The Top 100 Activist Documentaries That You Can Watch Free Online

1

HUMAN (2015)

382 min · What is it that makes us human? Is it that we love, that we fight? That we laugh? Cry? Our curiosity? The quest for discovery? Driven by these questions, filmmaker and artist...

2

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992)

167 min · Funny, provocative and surprisingly accessible, the film explores the political life and ideas of Noam Chomsky, world-renowned linguist, intellectual and political activist. A...

3

Rich Media, Poor Democracy (2003)

30 min · If a key indicator of the health of a democracy is the state of its journalism, the United States is in deep trouble. In Rich Media, Poor Democracy, Robert McChesney lays the...

4

Disruption (2014)

56 min · This is the story of our unique moment in history. We are living through an age of tipping points and rapid social and planetary change. We’re the first generation to feel the...

5

The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (2006)

52 min · When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba's economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This...

6

War Made Easy (2007)

70 min · War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after...

7

Inside Job (2010)

108 min · 2010 Oscar Winner for Best Documentary, 'Inside Job' provides a comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused...

8

Oliver Stone: The Untold History Of The United States (2012)

570 min · There is a classified America we were never meant to see. From Academy Award®-winning writer/director Oliver Stone, this ten-part documentary series looks back at human events...

9

Plutocracy: Political Repression In The U.S.A. (2015)

109 min · Plutocracy is the first documentary to comprehensively examine early American history through the lens of class. A multi-part series by filmmaker Scott Noble, Part I focuses on...

10

Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising's Image Of Women (2010)

45 min · In this update of her pioneering Killing Us Softly series, Jean Kilbourne takes a fresh look at how advertising traffics in distorted and destructive ideals of femininity...

11

DISOBEDIENCE: The Courage To Break Free (2016)

41 min · Disobedience is a new film about a new phase of the climate movement: courageous action that is being taken on the front lines of the climate crisis on every continent, led by...

12

Earthlings (2005)

95 min · EARTHLINGS is a feature length documentary about humanity's absolute dependence on animals (for pets, food, clothing, entertainment, and scientific research) but also...

13

Peace, Propaganda And The Promised Land (2004)

79 min · Provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have...

14

The Choice Is Ours (2016)

98 min · This film series explores many aspects of our society. To rethink what is possible in our world, we need to consider what kind of world we want to live in. Although we refer to...

15

Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview (2013)

65 min · Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview is a documentary exploring the depths of the current human condition and the emergence of a worldview that is recreating our world...

16

BBC: The Power of Nightmares (2004)

180 min · The Power of Nightmares is a BBC documentary 3-part film series. The films compare the rise of the Neo-Conservative movement in the United States and the radical Islamist...

17

Counter-Intelligence: Shining a Light on Black Operations (2013)

360 min · An extraordinary work by a gifted filmmaker, "Counter-Intelligence" shines sunlight into the darkest crevices of empire run amok. The film vividly exposes a monstrous and...

18

The Corporation (2003)

145 min · The Corporation is today's dominant institution, creating great wealth but also great harm. This 26 award-winning documentary examines the nature, evolution, impacts and future...

19

Tashi And The Monk (2014)

40 min · On a remote mountaintop of the Himalayas sits Jhamtse Gatsal (Tibetan for “The Garden of Love and Compassion”), a special school and home for 85 abandoned and neglected...

20

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011)

58 min · A series of BBC films about how humans have been colonised by the machines we have built. Although we don't realise it, the way we see everything in the world today is through...

21

Schooling the World (2010)

66 min · If you wanted to change an ancient culture in a generation, how would you do it? You would change the way it educates its children. The U.S. Government knew this in the 19th...

22

The Age of Stupid (2009)

88 min · Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite plays an old man living in the devastated world of 2055 in this documentary-drama-animation hybrid from Director Franny Armstrong and...

23

Recipe For Change | Building an Earthship in Ushuaia (2014)

62 min · The first feature length documentary having been conceived by the Valhalla Movement, Valhalla follows the story of Earthship Biotecture down in Ushuaia, Argentina as they and a...

24

We're Not Broke (2012)

81 min · America is in the grip of a societal economic panic. Lawmakers cry “We’re Broke!” as they slash budgets, lay off schoolteachers, police, and firefighters, crumbling our...

25

Rebel Architecture (2014)

150 min · A six-part documentary series from Al Jazeera profiling architects who are using design as a form of activism and resistance to tackle the world's urban, environmental and...

26

Dirt! The Movie (2009)

80 min · DIRT! The Movie takes you inside the wonders of the soil. It tells the story of Earth's most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility--from its miraculous beginning to...

27

The Island of All Together

23 min · Every summer many European tourists travel to the Greek island Lesbos for a sunny holiday. This year thousands of refugees crossed the sea from Turkey and arrived on the island...

28

Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (2007)

50 min · This groundbreaking documentary dissects a slanderous aspect of cinematic history that has run virtually unchallenged from the earliest days of silent film to today's biggest...

29

The Basic Income (2008)

100 min · Grundeinkommen - ein Kulturimpuls (The Basic Income - A Cultural Impulse) is a German film with subtitles in 10 languages that makes the case for a basic income for all...

30

Breaking The Silence - Truth And Lies In The War On Terror (2003)

51 min · "BREAKING THE SILENCE is a film with enormous emotional power, bringing us the human consequences of our military attacks on Middle East countries. It also provides us with...

31

Grasp The Nettle (2013)

89 min · Grasp The Nettle follows the exploits of a ragtag band of land rights activists in London as they struggle against corporations, government, police - and themselves - in their...

32

A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth About Factory Farms (2009)

92 min · A heart-stopping new documentary, A RIVER OF WASTE exposes a huge health and environmental scandal in our modern industrial system of meat and poultry production. Some...

33

Race: The Power of An Illusion (2003)

57 min · The division of the world's peoples into distinct groups - "red," "black," "white" or "yellow" peoples - has became so deeply embedded in our psyches, so widely accepted, many...

34

Real Estate 4 Ransom: Why Does Land Cost the Earth? (2012)

39 min · REAL ESTATE 4 RAN$OM outlines a genuine alternative to the global property speculation that forced so many into debt. Doubling the pressure, the tax game has become just that...

35

The Myth of the Liberal Media: The Propaganda Model of News (1997)

59 min · Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky demolish one of the central tenets of our political culture, the idea of the "liberal media." Instead, utilizing a systematic model based on...

36

END:CIV (2011)

75 min · Directed by Franklin Lopez, END:CIV examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned...

37

The Yes Men: Changing the World One Prank at a Time (2003)

80 min · The Yes Men follows a couple of anti-corporate activist-pranksters as they impersonate World Trade Organization spokesmen on TV and at business conferences around the...

38

The Crisis of Civilization (2011)

87 min · A dark comedy remix mash-up bonanza about the end of industrial civilization. featuring clowns, car crashes, explosions, super heroes, and xylophones and much, much more ...

39

Origins (2014)

101 min · This is a movie about how we have left the natural connection to the planet. The movie investigates how this has happened, the incredible amounts of pollutants that we are...

40

The End of Poverty (2009)

105 min · Global poverty did not just happen. It began with military conquest, slavery and colonization that resulted in the seizure of land, minerals and forced labor. Today, the...

41

There's No Tomorrow (2012)

34 min · A 34 minute animated documentary about resource depletion and the impossibility of infinite growth on a finite planet.

42

The Yes Men Fix The World (2009)

95 min · The Yes Men Fix the World is a screwball true story about two gonzo political activists who, posing as top executives of giant corporations, lie their way into big business...

43

HEIST: Who Stole the American Dream? (2012)

76 min · HEIST: Who Stole the American Dream? is stunning audiences across the globe, as it exposes the real truth behind the worldwide economic collapse, tracing its origins to a 1971...

44

Do the Math (2013)

40 min · Like most people, Bill (environmentalist and co-founder of 350.org), is not an activist by nature. There’s really not that many people whose greatest desire it to go out and...

45

Park Avenue: Money, Power And The American Dream (2012)

59 min · Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) presents his take on the gap between rich and poor Americans in Park...

46

Our Generation (2010)

73 min · Our Generation is an independent documentary film, made over 3 years, that looks at the current state of Indigenous relations in Australia, home to the oldest living culture in...

47

FLOW: For Love of Water (2008)

80 min · Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water...

48

The Century of the Self (2002)

230 min · The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in...

49

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2011)

162 min · A feature length documentary by Peter Joseph that presents the case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world...

50

The Canary Effect: Kill the Indian, Save the Man (2006)

63 min · From multi-award winning directors Robin Davey and Yellow Thunder Woman, comes this 'Illuminating Documentary' (Time Out). Delving deeply into the often misunderstood and...

51

A New Story for Humanity (2016)

102 min · Inspired by the New Story Summit at the Findhorn Foundation: a sold-out multicultural, multigenerational inquiry into a new story for humanity, attended by change makers and...

52

Planet Ocean (2014)

88 min · Can we imagine a film that would change the way people look at the ocean? Can we explain simply, to everyone, the greatest natural mystery of our planet? And lastly, can we...

53

The Sacred Science (2011)

75 min · The Sacred Science is a groundbreaking documentary that captures an unprecedented glimpse into the ancient healing practices of the Amazon rainforest’s medicine men, or...

54

Gasland (2010)

102 min · The Halliburton-developed drilling technology of “fracking” or hydraulic fracturing has unlocked a “Saudia Arabia of natural gas” just beneath us. But is fracking safe? When...

55

The Evolution of Ecological Consciousness (2013)

109 min · Permaculture designer Andrew Faust gives us an inspiring and heady narrative about the evolution of all life and human consciousness on Mother Earth. For more info about...

56

Class Dismissed (2004)

27 min · Class Dismissed provides a critical look at how U.S. history is taught in high school, at the myths that reduce the complexity of history into simple soundbites, and the...

57

Occupy Love (2013)

85 min · Join acclaimed director Velcrow Ripper on a journey deep inside the global revolution of the heart that is erupting around the planet. Humanity is waking up to the fact that...

58

For The Next 7 Generations (2009)

84 min · In 2004, thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers from all four corners, moved by their concern for our planet, came together at a historic gathering, where they decided to form an...

59

Rise Like Lions: OWS and the Seeds of Revolution (2011)

97 min · Scott Noble, who also produced Lifting the Veil, pulls together a combination of internet and original footage to create the first feature-length documentary on Occupy Wall St...

60

The Union: The Business Behind Getting High (2007)

104 min · BC's illegal marijuana trade industry has evolved into a business giant, dubbed by some involved as 'The Union', Commanding upwards of $7 billion Canadian annually. With up to...

61

What Would Jesus Buy? (2007)

91 min · Religion aside for a moment, there’s a terrible addiction that has swept across this country, and it’s one of the nation’s best kept secrets. Mostly everyone will tell you that...

62

Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)

127 min · Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story comes home to the issue he’s been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives...

63

The Culture High (2014)

120 min · Journeying across the North American landscape, "The Culture High" is the riveting story that tears into the very fibre of modern day marijuana prohibition to reveal the truth...

64

Culture In Decline #3: C.V.D. - Consumption Vanity Disorder

30 min · A new disease epidemic is rapidly spreading across the world: "Consumption-Vanity Disorder" - a disease spread not through a mutating virus or genetic predisposition –...

65

Medicinal Cannabis and its Impact on Human Health (2011)

47 min · In this myth shattering, information packed documentary, learn from physicians and leading researchers about medicinal cannabis and its demonstrated affects on human...

66

South of The Border (2010)

77 min · There’s a revolution underway in South America, but most of the world doesn’t know it. Oliver Stone sets out on a road trip across five countries to explore the social and...

67

Israel Vs Israel: A Film About Israeli Peace Activists (2010)

58 min · One grandmother, one rabbi, one anarchist and one ex-soldier – four Israelis trying to put an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. The documentary...

68

What A Way To Go: Life at the End of Empire (2007)

123 min · A middle class white guy comes to grips with Peak Oil, Climate Change, Mass Extinction, Population Overshoot and the demise of the American Lifestyle. Featuring interviews...

69

Human Resources: Social Engineering In The 20th Century (2010)

119 min · Human Resources explores the rise of mechanistic philosophy and the exploitation of human beings under modern hierarchical systems. Topics covered include behaviorism...

70

The War You Don't See (2010)

98 min · A powerful and timely investigation into the media’s role in war, tracing the history of embedded and independent reporting from the carnage of World War One to the destruction...

71

Meat The Truth (2008)

70 min · Although many films have convincingly succeeded in drawing public attention to the issue of global warming, they have repeatedly ignored one of the most important causes of...

72

What I've Learned About U.S. Foreign Policy (2000)

118 min · This is a powerful 10-part compilation that (in important ways) pulls aside the veil of Official myths and Lies about "freedom", "democracy", Human Rights, etc., being the...

73

Mark Corske's Engines of Domination (2014)

60 min · Political power -- armed central authority, with states and war -- is it part of human nature? Is it necessary for human communities? Or is it a tool that ruling elites use to...

74

The Fuck-it Point (2012)

42 min · A film about the dark side of civilization, why we should bring it down and why most civilized people don't. [THE FUCK-IT POINT]'When you have had enough. When you decide to...

75

American Holocaust: When It’s All Over I’ll Still Be Indian (2000)

30 min · The powerful and hard-hitting documentary, American Holocaust, is quite possibly the only film that reveals the link between the Nazi holocaust, which claimed at least 6...

76

Starsuckers (2009)

72 min · Starsuckers is a documentary about our celebrity obsessed media. It uncovers the real reasons behind our addiction to fame and blows the lid off the corporations and...

77

Lifting the Veil: Obama and the Failure of Capitalist Democracy (2011)

114 min · This film explores the historical role of the Democratic Party as the "graveyard of social movements", the massive influence of corporate finance in elections, the absurd...

78

The Super-Rich and Us (2015)

113 min · BBC documentary in which Jacques Peretti investigates how the super-rich are transforming Britain. Britain has more billionaires per head than any other country on earth, yet...

79

In Transition 2.0: A Story of Resilience & Hope in Extraordinary Times (2012)

66 min · This film is an inspirational immersion in the Transition movement, gathering stories from around the world of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. There are stories of...

80

Garbage Warrior (2007)

87 min · What do beer cans, car tires and water bottles have in common? Not much unless you're renegade architect Michael Reynolds, in which case they are tools of choice for producing...

81

Apocalypse, Man (2014)

70 min · Most people were first exposed to Michael C. Ruppert through the 2009 documentary, Collapse, directed by Chris Smith. Collapse was one of the scariest documentaries about our...

82

No Logo: Brands. Globalization. Resistance. (2003)

40 min · In the age of the brand, logos are everywhere. But why do some of the world’s best-known brands find themselves on the wrong end of the spray paint can — the targets of...

83

Ethos (2010)

75 min · Ethos, a powerful documentary hosted by Woody Harrelson, is an investigation into the flaws in our systems, and the mechanisms that work against democracy, our environment and...

84

The Superior Human? (2012)

73 min · A documentary that systematically challenges the common human belief that humans are superior to other life forms. The documentary reveals the absurdity of this belief while...

85

Subconscious War (2011)

29 min · Subconscious War is a short documentary on media, reality, and the culture of violence, It covers the prophecies of Aldous Huxley and Neil Postman's grim assessment of our...

86

The Internet's Own Boy (2014)

105 min · The Internet’s Own Boy follows the story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz's help in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS...

87

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead (2010)

97 min · 100 pounds overweight, loaded up on steroids and suffering from a debilitating autoimmune disease, Joe Cross is at the end of his rope and the end of his hope. In the mirror he...

88

GMO OMG (2014)

84 min · GMO OMG director and concerned father Jeremy Seifert is in search of answers. How do GMOs affect our children, the health of our planet, and our freedom of choice? And perhaps...

89

Blackfish (2013)

83 min · This emotionally wrenching, tautly structured story challenges us to consider our relationship to nature and reveals how little we humans have learned from these highly...

90

The Silence of the Pandas - What the WWF Isn’t Saying (2011)

50 min · ** UPDATE 5 JAN 2017 SEE BELOW ** The WWF is the largest environmental protection organisation in the world. Trust in its green projects is almost limitless. Founded in 1961...

91

Will Work For Free (2013)

126 min · Will Work For Free is a documentary by Sam Vallely on the subject of technological unemployment. This work is protected under fair use and will always be free. Facebook...

92

Confessions of an Undercover Cop (2011)

47 min · The inside story of Mark Kennedy, the police officer who spent eight years undercover as a dedicated activist, having infiltrated the environmental movement and Europe's...

93

Permaculture: A Quiet Revolution (2008)

26 min · As corporate media fails to provide accurate news of the world's dire environmental predicament, the Earth sends a clear message in the form of record-breaking natural...

94

Palestine Is Still The Issue (2002)

53 min · In a series of extraordinary interviews with both Palestinians and Israelis, John Pilger weaves together the issue of Palestine. He speaks to the families of suicide bombers...

95

Permaculture - Farms for the Future (2008)

48 min · More than 96 per cent of all the food grown in Britain is reliant on synthetic fertiliser. Without it there would be serious trouble. But without artificial fertiliser there's...

96

Zeitgeist: Addendum (2008)

123 min · Zeitgeist: Addendum, a 2008 documentary film produced by Peter Joseph, is a continuation of the film Zeitgeist, the Movie. The film includes facts regarding the Federal Reserve...

97

Who Killed The Electric Car? (2006)

92 min · In 1996, electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline... Ten years later, these cars were...

98

Waste = Food (2007)

49 min · Man is the only creature that produces landfills. Natural resources are being depleted on a rapid scale while production and consumption are rising in nations like China and...

99

Obey (2013)

51 min · This is a film based on the book "Death of the Liberal Class" by journalist and Pulitzer prize winner, Chris Hedges. It charts the rise of the Corporate State, and examines...

100

Pyramids of Waste: The Lightbulb Conspiracy (2010)

52 min · Pyramids of Waste is a documentary about the negative effects of consumerism and planned obsolescence.