Earth Day Watchlist: 5 Powerful Climate Documentaries To Stream

For every dot ball bowled in the IPL playoffs & final at the 18th season of the Indian Premiere League, the BCCI with Tata Group will plant 500 saplings this year. It is a small act with big impact; a promise to the planet to make it less anxious, try to save the coastlines from shrinking further, to get some relief from the boiling temperatures on the rise globally.

You know 500 saplings is just a minor subplot in the grand narrative of climate change. 2024 for the hottest year globally, and it’s not surprising that every year cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Nagpur face severe heatwaves. Earth Day celebrated every year on 22 April isn’t a gimmick that needs to be a calendar afterthought.

But I am not here to list usual pledges and policy blurbs about the environment. Instead, the attempt is to speak to you through a medium that best conveys ideas, issues, and stories—cinema.

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While numbers may seem off-putting and less personal, stories do the opposite. They hit the chord right: A single shot of a polar bear drifting away on melting ice, a child coughing in Delhi smog, a river stream completely submerged by filth of disposed plastic and chemicals deposited in river are imageries that when seen by the naked eye are impactful.

In a way these bypass the climate warrior, the pseudo environmentalist, the non-believers of climate change and the atheist of planetary health, to not only show us the truth but also make us feel complicit, angry, and inspired.

Earth Day Watchlist - Climate Documentaries

The list below has 5 must-watch emergency viewing, I mean, documentaries on environmental crisis, ecological imbalance and climate change. These are real stories with stark visuals that are much needed reminders of human greed and the depleting health of the planet. (And no, the list does not recommend Leonardo Di Caprio’s Don’t Look Up!)

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A Life On Our Planet (2020)

Streaming on: Netflix

A stunning visual piece that’s narrated by David Attenborough, Our Planet, is a juxtaposition of the planet’s raw beauty with its growing fragility.  At 93, the legendary British broadcaster, biologist, natural historian, and author Sir David Frederick Attenborough laments the loss of biodiversity due to the drastic impact of human interventions.

Eating Our Way To Extinction (2021)

Streaming on: YouTube (Free to Watch)

Definitely, not for your dinner time watch list. Eating Our Way To Extinction narrated by Academy Awards winner Kate Winslet, takes audiences on a cinematic journey around the world, from the depths of the Amazon rainforests to the Taiwanese Mountains, the Mongolian desert, the US Dust Bowl, the Norwegian Fjords and the Scottish coastlines, telling the story of our planet through shocking testimonials, poignant accounts from indigenous people most affected by our ever-changing planet, globally renowned figures and leading scientists.

This powerful documentary sends a simple but impactful message by uncovering hard truths and addressing, on the big screen, the most pressing issue of our generation – ecological collapse.

My Name is Salt (2013)

Streaming: Amazon Prime Video

Directed by Farida Pacha, the 1 hour 13 minutes long documentary is a poetic and meditative narration of salt farmers from Gujarat’s Little Rann of Kutch. The film highlights the brutal conditions in which the salt farmers harvest what we take for granted.

Year after year, for an endless eight months, thousands of families move to a desert in India to extract salt from the burning earth. Every monsoon their salt fields are washed away, as the desert turns into sea.

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All That Breathes (2022)

Streaming: Jio+Hotstar

Directed by Shaunak Sen and set in the smog-filled capital of India, Delhi, All That Breathes, is an Oscar-nominated film that follows the story of brothers and conservationists Nadeem Shehzad and Mohammad Saud.

As legions of birds fall from New Delhi's skies and the city smoulders with social unrest, the brothers race to save one of the casualties: a majestic black kite, a bird of prey essential to their city's ecosystem.

2040(2019)

Streaming: Amazon Prime Video

A feature documentary directed by Damon Gameau centres in the future and unlike many documentaries has a tone of optimism. Instead of looking at the worst-case scenario, 2040, it looks at what’s already working—a way to appreciate the efforts taken to save the environment.

A love letter to his daughter, the film explores innovations that could reshape the world if scaled up by 2040. Not made with naivety, but it’s one that will not leave you in despair and guilt-ridden as other counterparts.

Special Mentions

Before The Flood (2016)

Streaming on: Jio+Hotstar

A cornerstone of climate documentary released in 2016 with Oscar winner Leonardo Di Caprio as the narrator and global envoy in Fisher Steven’s Before The Flood. Di Caprio travels from the melting Artic to the Pacific islands, behind the scenes of the Climate Summit in Paris, even to the polluted cities of India and talks to scientists, activists, and head of the states to discuss the urgency of inquiry into climate crises.

The Elephant Whisperer (2022)

Streaming on: Netflix

Oscar winner documentary from India discusses the efforts taken, often local, to care for the planet and other beings. Bomman and Bellie, a couple in South India, devote their lives to caring for an orphaned baby elephant named Raghu, forging a family like no other that tests the barrier between the human and the animal world. 

Seaspiracy (2021)

Streaming on: Netflix

Seaspiracy examines the global fishing industry, challenging notions of sustainable fishing and showing how human actions cause widespread environmental destruction.