The human journey is at a crossroads. Authoritarianism is on the rise, the biosphere is destabilizing, and the capitalist global order is driving us towards the cliff with its head stuck in quarterly profit reports. From everything we've learned about climate feedback loops, it seems that what we do in the next 10 years will determine the next 10,000...
No pressure!
So what are we going to do? From the present world of empire and corporate rule, we see two distinct paths:
The ideal path takes us to Earth Community, a civilization based on indigenous and ecological wisdom, deep participatory democracy from the local to international levels, and a foundational philosophy that could potentially allow all individuals and peaceful cultures of the world to co-exist and thrive. In this timeline, the climate is stabilized, biodiversity loss is halted, social inequality is reduced by 90%, living standards are higher for everyone with all the basics guaranteed, and life is basically great for thousands of generations.
The other path, the one that's competing with the first, is leading us towards the biosphere and civilization collapsing thanks to too many converging systemic failures of infinite-growth capitalism and a cultural story that pits humans at war with the Earth and each other. If you're reading this you're probably nodding your head going, "Yep, let's try to avoid that one shall we?"
The problem is, right at the apex of all these converging crises, we're also facing a crisis of distraction, diversion, and information overload, which threatens our focus, attention spans, and basic capacity to think our way out of this mess. To solve any of our pressing problems first requires understanding the world as it actually is, separating truth from fiction, and stealing back our attention from the merchants of distraction. This means developing high media literacy skills and cultivating what Carl Sagan called our "Baloney Detection Kit."
To this end, documentaries have a special power, inspiring us to shake off our very understandable apathy to seek tangible ways we can contribute to the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.
It's true: documentaries can also be used to deceive and distract, but the best ones, which have been curated by some process of our collective intelligence, have an incredible power to create wiser, engaged citizens and thus a wiser Earth.
So, with that spirit in mind, below you'll find the links to watch 50 documentaries that aim to inspire humanity to follow the first path. Share them with everyone you know. The world needs us.
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One quick thing to note: 40 of them can be watched for just $5/mo, and support both Films For Action and the filmmakers in the process. Our Patron Film collection, which now has over 50 films, is something we've been slowly building for the last five years and we're proud of the collective wisdom and knowledge it now has to offer.
The first ten films can be watched for free, so they're a great place to dive in.
Want to cast these films to your TV? Check our Casting Guide in our FAQ with lots of options.
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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...
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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...
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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.
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109 min ·
Permaculture designer Andrew Faust gives us an inspiring and heady narrative about the evolution of all life and human consciousness on Mother Earth.
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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...
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165 min ·
InterReflections is an experimental, mixed genre narrative feature film by Peter Joseph, adapted from his book The New Human Rights Movement. The ambitious, nearly 3 hour work challenges not only contemporary thinking about society, it...
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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.
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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
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102 min ·
A New Story For Humanity presents a beautifully and sensitively woven tapestry of the rich diversity that is the human family. Featuring interviews on the essential topics of our time: from cosmology to ecology, from ancient wisdom to...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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.'
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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40 min ·
What distinguishing feature do the world's healthiest and happiest societies have in common? According to acclaimed author Richard Wilkinson, the answer is simple: they have far less income inequality than other societies. In this new...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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...
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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...
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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.
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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...
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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...
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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.
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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...
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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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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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60 min ·
Never before in history have so many people relied on so few for the basic essentials of life.
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60 min ·
If you think U.S. news has a liberal bias, this assumption-shattering film from Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, and Justin Lewis will have you thinking again. Making the common-sense case that mainstream news media are more committed to...
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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...
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72 min ·
This critically acclaimed look at American war propaganda exhumes five decades of remarkable archival footage to show how presidents from both parties have relied on fear-driven political spin and craven media complicity to sell a...
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35 min ·
Do politically expedient proposals for more testing prepare children for the challenges of the 21st century? What is the role of schools in a time when the mass media are children's most frequent teachers? In Tomorrow's Children, based...
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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...
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52 min ·
In 1998, university professor Kembrew McLeod (Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa) made headlines when he successfully trademarked the phrase "freedom of expression" to call attention to the extremes...
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47 min ·
For more than three decades, transnational corporations have been busy buying up what used to be known as the commons -- everything from our forests and our oceans to our broadcast airwaves and our most important intellectual and...
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PS: There are actually over 1,000 free documentaries on this site, so if you're short on funds, there are lots more great films to check out in the meantime!
Many are some real hidden gems.