Looking for inspiration and ideas to help tackle the issues close to you? Needing a perk up amongst all the doom and gloom of the world? Look no further as I’ve curated a short list of my favourite Transition related documentary films to help light that spark we all need at the moment.
One necessary item to make it onto my favourites list is positivity. Yes, there are overwhelming problems out there in the world but watching films that make us want to curl up into a ball isn’t a good approach for getting people to help steer the course away from business as usual. I remember back to those early 2000s documentaries and think that style of film is best left on the DVD shelf (remember those?). My favourite films follow examples of people around the world coming together to make great projects happen or explore fresh new ways of thinking, making an ecologically regenerative future feel not only possible but inevitable. They go beyond the facts and figures to telling incredible stories of community members and citizens that dare to give their dreams and ideas a go.
Whether watching alone, with family, at a ‘watch party’ with friends or colleagues or as part of a community screening these films will help you to feel part of a growing movement for positive change in the world.
Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective (2015, 92 mins)
Inhabit explores the many environmental issues facing us today and examines solutions that are being applied using the ecological design process called ‘Permaculture’. Permaculture is a design lens that uses the principles found in ecosystems to help shift our impact from destructive to regenerative. Focused mostly on the Northeastern and Midwestern regions of the United States, Inhabit provides an intimate look at permaculture peoples and practices ranging from rural, suburban, and urban landscapes.
Tomorrow: Take concrete Steps to a Sustainable Future (2015, 118 mins)
The documentary Tomorrow sets out to showcase alternative and creative ways of viewing agriculture, economics, energy and education. It offers constructive solutions to act on a local level to make a difference on a global level. Tomorrow is not just a film, it is the beginning of a movement seeking to encourage local communities around the world to change the way they live for the sake of our planet.
Living the Change (2018, 85 mins)
Sometimes it can feel like the environmental, economic and social issues the world is currently facing are too big, too overwhelming, to be dealt with by individuals. Climate change, resource limits, economic downturn, social disconnection. Surely these issues can only be properly managed by our governments? Living the Change explores solutions to the global crises we face today – solutions any one of us can be part of – through the inspiring stories of people pioneering change in their own lives and in their communities in order to live in a sustainable and regenerative way.
The New Peasants (2025, 66 mins)
This film shares the unfolding journey of a family rejecting the mainstream culture and working to create a new one. A culture and economy that draw on ways of the past while stepping joyfully into the future. For everything they’ve let go, something has been gained. With every challenge, something learned. This is one family’s response to the predicament of our time, offering an inspiring glimpse into the kind of future, culture, and economy we can create. This family’s way of living shows that transformative change begins at the home and community level and that we can all participate in creating a better world.
A Quest for Meaning (2015, 88 mins)
Two childhood friends travel the world to meet some of the greatest thinkers of our time. This incredible voyage, full of moments of doubt and moments of joy, will lead them to question the very beliefs that have shaped Western civilization. This film captures the change in human consciousness currently happening all over the planet, and the desire to live in harmony with oneself and the world.
We The Uncivilised: a life story (2017, 100 mins)
Disillusioned by a story of consumption and alienation, a newly-married couple are called to action. Carrying with them their unborn child, they embark on a year-long journey around the UK, in search of the seeds of an alternative story, and with it hope for the future.
Confronting the stark reality of our times, and the responsibility it calls forward in them, the film follows Pete and Lily on an intimate and life-changing journey as they discover a culture and people of land and place.
The Economics of Happiness (2011, 67 mins)
The Economics of Happiness features a chorus of voices from six continents calling for systemic economic change. The documentary describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. On the one hand, government and big business continue to promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, all around the world people are resisting those policies, demanding a re-regulation of trade and finance – and, far from the old institutions of power, they’re starting to forge a very different future. Communities are coming together to re-build more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm – an economics of localization.
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (2006, 53 mins)
The film is a reflection of the peak oil scenario argued by oil industry experts and political activists, including Matthew Simmons and James Howard Kunstler. Director Faith Morgan, together with the non-profit group The Community Solution, seeks to educate audiences about peak oil and the impact it will have on transportation, agriculture, medicine, and other industries.
The Sequel (2018, 61 mins)
From the beginning of the Earth to our present moment, this film encounters extraordinary projects and people from four continents, economist Kate Raworth, philosopher Roger Scruton and Gaian ecologist Stephan Harding.
Voices of Transition (2012, 65 mins)
Voices of Transition is an enthusiastic documentary on farmers- and community-led responses to food insecurity in a scenario of climate change and peak oil. How to create local resilience? How to create a production system that enhances life? What role could the trees play? Different ‘voices from the Transition’, from Cuba, France and the UK, tell us of a future society where our deserts will once again be living soil, where fields will be introduced into our cities, and where independence from oil will help us to live a richer, more fulfilling life.
Peter Duggan
Transition Dubbo
May 2026
Editor’s note: Since its inception in 2019 Transition Dubbo has hosted a monthly food + film night where they have hosted a number of documentary films all related to the goals of the Transition movement. We asked Transition Dubbo convenor Peter Duggan to provide a list of his favourite films they have hosted over the past 7 years.