NYT Shines the Spotlight on Eco-Movies

Ken Burns's documentary, airing all this week on PBS, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, is the latest in a recent spate of environmental movies and programs. Some, like the New York Times, are citing this as a new age of cinema. The truth is that environmental films, fiction and non, have been around for a while.

While the Times is a little late jumping on the environmental-movie bandwagon, it's good that they are; influential films like The Cove and Food Inc. are getting considerable attention. Besides being highly engaging movies that reveal important issues, they act as a call to action, inspiring viewers to help induce change.

However, this isn't to forget or discount pre-Inconvenient Truth movies like Earthlings, The End of Suburbia, The Corporation, or  Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price.

Whether you're an avid documentary fan or have never even seen an environmental film, you can glean your way through the Sierra Club's own hefty list of past and current eco-films from here (the Green Life reviews a different eco-movie every Friday), as well as join the Green Films Fan Club on Climate Crossroads.

--Michael Mullaley