Sustainability Video Library
Instant Play
Many full-length sustainability related documentaries are available to watch instantly online. The Office of Sustainability recommends the following movies, which provide a quick overview of some of the greatest challenges of our time. For more than 50 free environmental movies available for instant play, see www.topdocumentaryfilms.com/category/environment/.
Also, check out Films for Action's Wall of Films to browse over 350 documentaries.
The 11th Hour
Narrated by Leonardo DeCaprio, The 11th Hour features interviews with some of the world's leading scientists and creative thinkers in a film that asks whether or not it's too late to avoid the ecological disaster that looms ominously on the horizon. In addition to exploring how the human race has arrived at this crucial point in history, conversations with 50 leading thinkers, scientists, and leaders including former Soviet prime minister Mikhail Gorbachev, world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, and sustainable design experts Bruce Mau and William McDonough to find out just what humankind can do about the most pressing issues of our time.
An Inconvenient Truth
Former Vice President Al Gore lends an appropriately sober face to the issue of global warming in this arresting documentary. Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim offers a fairly straightforward adaptation of Gore’s well-honed lecture, effectively enhancing it with elaborate graphics. Gore’s data is concise and accessible, thanks in large part to a state-of-the-art, slide-show presentation that includes computer-model charts, photos – including distressing before-and-after shots of shrunken glaciers and otherwise degraded land masses – archival footage, and even cartoons that dramatically illustrate the impact of global warming.
Story of Stuff
The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.
Fuel
Director Josh Tickell takes us along for his 11 year journey around the world to find solutions to America's addiction to oil. A shrinking economy, a failing auto industry, rampant unemployment, an out-of-control national debt, and an insatiable demand for energy weigh heavily on all of us. Fuel shows us the way out of the mess we're in by explaining how to replace every drop of oil we now use, while creating green jobs and keeping our money here at home. The film never dwells on the negative, but instead shows us the easy solutions already within our reach.
Flow
How Did A Handful Of Corporations Steal Our Water? Water is the very essence of life, sustaining every being on the planet. 'FLOW' confronts the disturbing reality that our crucial resource is dwindling and greed just may be the cause. Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century -- The World Water Crisis. Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.
DVDs to Borrow
The Student Affairs Sustainability Committee maintains a library of sustainability related movies in DVD format. Faculty, staff, and students can borrow movies from the library for classes, office events, student programs, etc. Movies are available on a first come first served basis. Contact Maria Lonsbury at lonsbury@umd.edu to ask about availabiilty.