For Tonight

Short films. Under 30 minutes. Start with one and keep going.

• More Flames — If the climate conversation has ever felt like it’s missing its sense of humor, start here. Free on YouTube.
• Burning Injustice — Latino farmworkers in California’s Central Valley are fighting the last waste incinerators in the state. Climate justice, 90 miles from here.
• Qotzuñi: People of the Lake — Bolivia’s Lake Poopó dried up entirely in 2016. This film follows the Uru-Murato community grappling with what it means to be People of the Lake when the lake no longer exists. DOC NYC Grand Jury Prize 2024. Oscar-qualifying.
• Enraizados — A P’urhépecha town in Mexico expelled illegal loggers, expelled the government that failed them, and built their own. Indigenous- and women-led. Premiered at COP29.
• Clean Up Sayu — An environmentalist named Chilly-Willy has spent his life protecting the coastline of Sayulita, Mexico. Eight minutes about what devotion to a place actually looks like.
• The Instability of Clouds — Shot on 16mm film in a Southern California suburb, two neighbors whose friendship was forged through shared trauma reckon with a landscape changing around them. Screened at IFFR Rotterdam and RIDM Montreal. Note: art film — know that going in.
• Haulout — A lone researcher on a remote Siberian shore watches tens of thousands of walruses crowd onto land because the sea ice they once rested on has melted. No narration. No commentary. Oscar-nominated.

For the Weekend

Feature-length films worth clearing your afternoon for.

• Wildcat — A British veteran with PTSD and a young Peruvian woman raise an orphaned wildcat in the Amazon. Equal parts heartbreak and restoration. Emmy Award: Outstanding Nature Documentary 2023. Age of Union.
• Gather — Four Native American communities rebuilding their relationship to food, land, and self-determination. More about possibility than loss.
• Flow — A wordless animated film following a cat through a flooded world. Won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature 2025. Watch it without knowing more.
• Farming While Black — In 1910, Black farmers owned 14% of American farmland. Today that number is below 2%. Afro-Indigenous farmers reclaiming their agricultural heritage through regenerative practice. Wild & Scenic Best of Festival 2024. Free on Kanopy.
• All That Breathes — Two brothers in Delhi spend their lives rescuing injured black kites falling from a sky thick with smog. Sundance Grand Jury Prize.
• Photographer: Win or Die — Conservation photographers Paul Nicklen and Cristina Mittermeier sail to the Bahamas to document an underwater world threatened by oil drilling just outside protected marine areas. Emmy Award: Outstanding Nature Documentary 2025. National Geographic.

For Resilience

Films in conversation with the landscape of Los Angeles and California right now.

• Out of Plain Sight — An LA Times reporter discovers that as many as half a million barrels of toxic waste were dumped into the ocean off the coast of Southern California, just outside Catalina Island. This is our ocean. Jackson Wild Media Award: Best Investigative Film. Audience Choice, Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
• Bring Your Own Brigade — Oscar-nominated filmmaker Lucy Walker embeds with firefighters during the deadliest week of wildfires in California history. An investigation into causes, consequences, and the indigenous knowledge we’ve ignored for a century. Includes harrowing evacuation footage. Watch when you’re ready.
• [TITLE TBC — lawn removal documentary] — The most LA film on this list. Replacing your grass is one of the most radical and neighborly things you can do in this city.
• The Biggest Little Farm — A couple converts 200 acres of depleted land in Moorpark, California into one of the most biodiverse farms in the country, through failure after failure. A restoration story built in our own backyard.
• Undammed — The Klamath River dams came down. The salmon came back within weeks. A real, visible win in our state. Free on Patagonia’s website.

For Your Kids

Films that open the conversation without closing off the wonder.

• The Wild Robot — The only Oscar-nominated film last year that genuinely reckoned with ecological collapse. Animated, gorgeous, and it will make everyone in the room cry in the best way. Watch it together.
• Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story — A man in the Shetland Islands rescues a wild otter pup. Won the Golden Panda at Wildscreen 2024 — the highest honor in international wildlife filmmaking.
• Wolfwalkers — A hand-drawn animated film about a girl who discovers she can become a wolf, and a forest worth protecting. Visually unlike anything else on this list.
• WALL-E — Still the most honest film ever made about what we’re building toward — and what we might choose instead. If your kids haven’t seen it, this is the week.
• My Neighbor Totoro — Miyazaki’s love letter to the natural world, and still the gentlest entry point into ecological imagination ever made. If you watched it as a child, watch it again with yours.
• Suzie Hicks the Climate Chick & Sprout — A joyful, music-filled series helping kids and families learn the science and heart of climate action. CFF Seeds of Hope Award 2025.
• On the Frontline — Short episodes following real people protecting threatened species and ecosystems around the world. Free on YouTube. Age of Union.

For Your Community

Built for discussion. Bring these to your book club, faith group, or neighbor gathering.

• There Will Come Soft Rains — A British-Pakistani Muslim woman defies tradition, her faith, and the authorities to move her father’s grave to higher ground before rising seas take him. Oscar and BAFTA-qualified. CFF Narrative Short Award 2025. Streaming access TBC — confirm before scheduling.
• YANUNI — Deep in the Amazon, one of the last uncontacted peoples faces an existential threat. Directed by Richard Ladkani, executive produced with Leonardo DiCaprio. Jackson Wild Grand Prize 2025. Age of Union / Malaika Pictures. Streaming access TBC.
• Planetwalker — In 1971, John Francis gave up motorized transport and then took a vow of silence for seventeen years, walking across America. A film about race, environmentalism, and radical commitment. Free through Jackson Wild.
• How to Change the World: SAGE — The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is building the first tribally owned wind farm in the United States. Indigenous energy sovereignty in practice. CFF Climate Action Award 2025.
• 2040 — A filmmaker imagines what 2040 could look like if existing climate solutions were allowed to scale. Relentlessly solutions-oriented. The best film on this list to watch with someone who needs a reason to believe.
• Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy — A Netflix documentary exposing the machine driving overconsumption and the environmental destruction underneath it. Emmy Award: Outstanding Business & Economic Documentary 2025.