Film
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret
Cowspiracy argues that animal agriculture—not fossil fuels—is the leading cause of environmental destruction. It's a confident, visually engaging documentary that ambushes you with statistics and guilt in equal measure. Made for people concerned about climate change who haven't yet connected that concern to their plate.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you enjoy an advocacy documentary that plays like a scrappy personal investigation, with an amateur host knocking on doors, asking awkward questions and letting the footage carry the argument.
Skip it if you want a measured, balanced account, since this one is openly campaigning and its host's wide-eyed persistence can feel like a lot over ninety minutes.
What it asks of you: Expect a brisk ninety minutes of talking heads, interviews and bold on-screen graphics, with the mood swinging between jokes and sobering statistics, so stay alert to the numbers.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
What the Health2017
Same filmmaking team, same urgent energy, but pivots to how diet affects personal health rather than planetary health. Sharp, fast-paced, full of documentary ambush-interviewing.
But The health claims are presented with more certainty than the actual science supports. It can feel like advocacy dressed as investigation.
An Inconvenient Truth2006
The template for climate-crisis documentaries: big problem clearly stated, one person's crusade to make others see it, visual spectacle in service of urgency. Al Gore does the lecture-hall thing brilliantly.
But Thirteen years of climate change later, some predictions haven't materialized. The certainty feels dated, and it's very much a slide-show film.
The Game Changers2019
Another athlete-led dietary documentary with high production values, celebrity testimonials, and the same conviction that everyone's been lied to about how to eat. Visually polished, undeniably compelling.
But The sports science gets simplified to the point of distortion. It's persuasive in a way that should make you slightly suspicious of how persuasive it's being.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Blackfish2013
Both are forensic investigations into systems we participate in without thinking, using escalating revelation to make comfortable things feel uncomfortable. Both ask: what will you do now that you know?
A documentary that uses personal testimony and accumulating evidence to make you question something you thought was entertainment. Like Cowspiracy, it's about what complicity looks like and what you do when you see it.
But It's emotionally devastating in a way that feels manipulative sometimes. The SeaWorld employees it features are portrayed uncharitably. Exhausting to watch by design.
More like this (7)
Before the Flood2016
Leonardo DiCaprio travels the world interviewing scientists and activists about climate change. Handsomely shot, genuinely informative, and you get to watch Leo's concern deepen in real time.
But The solutions stay vague. After two hours of catastrophe, the film ends with 'everyone do better,' which lands a bit hollow.
Seaspiracy2021
Same filmmakers, same investigative style, now trained on ocean fishing. Uses the same escalating-revelation structure that makes documentaries like this so compulsively watchable.
But It's been criticized for selective editing and for presenting complex issues as simpler than they are. Also: extremely bleak, with little offered in terms of solutions.
Food, Inc.2008
An earlier, broader look at industrial food production. Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser guide you through the system. Methodical, well-researched, genuinely unsettling.
But It's been ten years; some facts have shifted. The pacing is slower and less visually exciting than Cowspiracy, which can feel dated if you've seen the newer doc first.
Forks Over Knives2011
Plant-based diet documentary with academic credibility behind it. Interviews serious nutritionists and epidemiologists. Less flashy than Cowspiracy but more grounded in research.
But The documentary form can't quite contain the complexity of nutrition science. It sometimes oversimplifies cause and effect between diet and disease.
The True Cost2015
If Cowspiracy made you think about environmental systems, this applies the same logic to fashion. Beautifully shot, morally clear, will make you reconsider your wardrobe.
But Solutions feel remote. After the horror of fast fashion is revealed, what you're asked to do—buy less, buy better—feels inadequate to the scale of the problem.
Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things2015
Takes the 'rethink consumption' thread of environmental docs and focuses it on personal lifestyle. Slick, accessible, less preachy than you'd expect.
But Minimalism as a movement can feel like it's for people with enough money to buy the *right* things instead of just things. Privilege often underdresses as principle.
Gunda2021
Where Cowspiracy argues that animal agriculture is a problem, Gunda shows why—by making you see the animals as beings rather than statistics. Same mission, opposite approach: head versus heart.
Black-and-white film following three pigs and a chicken on a farm—no narration, no interviews, just observation. Transforms animals into individuals rather than abstractions, which Cowspiracy intellectualizes.
But Nothing happens. It's 93 minutes of watching animals move around. If you want argument, you'll be frustrated. It requires patience and willingness to make meaning yourself.
People
Cast
- Kip AndersenSelf
Directing
- Keegan KuhnDirector
- Kip AndersenDirector
Writing
- Keegan KuhnWriter
- Kip AndersenWriter
Production
- Leonardo DiCaprioExecutive Producer
- Keegan KuhnProducer
- Kip AndersenProducer
Recommended by
Food, Inc., King Corn, Trashed, An Inconvenient Truth, Nuclear Now, David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet, That Sugar Film, Forks Over Knives, Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead, No Impact Man, The Age of Stupid, Kiss the Ground, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, The 11th Hour, Dominion, The Future of Food, What the Health, The Game Changers, Plastic Fantastic, Earthlings, Eating Animals, In Defense of Food, The Truth About Stress, Planet of the Humans, Rats, Tapped, Pandora's Promise, Fresh, Taste the Waste