch/Manufactured_Landscapes_2006/
"MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is a feature length documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky makes large-scale photographs of ‘manufactured landscapes’ – quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines, dams. He photographs civilization’s materials and debris, but in a way people describe as “stunning” or “beautiful,” and so raises all kinds of questions about ethics and aesthetics without trying to easily answer them."

9. End:Civ - Resist or Die (2010)
http://www.filmsforaction.org/Watch/END_CIV_Resist_Or_Die_2010/
"Directed by Franklin Lopez, END:CIV examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END: CIV asks: If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?"

10. Pyramids of Waste (2010)
http://www.filmsforaction.org/Watch/Pyramids_of_Waste_2010/
Pyramids of Waste, also known as "The lightbulb conspiracy" is a documentary about the negative effects of consumerism and planned obsolescence.

More films on Consumerism here.

What will you be doing on Buy Nothing Day/Black Friday?