SVOD Service

Films For Action hosts a subscription service that currently offers 55 highly-curated films to Patron subscribers donating $5 per month. Your support helps grow our 5000+ video library, which is 99% free.

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View All Patron Films.

 

Filmmakers:

Interested in adding your film(s) to our Patron Films library? Contact us to learn more about our licensing model.

 

Teachers:

Our Patron Films have been licensed for home use only, so if you'd like to use any of them in a classroom setting, please purchase a license via the License button on each film's page. Alternatively, students can watch the films at home if they each purchase a $5 subscription for at least one month. We won't be offended if students just subscribe for one month but perhaps they'll find it of value beyond school! That's our aim.

Since this request is on the honor system, we'll just add that educational sales are the primary way most of our distribution partners fund new films and sustain their efforts, so it really makes a difference. 

If cost is an issue, our edu partners offer discounts for community colleges, high schools, nonprofits, individual teachers, and others. Contact them for discounts.

 

Our Partners:
Media Education Foundation
Bullfrog Films
Video Project
Passion River Films
Green Planet Films
Old Dog Documentaries 
+ more

 

Patron Film Highlights:

Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective
92 min · Humanity is more than ever threatened by its own actions; we hear a lot about the need to minimize footprints and to reduce our impact. But what if our footprints were beneficial? What if we could meet human needs while increasing the...
Inhabitants: Indigenous Perspectives On Restoring Our World
76 min · INHABITANTS follows five Native American communities as they restore their traditional land management practices in the face of a changing climate. For millennia Native Americans successfully stewarded and shaped their landscapes, but...
Invisible Hand
84 min · From Executive Producer Mark Ruffalo comes the world’s first documentary film on the Rights of Nature Movement, a “Paradigm Shifting” story where the 'Rights of Nature' has become 'capitalism’s one true opponent.'
School Circles: Every Voice Matters
89 min · School Circles is an independent documentary that explores the practice of democratic schools in the Netherlands. The film shows students, teachers and staff members coming together to dialogue, discuss proposals, mediate conflicts and...
Biophilic Design: The Architecture of Life
60 min · Biophilic Design is an innovative way of designing the places where we live, work, and learn. We need nature in a deep and fundamental fashion, but we have often designed our cities and suburbs in ways that both degrade the environment...
GIFT
90 min · Inspired by Lewis Hyde’s beloved classic The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, GIFT is a richly cinematic film, interweaving character‐driven stories.
Overload: America's Toxic Love Story
71 min · Before starting a family, Soozie Eastman, daughter of an industrial chemical distributor, embarks on a journey to find out the levels of toxins in her body and explores if there is anything she or anyone else can do to change them...
Redefining Prosperity
57 min · The story of how a mining town recovered from its legacy of pollution and prospered by building community around the battle to save their beautiful river. Born in the California Gold Rush, Nevada City was once the scene of some of...
A Bold Peace: Costa Rica's Path of Demilitarization
90 min · 70 years ago Costa Rica abolished its army and committed itself to fostering a peaceful society. It has been reaping the benefits ever since.
Medicating Normal
75 min · One in five Americans, along with millions of children, are prescribed psychiatric drugs daily, and often for a lifetime. MEDICATING NORMAL follows the stories of five high-functioning people whose doctors prescribed pills to help with...
The Third Harmony: Nonviolence and the New Story of Human Nature
44 min · The Third Harmony tells the story of nonviolence, humanity’s greatest (and most overlooked) resource. "I am exhilarated and grateful to the filmmakers for bringing forth such a fine gift for the future of life on Earth. Hurray! and...
TAWAI: A Voice From the Forest
100 min · Tawai is a word the nomadic hunter-gatherers of Borneo use to describe the connection they feel to their forest home. In this dreamy, philosophical and sociological look at life, Bruce Parry (of the BBC's Tribe, Amazon & Arctic) embarks...
Shift Change: True Stories of Dignified Jobs in Democratic Workplaces
70 min · At a time when many are disillusioned with big banks and big business, and growing inequity in our country, employee ownership offers a real solution for workers and communities. SHIFT CHANGE visits thriving cooperative businesses in...
Constructing Public Opinion: How Politicians & the Media Misrepresent the Public
32 min · The media regularly use public opinion polls in their reporting of important news stories. But how exactly do they report them and to what end? In this insightful and accessible interview, Professor Justin Lewis demonstrates the way in...
Advertising & The End of The World
47 min · Advertising & the End of the World features an illustrated presentation by Sut Jhally of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the producer and writer of the award-winning Dreamworlds series.
A Quest For Meaning
87 min · A Quest for Meaning is an inspiring journey that connects personal growth and social change. It tells the story of two friends, Marc and Nathanael, who leave everything behind to go question the workings of the world and look for...
The Nature of Cities
40 min · THE NATURE OF CITIES follows the journey of Professor Timothy Beatley as he explores urban projects around the world, representing the new green movement that hopes to move our urban environments beyond sustainability to a regenerative...
The Wisdom To Survive
55 min · Climate change is here. Will we have the wisdom to survive? The film features thought leaders and activists in the realms of science, economics, and spirituality. The focus: how we can live creatively and even joyfully in the face of...
Dancing With The Cannibal Giant: New Stories for the Great Transition
35 min · "When today's stories of crushing greed and endless growth have come to an end, what, then, will be the new stories?" This film was created as an educational tool that can be used to move us beyond disempowerment, in order to enact...
The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?
61 min · Opening with a powerful ‘deep time’ perspective, from the beginning of the Earth to our present moment, BAFTA-winning director Peter Armstrong's new film recognises the fundamental unsustainability of today’s society and dares to ask...
Let Them Eat Dirt: The Hunt For Our Kids' Missing Microbes
57 min · Allergies, obesity, asthma, diabetes, auto-immune and intestinal disorders are all on the rise, with the incidence of some diseases doubling every ten years. New research points to changes in the ecosystem of microbes that live on and...
Spiritually Incorrect
88 min · Told through the life of Alan Clements, Spiritually Incorrect shatters numerous light-washed sacred cows of the spiritual movement and explores sustainability from an inner perspective - showing how we can escape the trap of spiritual...
We Are Many
105 min · On February 15th, 2003, up to 30 million people, many of whom had never demonstrated before, came out in nearly 800 cities around the world to protest against the impending Iraq War. We Are Many is the never-before-told story of the...
Fly By Light: A Film about Discovering Your True Nature
83 min · Fly By Light is an intimate exploration of young people seeking to overcome the violence in their lives and create a new path for their future by connecting to a world outside their neighborhoods. In Washington, DC, where high school...
Within Reach: Journey to Find Sustainable Community
87 min · Within Reach explores one couple's pedal-powered search for a place to call home. Mandy and Ryan gave up their jobs, cars, and traditional houses to 'bike-pack' 6500 miles around the USA seeking sustainable community. Rather than...
A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil
51 min · Cities should be a solution not a problem for human beings. The city of Curitiba has demonstrated for the past 40 years how to transform problems into cost-effective solutions that can be applied in most cities around the world. A...
Affluenza
56 min · AFFLUENZA diagnoses a serious social disease - caused by consumerism, commercialism and rampant materialism - that is having a devastating impact on our families, communities, and the environment. We have more stuff, but less time, and...
Self-Taught: Life Stories From Self-Directed Learners
77 min · Through the stories of six extraordinary individuals, Self-Taught explores what self-directed education means to them and the impact it has had on their lives, ambitions, work and beliefs.
Oyler: Can a School Save a Community?
56 min · OYLER profiles how an innovative "community school" helped fuel a dramatic turnaround in a poverty-stricken neighborhood, part of a growing national movement to help poor children succeed by transforming schools to meet basic health...
Call Of Life: Facing The Mass Extinction
80 min · All over the world species are becoming extinct at an astonishing rate, from 1000 to 10,000 times faster than normal. The loss of biodiversity has become so severe that scientists are calling it a mass extinction event.
To The Ends of the Earth
75 min · "Wonderfully in touch with this historical moment". - Mark Achbar, The Corporation  "To the Ends of the Earth" follows concerned citizens living at the frontiers of extreme oil and gas extraction, bearing witness to a global...
Accidental Anarchist
86 min · Carne Ross was a government highflyer. A career diplomat who believed Western Democracy could save us all. But working inside the system he came to see its failures, deceits and ulterior motives. He felt at first hand the corruption of...
Paradise with Side Effects
40 min · A documentary following two women from Ladakh, a remote region in the Himalayas, on a reality tour of London to see what life in the West is really like. The tour, sponsored by Local Futures, exposes the women to aspects of modern urban...
Freedom Ahead: Democracy Does Not Offer Freedom, Nature Does
60 min · Never before in history have so many people relied on so few for the basic essentials of life.
Abundant Land: Soil, Seeds and Sovereignty
62 min · Abundant Land is a one-hour documentary about a Hawaiian community on Moloka’i opposing the biotech industry’s use of the island to test genetically engineered seeds. Agrochemical biotech corporations, including Monsanto and Mycogen...
The Staging Post: Courageous People Never Give Up!
61 min · 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...
Broken On All Sides: Race, Mass Incarceration and New Visions for Criminal Justice
73 min · Today, there are more Americans in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. The prison population has exploded by 500% since the end of the Civil Rights and Black Power...
Ancient Futures:  Learning From Ladakh
59 min · Ladakh, or 'Little Tibet', is a wildly beautiful desert land high in the Western Himalayas. It is a place of few resources and an extreme climate. Yet for more than 1,000 years, it has been home to a thriving culture. Traditions of...
Blood and Oil
52 min · Blood and Oil, featuring Michael Klare, a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington D.C. and the defense correspondent for The Nation, offers a riveting look at how U.S. efforts to control the global flow of...
Capitalism Hits The Fan
57 min · With breathtaking clarity, renowned University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Richard Wolff breaks down the root causes of today's economic crisis, showing how it was decades in the making and in fact reflects seismic failures...
Captive Audience: Advertising Invades the Classroom
45 min · For marketers who wish to reach the lucrative youth market, the relatively uncluttered medium of the school environment represents the final frontier -- access to a captive audience of millions of students. Meanwhile dwindling federal...

View All Patron Films

 

Here's a selection of films we're self-hosting for free, in partnership with the filmmakers: 

Schooling the World
66 min · If you wanted to change an ancient culture in a generation, how would you do it? You would change the way it educates its children.
The Economics of Happiness
65 min · Economic globalization has led to a massive expansion in the scale and power of big business and banking. It has also worsened nearly every problem we face: fundamentalism and ethnic conflict; climate chaos and species extinction...
Beware Of Images
160 min · From cave paintings to virtual reality, Beware of Images embarks on a fascinating journey through the history of mediated representation. This is the history of media you will never find on TV.
Fall and Winter
102 min · This stunning film takes you on a hypnotic journey, reaching to the past to understand the origins of the catastrophic environmental transitions we now face. Over two years, director Matt Anderson traveled 16,000 miles to document...
The War at Home: The Untold History of Class War in the United States
104 min · "In a time when many are questioning institutional integrity across society, seeking accurate and relevant information to help make sense of our supposedly post-truth era, Noble shines a spotlight into our dark past while providing a...
Wetheuncivilised, A Life Story
101 min · “Once in a while a film comes along that has profound impact – this is a delicious taste of what can be.” - Polly Higgins 
Living the Change: Inspiring Stories for a Sustainable Future
85 min · 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...
Feeding Ourselves
96 min · Feeding Ourselves weaves intimate stories from the hopes and convictions of rural BC farmers and producers as they navigate undercurrents of uncertainty with our food system. Their commitment to local food culture inspires us to...
United States of Distraction: Fighting The Fake News Invasion
63 min · Thanks to the filmmakers, you can watch this film for free! If you'd like to show your thanks, you can buy a digital download of the film on this page for $10. All proceeds will go to the Media Freedom Foundation, which works closely...
Project Censored The Movie: Ending The Reign of Junk Food News
63 min · Thanks to the filmmakers, you can watch this film for free! If you'd like to show your thanks, you can buy a digital download of the film on this page for $10. All proceeds will go to the Media Freedom Foundation, which works closely...
Esteem: The Power of Vulnerability
56 min · Australian filmmaker Peter Charles Downey takes us on a personal and cathartic journey of empowerment, redemption, and healing.
Plutocracy: Political Repression In The U.S.A.
560 min · Plutocracy, by filmmaker Scott Noble, is the first documentary series to comprehensively examine early American history through the lens of class.
Surviving Earth
95 min · An epic, ominous and perhaps life saving radio interview occurs with director, Peter Charles Downey on a small-town country radio station about his new documentary movie, Surviving Earth. Where the trees whisper of humanity’s mass...