A great environmental film can make an unfamiliar ecosystem feel close, reveal the interests behind a polluted landscape or give us another way to imagine the future. Our 2026 watchlist brings together new releases, recent documentaries and a handful of older favourites, covering climate change, wildlife, food, consumption and the people defending their homes. These are films to watch in 2026, rather than a list restricted to films released this year.
This selection spans investigative documentaries, intimate wildlife stories and animated fiction. It is organised around the questions the films raise, rather than a ranking of scientific authority or cinematic quality. Release years identify the original film or festival premiere; a later public release is noted where relevant. Official film, distributor or festival information is linked with each entry. Availability varies by country, so check local listings before planning a screening.
21 environmental films for your 2026 watchlist
1. Ocean with David Attenborough (2025)
Ocean protection
David Attenborough turns his attention to the ocean’s place in the living planet, exploring underwater habitats alongside the pressures placed on them. The film pairs marine discovery with a case for restoration, making it a useful starting point for anyone who wants to connect the beauty of the sea with decisions about how it is used. Its emphasis on recovery also offers a way into conservation without presenting environmental damage as inevitable.
Film information: Ocean with David Attenborough
2. Hoppers (2026)
Animated fiction, habitats and coexistence
Pixar’s animated adventure follows Mabel, an animal lover who uses technology to enter a robotic beaver and communicate with other animals. That imaginative premise opens a playful route into questions about whose needs count when people and wildlife share a landscape. Choose it for a change of tone from investigative documentaries and for conversations about empathy for other species. Its science-fiction technology is a storytelling device, rather than a real conservation tool.
3. The Plastic Detox (2026)
Plastics and everyday exposure
This documentary follows six couples with fertility difficulties as they try to reduce their exposure to plastic-related chemicals. It brings a personal perspective to a material that runs through contemporary life, from packaging to household products. Watch it as an introduction to the questions people are asking about plastics and health, while keeping its format in mind: Netflix describes the participants’ experience as something other than a formal scientific study. Their stories do not establish that a particular change caused a pregnancy.
Film information: The Plastic Detox
4. Yanuni (2025)
Indigenous rights and the Amazon
Yanuni centres Indigenous leader Juma Xipaia and the struggle to defend the Amazon. Instead of treating a forest simply as a distant carbon store, it places people, relationships and sovereignty within the conservation story. This is a strong companion to films about forest loss because it invites a different question: who has the power to decide what happens to the land? The film’s personal focus helps connect that question with the lived demands of environmental leadership.
5. Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy (2024)
Consumption and waste
Nic Stacey’s documentary investigates how brands encourage repeated purchasing and what happens to the things consumers discard. Interviews with people who have worked inside major businesses shift attention from the shopping basket to the systems designed to fill it. It is an accessible choice for viewers interested in fashion, electronics or the promise of recycling, and a useful prompt for discussing the responsibilities of companies alongside individual buying habits.
Film information: Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy
6. Wilding (2023; UK cinema release 2024)
Rewilding and land use
Based on Isabella Tree’s book, Wilding follows the transformation of the Knepp estate in England as its owners give natural processes more room to shape the land. It brings the often abstract idea of rewilding into a recognisable landscape of fields, grazing animals and changing habitats. The value of this choice is its sustained attention to one place: it invites viewers to think about what restoration requires over time, rather than expecting an instant transformation.
7. Common Ground (2023)
Farming and soil
Common Ground explores the regenerative agriculture movement through farmers and advocates seeking a different relationship with the soil. It offers a route into debates about how food is grown and how farming systems might change. Treat it as an argument to examine, rather than a promise that one agricultural approach can solve every environmental problem. It pairs naturally with discussion of the practical conditions farmers face, including markets, policy and the costs of changing established practices.
Film information: Common Ground
8. Deep Rising (2023)
Deep-sea mining and resource choices
Narrated by Jason Momoa, Deep Rising examines the interests and institutions behind proposals to mine the ocean floor. Its underwater imagery brings an unfamiliar environment into view, while its investigation asks who should decide the future of the seabed. Choose it to explore the environmental questions surrounding mineral extraction and the energy transition. The film records a particular phase of that debate, so its account should be distinguished from the latest regulatory position.
9. The Grab (2022; public release 2024)
Food, water and power
Gabriela Cowperthwaite follows investigative reporting into the struggle for control of land, food and water. The film expands the idea of environmental security beyond drought maps and crop yields, asking how powerful actors pursue access to resources and what that means for communities. It is a useful choice for readers who want to understand the political and economic dimensions of environmental change, with an investigative structure that connects local consequences to international interests.
10. The Territory (2022)
Forest protection and community filmmaking
The Territory follows the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau people’s defence of their land in the Brazilian Amazon. The use of cameras within that struggle makes the film relevant both to conservation and to the question of who gets to tell an environmental story. It offers a human-scale perspective on deforestation, showing why protecting a forest cannot be separated from the rights and security of its inhabitants. Pair it with Yanuni for two distinct accounts of Indigenous environmental leadership.
Film information: The Territory
11. All That Breathes (2022)
Urban wildlife and care
In Delhi, brothers Nadeem and Saud devote themselves to rescuing injured black kites. Shaunak Sen’s documentary uses that work to explore the entanglement of human and animal lives in a pressured city. Its scale is intimate, but its questions are wide: which creatures attract our care, and what does it take to keep caring in difficult circumstances? Choose it when you want an environmental story grounded in daily work and relationships rather than a global tour of statistics.
Film information: All That Breathes
12. Every Little Thing (2024; US cinema release 2025)
Wildlife rehabilitation
Sally Aitken’s documentary follows hummingbird rehabilitator Terry Masear in Los Angeles, giving close attention to the treatment of tiny, vulnerable patients. It offers another way to think about conservation: through patience, skill and the effort devoted to individual lives. The hummingbirds’ small scale makes this an engaging counterpoint to films about planetary systems. Viewers interested in helping wildlife can use it as a starting point for learning about trained rehabilitation, rather than instructions for treating animals themselves.
Film information: Every Little Thing
13. Flow (2024)
Animated fiction and a changing world
Gints Zilbalodis’s animated film follows a cat and an unlikely group of animal companions after a flood transforms their surroundings. Their journey turns survival into a question of trust and cooperation across differences. Flow is an imaginative environmental choice because it makes a disrupted world tangible without presenting a lecture. Its flood is part of a fictional story, so it should not be treated as a scientific projection or a documentary account of climate change.
14. The Wild Robot (2024)
Animated fiction, adaptation and belonging
A robot named Roz is stranded on an island and gradually builds relationships with its animals, including an orphaned gosling. The film uses that unfamiliar arrival to explore learning, care and connection with other living things. It is a useful pick for viewers who prefer an adventure to a documentary, and for discussion of the relationship between technology and nature. Its value here lies in the questions it opens about coexistence, rather than in any claim to ecological realism.
Film information: The Wild Robot
15. The Here Now Project (2024)
Climate impacts through everyday cameras
Built from footage recorded by people experiencing climate extremes in 2021, The Here Now Project brings together local moments into a much wider picture. The absence of a conventional narrator shifts attention towards the people holding the cameras and the situations unfolding around them. It is a useful companion to films led by experts or campaigners, showing how an environmental story can emerge from witnesses. Remember that its images record 2021, rather than conditions everywhere in 2026.
Film information: The Here Now Project
16. Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet (2021)
Earth systems and interconnected risks
David Attenborough and scientist Johan Rockström introduce the planetary boundaries framework, connecting climate change with other pressures on the Earth system. This is a useful starting point for viewers who want to understand why environmental problems cannot always be treated in isolation. Its framework offers a different scale from the personal stories elsewhere in this list. The film reflects the science and assessments available when it was made; use newer research when looking for a current count or measurement of boundaries crossed.
Film information: Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet
17. The Story of Plastic (2019; broadcast release 2020)
The lifecycle of plastic
The Story of Plastic follows the material beyond the moment a consumer throws away a package, examining production, disposal and the communities affected along the way. It is a useful choice for moving a discussion beyond litter and into the design of the wider plastics economy. Pair it with Buy Now! to explore the relationship between consumption and waste, or with The Plastic Detox to compare a systems-level investigation with a more personal account of everyday exposure.
Film information: The Story of Plastic
18. Chasing Coral (2017)
Coral reefs and visual evidence
Divers, scientists and photographers work to record coral bleaching, turning a change that can remain hidden beneath the surface into something viewers can see. The process of capturing those images is central to the film, making it relevant to anyone interested in the relationship between environmental evidence and public understanding. It remains worth watching for that perspective, even though the events it documents are historical. For present-day reef conditions, follow it with current monitoring rather than assuming its footage represents every reef today.
Film information: Chasing Coral
19. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (2020)
A lifetime of environmental change
Attenborough looks back over his life and work, using that personal history to consider the loss of wild places and possibilities for the future. Its broad sweep makes it an approachable introduction for someone encountering the environmental crisis through film for the first time. It also sits well alongside Ocean, offering an earlier perspective from the same broadcaster. Read its figures and future scenarios in the context of a film released in 2020, rather than as a new assessment for 2026.
Film information: David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet
20. 2040 (2019)
Climate solutions and possible futures
Damon Gameau frames his exploration of environmental solutions around the world his daughter might inherit. Rather than limiting itself to damage already done, the film asks what could happen if existing ideas were taken further. It is a useful change of pace after more confrontational investigations, and an invitation to discuss the practical steps between a promising example and wider adoption. Its imagined future is a scenario to consider, not a prediction of what 2040 will necessarily look like.
21. My Octopus Teacher (2020)
Marine life and close observation
Craig Foster’s encounters with an octopus in a South African kelp forest form a personal story about attention and connection with the natural world. The film narrows its focus to one animal and one habitat, offering a contrast with documentaries built around policy or global statistics. Choose it to explore what sustained observation can bring to our relationship with other species. Its personal narrative also offers room to discuss the boundaries between watching wildlife, interpreting behaviour and intervening in an animal’s life.
Film information: My Octopus Teacher
What to watch next
Choose Ocean for marine conservation, Buy Now! for consumption, Yanuni for Indigenous leadership or Hoppers for animated storytelling. Explore Earth.Org’s reporting on biodiversity, pollution and climate change for further reading.
For our earlier selection, see the 2024 environmental films archive.
