These are some of our favorite films about soil, farming and the connection between the earth and our health. Every film on this page is free to watch in full, right here. Grab some tea, get comfortable and start with Living Soil if you only have an hour.

Soil and Planetary Health

Living Soil

Living Soil, from the Soil Health Institute.

A 60-minute documentary from the Soil Health Institute about farmers across the US who are rebuilding their soil. From the filmmakers: "Our soils support 95 percent of all food production, and by 2060, our soils will be asked to give us as much food as we have consumed in the last 500 years." The film shows how healthy soil filters water, stores carbon and supports an enormous amount of life, and it asks us to make this "the century of living soil." Directed by Chelsea Myers and produced by the Soil Health Institute.

Why Soil Is One of the Most Amazing Things on Earth

A short, beautifully animated introduction to the hidden world beneath our feet, from BBC Ideas. Great to watch with kids.

Farmer's Footprint: Regeneration

A full-length film from Farmer's Footprint, the coalition co-founded by Dr. Zach Bush that we proudly support. It follows farmers moving away from chemical agriculture and toward living soil.

Regreening the Desert

Regreening The Desert from Kromwell Gardens on Vimeo.

An inspiring look at how degraded, eroded land can be brought back to life through restoration work.

Allan Savory: How to Fight Desertification

How to fight desertification and reverse climate change, Allan Savory at TED (2013).

Allan Savory's famous talk on desertification and planned grazing, a practice where livestock move across grassland in patterns that mimic wild herds. Many ranchers credit his methods with restoring their land. Scientists still debate how much carbon grazing can store and whether it can work at a global scale, so watch it as one important voice in an ongoing conversation. TED published the main criticisms and responses if you want both sides.

Earth and Body

The Earthing Movie

The Earthing Movie with Deepak Chopra, Amy Smart and Mariel Hemingway from Big Picture Ranch on Vimeo.

From filmmakers Josh and Rebecca Tickell, a film about "earthing" or "grounding": spending time barefoot on the earth. Research on grounding is still early and mostly small studies, so we see it less as a treatment and more as a simple, free invitation to slow down, get outside and reconnect with nature.

Full-Length Features

Three feature-length documentaries, each released free by the people who made them.

Back to Eden (2011)

From Dana & Sarah Films. Gardener Paul Gautschi shows how he grows food with almost no watering, tilling or fertilizer by keeping the soil covered with wood chips, the way a forest floor works. It is the "keep the soil covered" principle in action. Paul speaks from his Christian faith throughout; the gardening method works for anyone.

Living the Change (2018)

An 86-minute documentary from Happen Films. It follows people in New Zealand who are changing how they farm, eat and live: regenerative farmers, community organizers and ordinary households finding their own way to tread lighter.

A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity (2016)

Also from Happen Films. A small community in Australia spends a year building tiny houses, planting gardens and practicing permaculture to see what a simpler life looks like in practice, including the parts that are hard.

How Trees Talk to Each Other

Forest ecologist Suzanne Simard describes the fungal networks that link trees underground. Scientists still debate how much trees share through these networks, but it's a stunning way to see a forest as one connected community.

Also worth finding

These three are not free online, so we don't show them here, but they are well worth a movie night: Kiss the Ground (2020) and Common Ground (2023), both on Prime Video, and The Biggest Little Farm (2018).

Learn about regenerative agriculture → · Permaculture → · Shop Dig In →

Videos are embedded from their creators' public Vimeo, YouTube and TED pages and remain the property of their owners.