Earth Day: 10 Best Shows and Films to Watch

Honor the planet and delight your eyes with this watch list of Earth-centric series, films and documentaries

Tim Appelo,

AARP

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En español

Published April 21, 2023

A turtle swimming over coral reefs in "David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet."

Netflix

To celebrate Earth Day this year, why not watch a great movie or series that makes you fall in love with nature, and yearn to preserve it? Here are 10 great ones, from documentaries to biopics to a magical fantasy film with an important real-world lesson.

Secrets of the Elephants (2023)

Elephants — they’re just like us! Well, similar, anyway, as you’ll discover in this globe-trotting National Geographic doc about pachyderms from the savannas of Africa to urban environments in Asia, narrated by Natalie Portman. And since it’s executive produced by Avatar and Titanic director James Cameron, of course it boasts new camera technology to reveal the latest discoveries about our intelligent fellow creatures.

Watch it: Secrets of the Elephants, April 22 on Disney+

The Biggest Little Farm (2019)

Does Earth Day make you feel like leaving city life behind and fleeing to live in harmony with nature on your own biodynamic, pesticide-free farm? Los Angeles émigrés John and Molly Chester did it, and documented their new life over eight years, braving chicken-snatching coyotes, drought, wildfires and snail invasion. What they found was a life with all kinds of unexpected pleasures — like a rooster who befriended a pig.

Watch it: The Biggest Little Farm on Prime Video

WALL-E (2008)

Besides being a highly entertaining, six-Oscar-nominated film whose directors watched every Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton movie for comedy tips, the story about a trash-compacting robot named Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class (or WALL-E for short) is a winning environmentalism flick with a serious message.

Watch it: Wall-E on Disney+

Ice on Fire (2019)

Instead of hectoring you into despair, this Leonardo DiCaprio-narrated documentary about climate change also offers some rays of hope, along with utterly stunning drone shots of Arctic glaciers and fire-menaced redwood forests, insightful interviews with experts and excellent explanatory graphics. Yes, it’s scary, but you also see the innovative technologies that may yet avert our global doom.

Watch it: Ice on Fire on HBO Max

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (2020)

If you liked his blockbuster Blue Planet movies, tune in for the natural-history documentarian’s film warning that our world is in big trouble. A longtime climate-change skeptic, Sir David Attenborough, 96, has revised his views after an avalanche of evidence. It draws from 60 years’ worth of his renowned nature docs, and his own life and reflections. (Also, don’t miss his 2016 documentary miniseries Planet Earth II)

Watch it: David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet on Netflix

Jane (2017)

“I wanted to be as close to wild animals as I could — I wanted to live among them without fear, like Tarzan,” said Jane Goodall, the primatologist whose research into the chimpanzees (our closest animal relatives) in Tanzania revolutionized the field. Using 50-year-old archival footage and interviews with Goodall in her 80s, this doc tells both the story of the chimp colony and the alternately exhilarating and heartbreaking personal life of the scientist.

Watch it: Jane on Prime Video

Erin Brockovich (2000)

Julia Roberts never had a better role than this immensely fun biopic about the brash, trash-talking, undereducated single mom who took on a giant company that poisoned the environment, and won the biggest settlement in history.

Watch it: Erin Brockovich on Apple TV, Prime Video

Fantastic Fungi (2019)

This fascinating nature deep dive is a visual feast of trippy time-lapse photography and wonderfully obscure factoids (fungi help clear oil spills and help trees communicate!) that will make you look at your next mushroom omelet in an entirely new light.

Watch it: Fantastic Fungi on Netflix

Okja (2017)

You could watch a just-the-facts-ma’am documentary on the environmental costs of industrialized meat production, but it wouldn’t pack the impact of this fable about a young South Korean girl and her quest to rescue her beloved pig, kidnapped by a wicked American CEO (Tilda Swinton). Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) crafts a movie with the charm of E.T. and a dark satirical bite.

Watch it: Okja on Netflix

Chasing Ice (2012)

Any doubts about climate change will melt away when you see James Balog’s time-lapse photography of ice sheets disappearing in Alaska, Montana, Greenland and Nepal. It’s eerily beautiful, and it gets you thinking.

Watch it: Chasing Ice on Apple TV

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Tim Appelo covers entertainment and is the film and TV critic for AARP. Previously, he was the entertainment editor at Amazon, video critic at Entertainment Weekly, and a critic and writer for The Hollywood Reporter, People, MTV, The Village Voice and LA Weekly.