Artists for the Earth
Lights, Camera, Climate
April 21, 2025
In an era defined by climate change, deforestation, and ecological crisis, some of the most profound reflections on our relationship with our planet come from film. Through emotional storytelling and compelling imagery, movies have the power to shape public consciousness, especially around environmental issues. Here’s some that stand out and few that may surprise you.
Bambi: An Early Wake-Up Call
Disney’s Bambi may appear at first glance to be a simple coming-of-age story about a young fawn , but beneath its gentle animation lies one of cinema’s earliest and most emotionally grabbing environmental messages. The film throws the main character, Bambi, into a harsh world where woodland creatures must fight to survive. ‘Man’.
The infamous scene in which Bambi’s mother is killed by a hunter still resonates decades later, not just because of its emotional impact, but for what it represents. The presence of people almost haunts the forest, even though we never actually see any human beings in the movie, we know that they bring only fire, death, destruction and fear. Long before environmentalism was a widespread movement, Bambi released in 1942 asked us to reflect on our attitude to wildlife and the exploitation of nature and indirectly challenged us to do better.
The Wild Robot: Can Technology Live in Harmony with Nature?
In The Wild Robot, viewers are introduced to Roz, a robot marooned on a remote island after a shipping accident. At first, Roz is clunky and alien to the animal inhabitants of the island. But over time, she learns to adapt, communicate, and eventually even raise an orphaned gosling. Roz becomes a part of an ecosystem she was never meant to enter.
Right away, this film does an amazing job at making us understand the beauty of nature. The artstyle and the animation are gorgeous. The special moments when you see Roz connect with nature, like when he reaches his hands out to touch the butterflies, is simple yet beautiful. The look and style of the film, almost demands that we care about the natural world and all of its creatures instantly
What makes this movie especially compelling though, is its thoughtful meditation on technology and the environment. Most films pit technology against nature, but here we see an instance of technology adapting to work with nature. Even to be humbled and changed by it, as Roz is.
The message is poignant: while machines may be built to serve humans, they too can evolve. And when guided by empathy and understanding, they can even possibly become allies in the fight to protect the environment. With society hardwired to strive for advancements and the constant battle to develop more, this film addresses what people can use that development for. It is a truly thought provoking film that stays with you long after the movie has stopped playing.
The Day After Tomorrow: When Nature Strikes Back
In contrast to the fables and animated dramas above, The Day After Tomorrow delivers its environmental message through the spectacle of disaster. The film imagines a not-so-distant future where climate change has accelerated abruptly, triggering a series of catastrophic natural events with superstorms, floods, and a new Ice Age.
While grounded in some real climate science, the film takes dramatic liberties, using rapid glaciation as a metaphor for nature’s breaking point. Cities are swallowed by tidal waves, weather patterns become erratic, and millions are forced to flee. At its core, this film is a tale about the consequences of continuing to pollute and exploit the Earth.
What makes the film especially relevant is how it reframes climate change not as a slow, distant threat, but as an immediate crisis. Given the way in which extreme weather events appear to be happening more frequently around the world in reality, this device in the movie is extra terrifying. It portrays nature as a system with limits that, once crossed, will retaliate with force. While the film is heavy on disaster-movie tropes, its underlying message is clear: if humanity refuses to change its behavior, nature will change the world for us, just not in the way that we envision.
Princess Mononoke: Balance Between Progress and Beauty
No list of environmental films is complete without one of Hayao Miyazki’s. Perhaps most famously the Oscar winning The Boy and the Heron, but no Miyazki film highlights the nature of environmental conflict better than Princess Monoke.
The film follows Ashitaka, a royal prince who is looking to break a curse placed on him, who finds himself in the middle of a war between humans and forest spirits.
What makes Princess Mononoke so compelling is its refusal to simplify. There are no clear heroes or villains. Even Lady Eboshi, the leader of Iron Town, shows her compassion for her people despite exploiting the land around her. Miyazaki presents both the wonders of nature and the needs of civilization with nuance. It culminates with the theme of balancing progress with nature. What makes the journey so compelling is that while Ashitaka helps to achieve this balance, he can’t do it alone. It involves every character doing their part to help out.
By the film’s end, the forest suffers, but it does not disappear. Likewise, human progress continues, but at a cost. Princess Mononoke leaves us with an uneasy truth: we can’t undo our impact on the environment, but we can choose to live more responsibly.
Despite this bleak turn of events, the film still remains optimistic. While everyone has suffered it’s not too late to turn back and rebuild.
A Shared Vision: Warning and Wonder
Despite their differences in genre, format, and tone, Bambi, The Wild Robot, Princess Mononoke, and The Day After Tomorrow all converge around a shared understanding of our place in the natural world.
Each film shows us that humans are not separate from nature but deeply embedded within it. Our actions ripple through ecosystems, sometimes in subtle ways, and sometimes have huge consequences. Nature, on the other hand, is portrayed as both beautiful and vulnerable. It is capable of resilience, but constantly threatened by the excesses of human industrialization and carelessness.
Ultimately, the lesson threaded through all four films is that ignoring the well being of our environment and wildlife, has consequences. Some are as quiet as a fallen tree, others are as thunderous as a collapsing climate. But even in the face of loss, these stories offer hope. They urge us to rethink our role on this planet, not as masters of it, but as stewards.
This month support the well being of the planet and consider getting involved in EARTH ACTION DAY or even donating to The Canopy Project.
This article is available for republishing on your website, newsletter, magazine, newspaper, or blog. The accompanying imagery is also cleared for use. Please ensure that the author’s name and their affiliation with EARTHDAY.ORG are credited. Kindly inform us if you republish so we can acknowledge, tag, or repost your content. You may notify us via email at [email protected] or [email protected]. Want more articles? Follow us on substack.
