Film
What the Health
What the Health argues that a plant-based diet can prevent and reverse chronic disease, investigating why major health organizations don't promote this more aggressively. It's a persuasive, sometimes polemical documentary that combines personal transformation stories with interviews and institutional critique. Designed for anyone wrestling with diet, health, or the influence of money on medical advice.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you enjoy hard-edged investigative documentaries that build a case like a prosecutor, and you are happy to be pushed on what is on your plate even if you end up arguing with the screen.
Skip it if you want balanced evidence or a film that concedes its points, since this is an advocate's argument that stacks the deck and sometimes scolds.
What it asks of you: Ninety-seven minutes of brisk interviews, charts and onscreen statistics, cut quickly and rarely pausing for quiet; you mostly sit and absorb rather than reflect.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Forks Over Knives2011
The gold standard plant-based health doc. It methodically traces how Western diet drives disease, then shows clinical evidence that reversal is possible. Feels more measured than What the Health.
But Slower paced. Heavy on epidemiology and less on the emotional journey of individual transformation.
The Game Changers2019
Athletes on plant-based diets—sprinters, strongmen, endurance runners—demolishing the myth that you need meat for performance. Visually dynamic, genuinely exciting, and impossible to dismiss as fringe.
But Some claims about sexual performance feel like they're reaching. Endorsed by James Cameron, which reads differently depending on your tolerance for celebrity wellness.
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret2014
From the same makers as What the Health, but the angle is environmental. Shows how livestock farming dwarfs other causes of climate damage. Righteous without being preachy.
But If you go in skeptical about vegan advocacy, the film reads as advocacy rather than inquiry.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from What the Health
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Salt of Life2011
Both argue that diet shapes health and lifespan, but where What the Health diagnoses a problem, this film simply celebrates a solution as a way of being.
Italian food documentary about the Mediterranean diet and fishing culture. Gorgeous, slow, meditative. No crusading—just an old director's love letter to how people eat and live near water. Proves diet storytelling doesn't require polemic.
But Elliptical and sensual rather than argumentative. If you need a thesis delivered clearly, this will frustrate you. Subtitled.
More like this (7)
Super Size Me2004
Flipped premise: eat only McDonald's for a month, document the physical and psychological wreckage. It's a stunt, but a revealing one, and it launched conversations about food that haven't stopped.
But Now feels dated. The shock value has worn off, and it's less sophisticated in its analysis than modern food documentaries.
Food, Inc.2008
Broader than diet alone—it examines industrial food production, corporate consolidation, and how economics shape what we eat. Polished, urgent, and genuinely enraging.
But Can feel like an attack on farmers rather than the systems they work within. Some of its specific claims have aged badly.
That Sugar Film2014
An Australian filmmaker eats 40 teaspoons of sugar daily for 60 days in supposedly 'healthy' foods. Funny, intimate, and it makes a specific point rather than arguing for a whole ideology.
But Thinner argument—it's focused on sugar, not nutrition broadly. Feels almost too slight after bigger health documentaries.
The Magic Pill2017
Explores ketogenic and paleo diets with the same conviction What the Health brings to plants. Lets you see the mirror image of this argument, which is useful even if you don't agree with it.
But Netflix removed it after backlash over health claims. That alone might make you skeptical of its rigor.
Fed Up2014
Focuses on the sugar industry's role in childhood obesity and metabolic disease, with real data and institutional analysis. Katie Couric brings mainstream credibility.
But Doesn't propose a positive diet, just tears down one culprit. Some feels like blame-shifting away from personal responsibility.
Eating You Alive2016
Plant-based health doc with an extensive clinical interview section and transformative patient stories. Thorough enough to win over people who found What the Health oversimplified.
But Quieter and less visually inventive. Feels assembled rather than crafted, which can make it drag.
Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare2012
Both investigate why established medicine resists simple, cheap solutions. Both implicate financial incentives in medical recommendations.
Documentary about a Pentagon medical program that discovered integrative medicine and lifestyle intervention worked better than drugs for chronic pain. Same institutional critique as What the Health, different entry point. Interviews admirals and doctors honestly grappling with paradigm shifts.
But Healthcare policy is drier than diet. Requires patience to sit with bureaucracy and competing studies.
People
Cast
- Kip AndersenSelf
- Larry BaldwinSelf
Neal BarnardSelf- Tia BlancoSelf
- David CarterSelf
- Jake ConroySelf
Garth DavisSelf- Mike EwallSelf
- Alan GoldhamerSelf
- Michael GregerSelf
- Mu Jin HanSelf
Directing
- Keegan KuhnDirector
- Kip AndersenDirector
Writing
- Keegan KuhnWriter
- Kip AndersenWriter
Production
- Jim GreenbaumExecutive Producer
- Joaquin PhoenixExecutive Producer
- Sheryl GreenbergExecutive Producer
- Keegan KuhnLine Producer
- Keegan KuhnProducer
- Kip AndersenProducer
Recommended by
Forks Over Knives, Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, The Game Changers, Eating You Alive, Earthlings, The Beautiful Truth, Dying To Have Known, Cancer: The Forbidden Cures