Eco documentary directors and producers want to change the world, or at least their little part of it.  The only trouble is that they must have an audience willing to watch them.

The good news is that I love watching eco documentaries, and many have influenced my thinking.  In fact, I have watched so many of them, that I want to share a few of my favourites that influenced us the most.  I have only posted the trailers of each documentary, but I am sure with a bit of searching you could find the full version on-line, or source the DVD at your local library.

An Inconvenient Truth

This was the doco that blew me away.  It was life changing for me and my family.  It was during this documentary that I had my well-known green epiphany, and vowed that I would no longer be part of the problem, but be part of the solution to tackling climate change.

The End of Suburbia

This doco opened my eyes to the way our suburban living arrangement is heavily dependant on resources that are dwindling, for example oil and natural gas.   It has an US focus, but very relevant to the unsustainable sprawl of suburbia that we have here in Australian cities.

The End of The Line

A good friend (Hi Sim!) recommended this documentary to me in early 2009.  It is about how we are overfishing the oceans.  After I had watched this, I wrote a series of posts about overfishing, and what we can do to prevent the further collapse of our fisheries.  It changed the way I look at fish on my plate, and we now look for sustainable seafood options only.

The Economy of Happiness

This particularly good documentary opened my mind to the effects of mindful consumption and localization as an alternative to the consumer culture and globalisation.  It is very enlightening.

Garbage Warrior

This doco is brilliant. I have met Mike Reynolds who stars in this tale, and he is just like he is in real life. It is a story of his struggle to build sustainable housing in the US, and create a model of architecture that could be followed the world over. Enter the Earth ship!

What Would Jesus Buy?

If you want to have a laugh at today’s consumer culture, then this is the doco for you. I couldn’t stop laughing at some of the antics that Rev Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping (a bunch of activists) got up to, just to prove a point. They are on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse (the end of humankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt). It really makes you think about your consumption habits.

Age of Stupid

What if you could look back at today from a point in the future and ask “why didn’t they do something”. Well this doco does exactly that. I saw this one with friends at the Australian premier held by the Climate Action Network Australia. It was hard-hitting, and made me even more determined to spread the benefits of living a more sustainable lifestyle.

Food Inc.

After watching this, you will never look at food in the same way again, unless you grow your own of course. Shocking, hard-hitting, and eye-opening, this is the documentary that inspired me to get my own chickens, and double my food production here at home. This movie is the one that brought Joel Salatin into the spotlight for his common sense farming methods.

Well that is about it. There are a few others, but these eight eco documentaries had the biggest impact upon Kim and me.

We realised that the truth is out there, we just had to open our eyes and see.

Has your world view been influenced by any of these, or can you add another to the list?  I think you can embed video into the comments if you like, or just paste in the YouTube link if you can find it.