Environmental Movie List 2011-2012

*many of the movies are available at our library!

Heading of paper should read: Title of Movie,Date it was made,Date you viewed it.

  • A Civil Action – John Travolta plays the lead as a civil litigation lawyer and his decade long case against an American corporation in a water pollution dispute brought by citizens of a Massachusetts town.
  • China Syndrome – Reality follows the movies in this story of problems in a nuclear power plant. Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas and Jack Lemmon star in this classic.
  • Erin Brokovich – America’s newest screen eco-hero. Julia Roberts portrait of a modern day file clerk in a law office brought suit against an electric company.
  • Fire Down Below – Steven Segal plays an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agent assigned to track down the killers of a colleague. Turns out the killers also happen to be involved in the dumping of toxic waste through Appalachia.
  • Pelican Brief – Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman star in this environmental and political thriller. Life should never be so exciting at the United States Supreme Court.
  • Silkwood – Cher, Meryl Streep and Kurt Russell lead the cast in a nuclear power thriller.
  • Danger Zone – Hazardous waste is nobody’s friend an in this movie Ron Silver takes on the role of an eco-villain responsible for dumping hazardous waste in an African state.
  • Hackers – Kids and computer movies have been a big hit since War Games. This 1995 release focuses on a bunch of misfit but computer savvy youths who discover and attempt to thwart a plot to steal corporate millions and dump millions of gallons of oil around the oceans of the world.
  • On Deadly Ground –Steven Segal as a director and actor. His character in this film is an ex-CIA agent on the trail of some oil executives in Alaska who condoned the use of sub-standard equipment that could result in spills and ecological disaster. The threat to Native Alaskans by oil companies.
  • Gorillas in the Mist – The joy and trials of Dian Fossey, portrayed by Sigourney Weaver, a famous woman know for her time living with gorillas in the rain forest for years. Exposes the culture of poaching.
  • Grey Owl – The true story of Archie Belaney who for years posed as a native North American Indian and wrote several books in the 1930’s promoting conservation under that guise. Pierce Brosnan is not bad as Grey Owl. Directed by Richard Attenborough.
  • Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan – The 1984 adaptation of Borroughs. Great apes, gorgeous jungle. Tarzan is heir to a great estate in England, but he can’t take civilization, and he is especially upset about how the civilized treat the apes they’ve captured.
  • Sometimes a Great Nation - Paul Newman directs and stars. Based on the Ken Kesey novel; contemporary logging in Oregon.
  • The Grapes of Wrath – Adaptation of the novel; Henry Fonda; the dust bowl.
  • The Prophecy – An older late 70’s or early 80’s horror flick about the dangers of contaminating the environment; especially targeting mercury used by lumber mills.
  • The Lion King – Disney films seem to involve a strange mix of environmental themes with traditional themes of hierarchy, domination, etc.
  • Bambi – Though not environmentally messaged with a club, as say Lion King, it came out at a time that has seared it into the American psyche and has had lasting impact on how we view or have erroneously viewed hunting and forest fires.
  • Watership Down – Anthropomorphic look at an animal society struggling to survive and includes a few perils as a result of humans.
  • Clearcut – Based on M.T. Kelly’s book A Dream Like Mine about a native land threatened by logging and white liberal responses to the issue. Violent, but recommended; Graham Greene is incredible.
  • Medicine Man – Sean Connery is a biochemist in the Brazilian Rainforest doing

research on rainforest flora. He discovers a cure for cancer in a flower that grows in the canopy. The problem is, of course, that the forest is being destroyed.

  • Gods Must be Crazy – Part I – The introduction is especially contrasts the naturally rooted ways of the bushmen with our crazy “civilized” behavior.

Part II – A little assortment of White guys and soldiers get themselves lost in the wilderness, and get rescued by a tribesman. This is also fantasy, but the wilderness experience and real world (African) context look all too real.

  • Zardoz – A 70’s sci-fi classic (starring Sean Connery) set in the Earth’s future, in a post-cataclysmic setting where the division between human haves and have-nots is in no way ambiguous.
  • Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home –Regarding the extinction of humpback whales.
  • Chinatown – a 70’s crime film classic starring Jack Nicholson as a private detective investigating an adultery case who stumbles on to a scheme of murder that involves abuse of water rights in California. You need to look hard for the environmental issues here and provide your interpretation.
  • The Day After Tomorrow
  • Finding Nemo
  • Wall-E
  • Avatar
  • Fern Gully (Disney)
  • An Inconvenient Truth – Al Gore's famous documentary on global warming
  • Who Killed the Electric Car? - Documentary on the how the technology of electric cars has been around for decades, yet hasn't been used. Why not??
  • Food Inc. - Documentary on the food production industry in the US