Films For Action is a community-powered learning library
for people who want to change the world.

Film offers us a powerful tool to raise awareness of important issues not covered by the mainstream news. Our goal is to provide citizens with the information and perspectives essential to creating a more just, sustainable, and democratic society.

Our website has cataloged over 3000 of the best films and videos that can be watched free online, sorted into 40 subjects related to changing the world.

At the local level, our city chapters are working to create alternative media channels that will inform, connect, and inspire action at a community level.

Our city chapters screen documentaries at independent theaters and other venues throughout the year. With many films we launch an accompanying educational or action-oriented campaign to address the issues presented by the films. 

Our local city chapters offer several tools to connect and inform people through our website, including a calendar of local activist events, a directory of local activist groups, and a news section for members to contribute original or republished local news and perspectives.

All in all, through the screenings, action campaigns and the website, our city chapters aim to provide an information and resource network that will reduce our cities' dependence on corporate media, providing more meaningful and reliable ways to stay informed on the issues that matter.

Project Staff:

Tim Hjersted - Project Director. Lawrence, KS.
Eli Dragen - Code Wizard. Lawrence, KS.
Andrew Butler - UK Editor. Bristol, United Kingdom.
Mason Umholtz - Art Direction / User Experience. Chicago, IL.
Matthew Toplikar - Editor. Albuquerque, NM.

Contact Us

Join Us! 

Create an account on Films For Action

and join our growing community of people who want to change the world!

As a member of the website you can:

• Add content to our digital social change library (click the Add+ button at the top)
• Rate member submissions

We encourage rating content based on its shareability (how useful it is for raising awareness)

Rate something...

With the community's help, we'll select the best submissions
and share them across our networks (Facebook, Twitter etc).

• Post links, images and notes to your friends on the site
   

Recommended Features:

Films For Action: What We Are Here For

Films For Action: How We Plan to Help Catalyze a Global Paradigm Shift

90 Inspiring and Visionary Films That Will Change How You See the World in Profound Ways

The Top 100 Documentaries We Can Use to Change the World

Wall of Films! - 500 Activist Documentaries on 1 Page 

50+ Films About Women That Will Inspire You, Anger You, and Make You Want to Change the World

93 Documentaries to Expand Your Consciousness

"Never doubt the impact of a film or documentary, and by extension the work FFA does. A top top site of all time in my opinion. A sincere thank you. If more people watched the films here we'd live in a different world." - Nich Roberts

"Films for Action is outstanding! Thanks so much for creating this incredible tool!" - Elisa Beck. Transitionpgh.org

"I love how different people from all over the world are coming here to watch amazing films, write and discuss. Greetings from Lithuania!" - Danny Crowe

I just discovered this terrific resource. Try it! - Jo Sippie-Gora

Films for Action has made me more informed and more effective in my activism. I don't think I could live without it. - Terry Knepp

Thanks for this website, I can't believe I only just found it. It's a great treasure!!! Kind regards from the Netherlands - Ellis

I have shared your website and films with many colleagues and college teacher organizations. You are to be commended for your dedication to so many causes and initiatives. You are a national resource for all of the right reasons. - Ned Eckhardt

"I have been following FFA for a while now and it has been the single best source for mind expanding information I can find. I often am working when I browse, so being able to listen (and occasionally watch) a film is an excellent way for me to keep expanding during my busy day. I am fairly entrenched in the new story (while still keeping one foot (and one eye) in the old corporate story) and I find that your content is always either topical or on the cutting edge of the various movements going on out there. It helps me keep in touch with what I know and learn about those causes and struggles of which I am yet not aware. I just made a small donation. Sorry it is not more. Keep up the good work." - Chris

"Hey I really appreciate your site! I put my new climate change documentary up yesterday and I am getting tons of views suddenly ("tons" by my standards at least). It's a wonderful website and it means so much for progressive filmmakers to have a way to present their work to the right audience. So thank you! And I'll make a little contribution too. Peace and solidarity." - Jake

"I just wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the content you provide, the access to reliable media sources that truly tell the real story, and for continuing to remind me and others that it is us who have the power to change the world for the better. Just a few minutes of looking at people's comments drives me too easily to anger and/or a stiff drink, and yet your replies are always informed, professional and inspiring. You guys have the patience of saints... just without all the dogma and martyrdom bullshit. So thank you! You are important. Keep it up. xx Peace and love and light and good stuff." - Ray Gunn Matthews

Can you explain the site with math?

If we tried to break down our theory of social change into an equation, it'd look something like this:

Lack of quality information = bad problems staying bad.

Access to diverse, accurate perspectives on the state of the world = informed people who can not only make bad things less bad, but make good things happen that hadn't been thought of yet.

So... let's see here (scribbles furiously in notebook)

Person + (new knowledge x awesome film medium) = new ways of thinking x taking action = new ways of living x hundreds of thousands of people = massive system-wide change. Yesss!

Viva la Revolution!

Let's use the power of film and media to grow the education revolution! It's the soil upon which every other revolution grows.

Sign up: filmsforaction.org/join/

We're here to support all of the global movements working to change the present system. We believe many hands make light work, and we need all of us helping our 'movement of movements' in whatever way feels right for each other. We need both a diversity of tactics and a diversity of efforts, so the more we can support each other and see how our efforts complement each other, the stronger we'll be.

We're loving for a world that's just, democratic, egalitarian, and ecologically healing in ways that the present system cannot offer. Our fire burns for a vision of a global paradigm based on trust and cooperation rather than fear and competition. So long as there is suffering in the world, our work is not done.

This idea that "I am because you are" - that your happiness is my happiness - this is the guiding principle of love, of ubuntu that is what keeps our feet moving and our hearts in action. We are all one human family in relationship with each other and the rest of the community of life on Earth. We seek power with, not power over.

We celebrate the diversity of peaceful cultures that exists across the globe while recognizing our underlying unity. We stand against the homogenization of the world in all it's various forms - this toxic belief in the 'one right way' which has been responsible for all of the colonialization and conquest and subjugation we have seen in the past.

We believe that the old way should not be replaced with a new best way (which would be a repeat of the old way) - but rather 10,000 new and ancient ways of living. There is no one solution to the world's problems. There are 10,000 solutions, 10,000 ways of life - and we need them all. 

We are everyone who dreams of a more beautiful world and is finding ways to put their values into action.

We aren't here to fix the old media. We're here to be the new media - a diverse and decentralized network of tens of thousands of indy media efforts working towards our common dreams.

As more and more of us become the new media, sharing, broadcasting and mircocasting media across the internet, we will eventually dwarf the impact of the old media. Eventually, our alternative models will make the old media obsolete.

Films For Action is one contribution to this network among thousands. But it's going to take all of us to hit the tipping point. 

Join us! filmsforaction.org/join/