When it comes to storytelling that sticks with us, few mediums are as powerful—or as urgent—as film. From sweeping documentaries that reveal the hidden impacts of our changing climate to fictional dramas that imagine the future we’re hurtling toward, movies have a unique ability to engage, educate, and inspire action.

In this next installment of our Climate Media series (check out Instagram Accounts to Follow and Books to Read), we’re turning our attention to the big (and little) screen. Whether you’re looking to deepen your understanding of environmental challenges or simply want a captivating watch that sparks conversation, these climate-focused films offer something for everyone. Grab the popcorn—and maybe a notepad—and explore some of the most compelling climate stories cinema has to offer.

Dune (2021)
Staff Pick: Giovalli Botello
Dune does a fantastic job of speculating intergalactic climate dynamics and the role ultra-futuristic technology could play in terraforming entire planets for human habitation. The franchise has always been ahead of its’ time in how it illustrates human entitlement to ecosystems and betrayal of already existing forms of coexistence.

The Expanse, tv series (2015)
Staff Pick: Joseph
This series takes place on a future earth and the asteroid belt where humanity has established mining colonies. Earth’s treatment of “Belters” in the show mimics the sad reality of how humanity today treats people in environmental justice communities and developing countries where exploitation takes precedence over partnership. While it is a drama about space exploration, bioweaponry, and crime, you come to recognize in the show that if there was a future where we could mine asteroids, this is how we would treat the people that do that work.

Extrapolations, tv series (2023)
Staff Pick: Furhana
Extrapolations is an Apple TV series that takes a view into the future where global temperatures rise by nearly 5°F and sea levels rise by 15 inches. It explores how climate collapse intersects with all aspects of human life. What’s most interesting about this show is not just the depiction of the climate impacts, but also how the community becomes resilient, adapts and sometimes also fails. It’s a show about how humanity lives through change.

Flow (2024)
Staff Pick: Jake
The movie is set in the not-so-distant future and follows a cat who must navigate a world that’s been devastated by a flood. The cat bands together with a dog, a capybara, a lemur, and a secretary bird to explore the flood-stricken world by boat. As someone who works to educate people across New York about climate and environmental issues, the messaging of how community is our most effective tool in navigating a world affected by climate change resonated with me.

Jaws (1975)
Staff Pick: Robert
Jaws can be interpreted as a parable about climate change. The shark represents a growing environmental threat, while the town’s refusal to act reflects the denial and delay seen in real-world responses to climate science. At its core, the film serves as a warning against ignoring nature for the sake of short-term gain.

My Octopus Teacher (2020)
Staff Pick: Paul Cirillo
My Octopus Teacher follows the year long journey that the filmmaker takes to develop a close relationship with an octopus that lives in the water near his home. It’s beautiful, inspiring, and honestly quite emotional. I’m a huge fan because it challenges the viewer to open their perspective about how we view non-human species and our interactions with them.

Snowpiercer (2013)
Staff Pick: David Ezer
A viscerally felt metaphor for competition among rich and poor for scarce resources, Bong-Joon Ho’s film is a dark vision based on a French graphic novel. After a climate disaster has frozen the world, the only humans remaining are aboard a 1000-car long supertrain circling the globe, with the rich riding in luxury cars in the front and the poor kept starving, in miserable conditions, in the rear cars. Class struggle is made literal as the ‘tailies’ revolt and claw their way forward.

Strange World (2022)
Staff Pick: Danielle
I picked this movie because it does a great job at symbolizing the relationship our society has with fossil fuels. In the movie, Earth is a large sea turtle carrying their world on its back. They realize that their version of fossil fuels is an infection that is slowly killing the creature. Even though their society relies on the fuel, they still choose to protect the creature and stop using it. I think this gives a great example of doing the right thing for the environment, even when it changes societal norms.

The 100 (2014)
Staff Pick: Alexi
The 100 is a science fiction series that takes place nearly a century after the Earth was destroyed by a nuclear apocalypse. It follows a group of teens – “the 100” – who are sent down to Earth to determine if the planet is re-habitable. The series shows what can happen as a result of climate change, and how humans contribute to harming the planet. It really resonated with me because it showed the struggles of having to re-learn how to live on Earth, and how the new generations continued to make the same mistakes as their predecessors.

Wall-E (2008)
Staff pick: Aria Cochran
This movie stuck with me from the first time I watched it over 13 years ago. The fact that the story is not only still relevant, but is more plausible as each day goes on, makes it feel more like a horror movie than a kid’s film. The underlying love story between Wall-E and Eve is the saving grace that community and togetherness will help us solve these issues, even past the point of “no return.”

Wild Relatives (2017)
Staff Pick: Cynthia
“Wild Relatives,” directed by Jumana Manna, tells the story of the first seed withdrawal from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, prompted by war in Syria, and cultivates the importance of the Seed Vault’s role in safeguarding global food crops from climate change, war, disease, etc. A few months after I watched this film, wildfires were consuming parts of Los Angeles. I thought back on this film when I heard about the inspiring efforts of a local seed bank, the Altadena Seed Library, to collect native and edible seed donations to regrow plants and crops lost in the fires. As the brutalities of climate change and war continue to grow, it was a glimmer of hope to learn about seed banks and the potential they bring for environmental conservation amidst disaster and destruction.