Related Films
This provocative film lifts the veil on a radical environmental group that the FBI calls America’s "number one domestic terrorism threat."
Sweetgrass follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into the breathtaking and often dangerous mountains for summer pasture.
David Wilson offers a glimpse into the world of competitive birdwatching, as three friends attempt to see as many species as possible in 24 hours.
Immortalized in Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, the red is the island nation’s only native species of squirrel. But it is being driven to extinction by the invading greys.
City of Cranes takes the viewer hundreds of feet above the ground to hear the insights of crane drivers, and see a glimpse of the poetic, mesmerizing world of cranes. (14 minutes) Watch now »
In December 1997, Julia Hill climbed a 1000-year-old redwood tree vowing to not come down until it was saved from being clear-cut.
All Films in This Topic
A one-hour collection of documentary shorts by established and emerging filmmakers, including: Big Birding Day, Flawed, Miss Devine, No More Questions, Six Weeks and Tiffany.
This provocative film lifts the veil on a radical environmental group that the FBI calls America’s "number one domestic terrorism threat."
David Wilson offers a glimpse into the world of competitive birdwatching, as three friends attempt to see as many species as possible in 24 hours.
Made in collaboration with documentary filmmaker Michael Angus, SALT is the film extension of Murray Fredericks’ photography at the desolate yet beautiful Lake Eyre.
A poetic look at some lesser-known aspects of America’s favorite drink: the industry’s spiritual underpinnings, politics and the struggle of independent farmers.
This 2010 Oscar-nominated film lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer.
Immortalized in Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, the red is the island nation’s only native species of squirrel. But it is being driven to extinction by the invading greys.
City of Cranes takes the viewer hundreds of feet above the ground to hear the insights of crane drivers, and see a glimpse of the poetic, mesmerizing world of cranes. (14 minutes) Watch now »
Nearing completion, China's massive Three Gorges Dam is altering the landscape and the lives of people living along the fabled Yangtze River. Countless ancient villages and historic locales will be submerged, and 2 million people will lose their homes and livelihoods.
In the small town of Libby, many hundreds are sick or have already died from exposure to asbestos, a notorious industrial toxin that many Americans consider long banned or under control.
In the dark outside of our cities, there are lights that we have forgotten how to see. Alice laments the loss of her view of the universe, one of her reasons for living in the country.
The Chances of the World Changing
An extraordinary chronicle of two years in the life of Richard Ogust, whose life turns into strange territory as he shares his Manhattan loft with 1,200 turtles he is trying to save.
In April 2000, Alex White Plume and his Lakota family planted industrial hemp on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota after other crops had failed. But when federal agents raided the White Plumes' fields, the Lakota Nation was swept into a Byzantine struggle over tribal sovereignty, economic rights and common sense.
Carmen and Lourdes work at maquiladoras just over the border in Tijuana, Mexico, where each day they confront labor violations, environmental devastation and urban chaos.
"Your lawn is a reflection of your character," a woman says in a phone conversation at the beginning of the film. Lawn explores our relationship with nature and our desire to control it.
Over a stormy two-year period, The Fire Next Time follows a deeply divided group of Flathead Valley, Montana citizens caught in a web of conflicts intensified by rapid growth and the power of talk radio.
Population growth, pollution, and scarcity are turning water into "blue gold," the oil of the 21st century. Thirst is available to watch online now.
Named after a refinery now owned by Shell Oil, Norco, Louisiana, is home to two distinct communities — one black and one white. Though separated by mere blocks, their realities are worlds apart. A modern David and Goliath story, Fenceline shows how one small community and one big corporation struggle to come to terms.
Welcome to the Midwest, land of visionary farmers like Milford Beeghly. Hybrid combines interviews, animation and rare dry wit to create a meditative portrait.
In the Light of Reverence is a beautifully rendered account of the struggles of the Lakota in the Black Hills, the Hopi in Arizona and the Wintu in California to protect their sacred sites.
In December 1997, Julia Hill climbed a 1000-year-old redwood tree vowing to not come down until it was saved from being clear-cut.
An updated, point-of-view investigation by Mark Mori and Susan Robinson of the environmental legacy and social impact of South Carolina's Savannah River Plant, the nation's largest manufacturer of hydrogen bomb materials during the Cold War.
A West Virginia community is deeply divided over potentially life and death questions over a local chemical plant that fuels the area's fragile economy.
The camera moves through a Minnesota corn field and finds a photograph of a suburban tract clothes-pinned to a cornstalk. Layered with visual and emotional paradoxes, Turn Here Sweet Corn searches for meaning beyond cliches and nostalgia, as a family farm is lost to speculative suburban real estate developers.
The Exxon Valdez disaster left far more than a soiled coastline in its wake. Grief, suspicion, anger and greed oozed through the small, formerly pristine town of Valdez. The human toll of an environmental nightmare is evoked in a haunting film which Exxon and the City of Valdez attempted, unsuccessfully, to suppress.
If a tree can grow in Brooklyn, can an eggplant flourish in the Bronx? Maria De Luca's Green Streets charts the spontaneous emergence of community gardens in New York City and how they've helped to nourish neighborhood pride, racial tolerance and a budding sense of hope for hundreds of enthusiastic gardeners in the urban jungle.
In Going Up, the creation of a skyscraper is transformed by director Gary Pollard into a breathtaking visual experience as time-lapse photography, hard hat banter and construction worker choreography are set to a score by 15 new music composers in an urban ballet forty stories above New York harbor.
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Book Excerpt: The Omnivore's Dilemma
Is there a connection between the whiskey that Americans drank in the early nineteenth century and the current rise of Type II diabetes? Michael Pollan traces the obesity epidemic to the abundance of corn — and the high-fructose corn syrup that sweetens nearly all the processed foods we consume today.
Related Film: Food, Inc.
The case against Daniel McGowan is made when an ELF member decides to work with the FBI as an informant. How much do you know about the FBI's network of spies?...
Arson as a Form of Protest Additional Video
Interview and archival footage recounts the stories of the arsons set by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF).
Is it Terrorism? Additional Video
People on all sides of the case weigh in on whether or not the ELF arsons constitute terrorism.
Marshall Curry Filmmaker Interviews
Marshall Curry discusses the former radical environmentalist who is the focal point of his film If A Tree Falls.
From the POV Archive: Five Documentaries About Protest Movements
Put the "Occupy Wall Street" protests into perspective with this list of documentary films that chronicle past protest movements in the United States from the POV/PBS archive.
Sam Cullman Additional Video
Co-director of If a Tree Falls talks about radical environmentalism and counterterrorism efforts in the United States.