Film
The Biggest Little Farm
An unglamorous love letter to soil, patience, and spectacular bad luck. Filmmaker John Chester and his wife Molly quit city life to resurrect a dead farm outside LA, filming eight years of drought, coyotes, disease, and small miracles. It's gorgeous, occasionally brutal, and unfashionably hopeful — a documentary that trusts you to sit with slow, real time and love it.
If you liked this
My Octopus Teacher2020
Another quiet, obsessive relationship with a living thing that changes a person completely — this time it's an octopus instead of an orchard, but the patience and wonder feel identical.
But It's intensely personal and a little New Age in its narration; if you want information over feeling, it may frustrate you.
Kiss the Ground2020no page yet
The most direct sequel-in-spirit you'll find: a full argument for regenerative farming as climate solution, carrying the same hopeful, evangelical energy Chester brings to his own soil.
But Leans harder into advocacy and celebrity narration than storytelling — it wants to convince you, not just show you.
Fantastic Fungi2019
Time-lapse photography turns mushrooms into main characters, and the film's whole thesis — that everything underground is quietly, invisibly connected — is basically what's happening at Apricot Lane Farms.
But Gets a bit mystical and hand-wavy in its final act; the science occasionally gives way to vibes.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Plow That Broke the Plains1936
It's the disaster Chester's entire biodynamic philosophy is built to prevent — the same soil, exhausted instead of restored, decades before anyone thought to fix it.
An 83-year-old US government film showing exactly what happens when farmers ignore the land instead of listening to it — the Dust Bowl as cautionary tale, shot in stark black-and-white with an almost biblical score.
But It's a short, dated propaganda film with a didactic voice-over — no character, no farm-life texture, just consequence.
More like this (8)
Food, Inc.2008
The industrial food system Chester is quietly rebelling against, laid out cold and clear. Watch this and his farm starts looking less like an idyll and more like an argument.
But Angrier and more polemical in tone — less farm poetry, more investigative indictment.
King Corn2007no page yet
Two friends grow an acre of corn to trace where American food actually comes from. Scrappier and funnier than Chester's film, but driven by the same curiosity about land and consequence.
But Lower budget, rougher visuals — it trades cinematic beauty for DIY charm.
Planet Earth II2016
If what you loved was watching nature behave like nature — predator, prey, weather, luck — this gives you that at planetary scale, narrated by the best in the business.
But No farm, no people, no narrative arc beyond the animal kingdom itself — pure spectacle rather than a human story.
Seed: The Untold Story2016no page yet
A quieter cousin about people trying to save heirloom seed varieties from extinction — the same stubborn love for biodiversity, on an even smaller, more overlooked scale.
But Less visually dazzling and more talking-heads driven; the stakes are real but explained rather than shown.
The True Cost2015no page yet
A different industry, same question: what does it cost the earth and its people when we optimise only for cheap and fast? Chester's farm is one answer; this is the problem it answers.
But Fashion, not farming, and considerably grimmer — human exploitation is centre stage, not compost.
Chasing Coral2017
Trades soil for ocean, but it's the same instinct: obsessive people filming a fragile ecosystem to make you fall in love with it before it's too late.
But Far bleaker in its ending — this one doesn't get the redemptive final act Chester's farm does.
Gunda2021
Same farmyard cast of animals Chester loves and narrates for us, except here nobody explains anything — you just watch, which changes what you feel about every creature in his film.
The anti-narration version of Chester's film: a black-and-white, wordless documentary that simply follows a pig, her piglets, and some chickens through ordinary farm days until it becomes strangely riveting.
But No music, no voice-over, no plot — some will find it meditative, others will find ninety minutes without a spoken word unbearable.
Okja2017
It's the fictional nightmare version of the industrial farming Chester is trying to build an alternative to — same love for an animal, opposite ending.
Bong Joon-ho's fable about a girl and her genetically engineered super-pig takes every ethical question Chester's farm raises about animals and food and turns it into a wild, angry, big-hearted adventure movie.
But It's fiction, and swings hard between whimsy and real horror about factory farming — tonally it's a rollercoaster, not a gentle sit.
People
Cast
John ChesterSelf - Narrator- Molly ChesterSelf
- Beaudie ChesterSelf
Directing
- John ChesterDirector
Writing
- John ChesterWriter
- Mark MonroeWriter
Production
- Erica MesserExecutive Producer
- Laurie LennardExecutive Producer
- John ChesterProducer
- Sandra KeatsProducer