Environmental Films

Flint Lockwood is a young inventor who dreams of creating something that will improve everyone's life. Sam Sparks is a weathergirl covering the town's weather phenomenon, but chooses to hide her intelligence behind a perky exterior. Tim Lockwood is Flint's technophobic father. Brent is the town bully who has plagued Flint since childhood. Mayor Shelbourne exploits Flint's newest invention so he can put the town, and more importantly himself, on the map. By-the-rules town cop Earl Devereaux has a rule-breaking son, Cal. In a town where food drops from the sky like rain, Flint hopes to create something that will change everyone's life. However, when the weather takes a turn for the worse, the residents of the town of Chewandswallow will find their eating habits have drastically changed.

The fairy people of FernGully have never seen humans before, but when Christa sees one, Zak, she accidentally shrinks him down to her size. There is trouble in FernGully, for Zak is part of a logging team who is there to cut down the forest.

Emperor Penguins from Antarctica each express their true love with a special heartsong of their own that expresses their very being. However, the misfit Mumble cannot sing. Instead he has an extraordinary talent to tap dance with almost magical energy and expression. Nevertheless, the leadership of the colony fearfully blames the young penguin's unorthodox ways for the lean fishing that threatens them all. Defiant in the face of unjust rejection, Mumble and his true friends set out to find the true cause of the famine. Through the friends trials and perils, Mumble learns many things about his frozen world, not the least of which being that his toe tapping talent may be what he needs to save his people.

While Scrat the Saber-toothed Squirrel is still trying to find his precious acorn, the misfit trio of Manny the Mammoth, Sid the Sloth and Diego the Sabre-tooth Tiger have settled down in an isolated valley with numerous other animals. However, the trio soon discover that the ice wall surrounding the valley is barely holding back a massive body of water behind it and the melting state threatens to break the wall and flood the valley. With their one chance of survival being a boat at the other end of the valley, the trio make a desperate exodus there.

From IMDB: When two girls move to the country to be near their ailing mother, they have adventures with the wonderous forest spirits who live nearby.
This is a magical film, and one of my all-time favorites! -- Charlotte

From Amazon.com: Hayao Miyazaki gained widespread attention in Japan for his complex ecological manga series, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1982), which he adapted for the screen two years later. One thousand years after a war devastated much of the Earth, humanity clings to existence at the fringes of a vast, polluted forest inhabited by monstrous insects. Only Nausicaä, the princess of the tiny realm of the Valley of the Wind, grasps the environmental significance of the forest. She sees beyond petty wars and national rivalries to the only viable future for the planet. In Nausicaä, Miyazaki began to explore elements he would develop more fully in his later films: daring, compassionate heroines; exciting flying sequences; colorful side characters; strong interpersonal relationships; and a call for an ecologically sustainable way of life. --Charles Solomon

When a frightening creature attacks his remote village, young warrior Ashitaka is able to put the great beast out of its misery. It is a boar god corrupted by sinister magic, transformed into a monster by a wound from a mysterious iron ball. Ashitaka has received a wound as well, which bubbles with supernatural putrescence, so he must travel far to the east seeking a cure. In Iron Town, Lady Eboshi employs freed prostitutes, former serfs, and even outcast lepers to build a human empire that will civilize the wilderness with iron and guns. In the forest, the wild gods gather their strength to fight back, led by San, the Princess Mononoke. She is a beautiful but savage girl who has chosen to give up her humanity and side with the animals. Ashitaka finds himself embroiled in a battle between the two forces, both of whom see him as supporting the enemy.

Based on the children's book by Dr. Seuss, this recent movie version is different in plot but maintains the environmental message. Twelve-year-old Ted will do anything to find a real live Truffula Tree in order to impress the girl of his dreams. As he embarks on his journey, Ted discovers the incredible story of the Lorax, a grumpy but charming creature who speaks for the trees. Featuring the voice talents of Danny DeVito, Ed Helms, Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, Rob Riggle, Jenny Slate, and Betty White,

When a poacher sets out to capture a golden eagle in the Outback of Australia, his friend Cody's call for help is answered by the world's bravest mice, Bernard and Bianca, who fly in on the wings of their Albatross friend Wilbur to face their most dangerous mission yet!

Lisa convinces the locals to clean up the polluted Lake Springfield after a crowd of fans sink the Green Day concert stage. Meanwhile, Homer saves a pig from being killed in Krusty Burger and adopts it, calling the animal Spider Pig. After two days, Spider Pig fills up a silo with its excrement and not knowing what else to do, Homer dumps the silo in the lake, polluting it. The angry population forces the Simpsons to move to Alaska. Meanwhile, the president is induced by his adviser from the EPA to put a dome over Springfield to hold in the population and destroy the city. When Marge sees the news on television, she tells Homer that they must return to Springfield to save their town and friends, but Homer is not convinced that the people of Springfield deserve their support.

After hundreds of lonely years, a waste management robot finds a new purpose in life. With only a cockroach for a friend, he finds true love in another robot sent on a mission to Earth to see if it is safe for human life.

Starring Drew Barrymore, John Krasinski, and Ken Kwapis. Recounts the true story of three California Gray whales imprisoned in Arctic ice in 1988 and the network of activists, businesses, and governments that worked together to rescue the whales.

Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, sends five magic rings, four with the power to control an element of nature and one controlling the element of Heart, to five chosen youths across the globe: Kwame from Africa, Wheeler from North America, Linka from the Soviet Union (changed to Eastern Europe after the Soviet Union's collapse), Gi from Asia, and Ma-Ti from South America. When these five come together, they summon Captain Planet to fight the forces of pollution.

Sometimes four legs are better than two. Dan just moved his wife and son to the woods to take a new job with a supposedly eco-friendly housing development. But the fur, and Dan's temper, is sure to fly when the local critters learn of the bleak plans for their forest home and stop at nothing to halt construction.

Roy Eberhardt is the only child in a family that is constantly relocating for his father's work. At 14, he's once again the new kid, this time in the tiny Florida beach town of Coconut Cove. Predictably, a bully nicknames him "Cowgirl" and proceeds to torture him. Unpredictably, a barefoot blonde boy who runs alongside the school bus every morning fascinates him. Tough-as-nails girl jock Beatrice befriends Roy, helps with the bully, and is revealed as the stepsister of the blonde boy, Mullet. The teens band together, fighting an improbable crusade to protect a group of endangered burrowing owls from being plowed under by a greedy pancake-house magnate. They aren't hindered at all by the hapless construction-site manager, the local Keystone Kop, or the dastardly Mayor.

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Disney's updating of the 1949 adventure classic stars Charlize Theron as a young woman whose best friend since both of them were orphaned is a 15-foot-tall gorilla named Joe. When poachers threaten the safety of their African jungle home, Theron agrees to a plan by scientist Bill Paxton to take Joe to a California nature preserve, but mishaps lead to the ape escaping onto the streets of L.A. David Paymer, Rade Sherbedgia also star.

Story of a life-changing experience for a biologist studying the wolves in Canada's inhospitable North. A green young biologist named Tyler (Smith), is sent by the Canadian government to "prove" that the wolves are depleting the caribou herds, but what he finds is a natural world in perfect harmony where he becomes a tolerated outsider. Dumped unprepared in the wilds by a hard drinking bush pilot (Dennehy), Tyler learns survival skills from the aged Eskimo (Ittimangnaq) who saves his life. He learns the rules of coexistence from a neighboring wolf (which results in a literal pissing contest as man and beast mark their respective territories). Tyler's journey culminates in a majestic run with the wolf pack, an exhilarating sequence where, for an instant, he becomes one with the wild natural environment.

'Like Gilligan's Island, only completely implausible.' That's how comedian Stephen Colbert summed up the family saga of Colin Beavan aka No Impact Man.Beavan, a New York City writer and self-proclaimed liberal, has big plans for his new book. He decides on a grand experiment to live one year with as little impact on the environment as possible. The problem is, the project requires his wife Michelle an espresso guzzling, Prada-worshipping business writer and their young daughter to be fully on board. As the family embarks on a year of no electricity, television, cars, toilet paper, elevators, or newspapers, Michelle must contend with caffeine withdrawal, compost worms, limited retail, and defending her own dreams, all in the name of supporting her husband's book project. What ensues is a not only a funny and entertaining look at well-intentioned environmentalism, but a touching, poignant take on the nature of contemporary marriage and what it means to pursue your dreams.

Bud Johnson is an apathetic, beer drinking, lovable loser, who is coasting through a life that is passed him by. His one bright spot in his mundane existence is his precocious, over achieving twelve-year old daughter, Molly. She takes care of them both. She accidentally sets off a chain of events on Election Day, which culminates in the presidential election coming down to one vote, Bud's. Suddenly, Bud becomes the voice for everybody when the world realizes that his vote will be the one that elects the next president. Descending on the unwitting inhabitants of the small town of Texico, New Mexico, politicians wage a war for Bud's vote.

"A fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns, with a special focus on the United States. All the stuff in our lives, beginning from the extraction of the resources to make it, through its production, sale, use and disposal, affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. [The film] exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues and calls for all of us to create a more sustainable and just world."- -Http://www.storyofstuff.com/media.html.

A young man tries to fulfill his father's wish to find gold in the treacherous Yukon Valley of Alaska. Along the way he befriends a veteran gold miner and a magnificent wolf-dog named White Fang.