Oct 29, 2021

Films for Patrons: Donate $5/Mo and Gain Access to These Great Documentaries

By Tim Hjersted / filmsforaction.org
Films for Patrons: Donate $5/Mo and Gain Access to These Great Documentaries
Updated Oct 2024

Films For Action hosts the largest collection of free films related to social change online. Started by a few friends in 2006, we're a home-grown media library dedicated to empowering citizens with the knowledge essential to creating a more loving, just, sustainable, and democratic society.

Over the years, this project has inspired and informed millions of people, and our library has grown to include over 6,000 films spanning 34 subject areas. 

For many years, we funded the project with ads, but since we went ad-free in 2018, our library is now supported exclusively by our patrons. If you believe in the value of this project as well, you can support us with a $5 monthly donation.

To show our humble thanks, our patrons get access to over 50 films that are normally pay-per-view or unavailable for free, and we plan on adding new films to this collection over time. 

If that sounds good, go here to subscribe: https://www.filmsforaction.org/about/subscribe

You can preview some of the films you'll get access to below, or you can view all of them from our Explore menu, under Categories > Patron Films.

For all your support, thank you!

Tim Hjersted
Project Director & Co-Founder
Lawrence, Kansas

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...
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...
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...
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...
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.
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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.
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...

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780 min - Astronomer Carl Sagan's landmark 13-part science series takes you on an awe-inspiring cosmic journey to the edge of the Universe and back aboard the spaceship of the imagination.The series was...
Schooling the World (2010)
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 U.S. Government knew this in the 19th century when it...
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