The Botany of Desire

Oct 28, 2009

1h 56m

★ 6.4

A plant's-eye view of the world

Overview

Featuring Michael Pollan and based on his best-selling book, this special takes viewers on an exploration of the human relationship with the plant world — seen from the plants' point of view. Narrated by Frances McDormand, the program shows how four familiar species — the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato — evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication.

Genres

Documentary

The Botany of Desire Trailers

Cast

Narrator (voice)

Frances McDormand

Self

Michael Pollan

How safe is the future of the world’s food? This documentary explores a growing crisis in world agriculture. Plant breeding has created today’s crops, which are high yielding but vulnerable to disease and insects. To keep crops healthy, breeders tap all the genetic diversity of the world’s food plants. But that rich resource is quickly being wiped out. (NFB)

0.0

Flyway of Life

Apr 25, 2025

The Atlantic Flyway, the easternmost migration path in North America, is among the most vital ecological phenomenons in the world. Join explorer Tomas Koeck as he examines several unlikely relationships along this massive migratory chain.

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0.0

The New Green Giants

Mar 31, 2012

The last ten years have seen a phenomenal explosion in the organic food movement as it has moved from niche market to mainstream. Today, it is the fastest growing segment of the food industry attracting all of the major food corporations. THE NEW GREEN GIANTS looks at a number of these new and old organic corporations and shows how they are managing, or in some cases, failing to live up to the idealistic dreams first espoused by the back-to-the land folk of the late sixties and early seventies. The documentary also looks at some of the bigger questions surrounding organic food. Is it really healthier? Is it truly organic? Is it possible to grow from a mom-and-pop operation to become a huge supplier of major grocery chains? Is it actually sustainable? Is it realistic to think the world can be fed organically?

3.8

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Apr 18, 2008

Pro-intelligent design scholars and scientists are often chastised, fired or denied tenured positions by those who believe in Darwin's theory of evolution.

0.0

CA. CA. (Cannibal Carnival)

May 20, 2023

A festival of digestion on many scales, from planetary to microbial.

0.0

Chop, Chop, Chop

May 20, 2023

Care work, awareness-raising, waste reduction. Thieboudienne, chaufa, paella. What do these recipes have in common? Who cooks them? Where?

7.0

Let There Be Light

Mar 10, 2017

Let There Be Light follows the story of dedicated scientists working to build a small sun on Earth, which would unleash perpetual, cheap, clean energy for mankind. After decades of failed attempts, a massive push is now underway to crack the holy grail of energy.

6.0

Pyramid

Oct 28, 2002

Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Pyramid is the only one to survive. Many believe that even with our 21st-century technology, we could not build anything like it today. Based on the most up-to-date research and the latest archaeological discoveries, here is how the Pyramid came to be.

7.2

Another World

Mar 15, 2014

A feature documentary about the journey of mankind to discover our true force and who we truly are. It is a quest through science and consciousness, individual and planetary, exploring our relationships with ourselves, the world around us and the universe as a whole.

7.5

Planet Food: Spice Trails

Feb 20, 2012

In this remarkable journey, Planet Food travels the world to see how control of the spice trails, over the last five millennia, has made great cities and destroyed ancient civilizations. Our guides travel from the Molucca Islands of Indonesia, the original home of cloves and nutmeg, to the Indian province of Kerala, with its native pepper and cardamom. Additional stops include Venice, Beirut, Cairo and other significant places in the spice trade that created and toppled empires.

7.5

The Dream Is Alive

Jun 1, 1985

The Dream Is Alive takes you into space alongside the astronauts on the space shuttle. Share with them the delights of zero gravity while working, eating and sleeping in orbit around the Earth. Float as never before over the towering Andes, the boot of Italy, Egypt and the Nile. Witness firsthand a tension-filled satellite capture and repair and the historic first spacewalk by an American woman.

6.7

Food Matters

Oct 8, 2010

With nutritionally-depleted foods, chemical additives and our tendency to rely upon pharmaceutical drugs to treat what's wrong with our malnourished bodies, it's no wonder that modern society is getting sicker. Food Matters sets about uncovering the trillion dollar worldwide sickness industry and gives people some scientifically verifiable solutions for curing disease naturally.

4.5

Aphrodisiac: The Love Secret

Nov 5, 1971

A documentary examining the use of marijuana by young people in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Included are interviews with people who regularly use marijuana and testify to its beneficial effects as an aphrodisiac and scenes of nude encounter groups, instructions for making marijuana brownies, soldiers in Vietnam smoking marijuana, etc.

0.0

Food ReLOVution

Jan 14, 2017

“Food Relovution: What We Eat Can Make A Difference” is an eye-opening and compelling feature documentary that examines the consequences of the meat culture as concerns grow about health, world hunger, animal welfare and the environmental cost of livestock production. It aims to show how these global issues affect everyone and are interrelated, and how making our food choices with a sense of awareness, knowing what we are buying and what we are eating is the first fundamental step towards a better world.

7.2

Heal

Oct 20, 2017

A documentary film that takes us on a scientific and spiritual journey where we discover that by changing one's perceptions, the human body can heal itself from any disease.

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5.2

War on Drugs: The Prison Industrial Complex

Oct 7, 1999

The war on drugs has been going on for more than three decades. Today, nearly 500,000 Americans are imprisoned on drug charges. In 1980 the number was 50,000. Last year $40 billion in taxpayer dollars were spent in fighting the war on drugs. As a result of the incarceration obsession, the United States operates the largest prison system on the planet. Today, 89 percent of police departments have paramilitary units, and 46 percent have been trained by active duty armed forces. The most common use of paramilitary units is serving drug-related search warrants, which usually involve no-knock entries into private homes.

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9.5

Eating

May 14, 2004

Eating, 2nd Edition: Introducing The RAVE Diet presents graphic evidence of how animal foods are not meant for human consumption, and how the suffering and death of the animals "takes revenge" on the humans who eat them by causing most of our chronic diseases, and how the switch to a all whole-food plant based diet can begin to reverse many of these diseases in as little as three weeks.

7.5

Way Beyond

Oct 5, 2022

The Future Circular Collider is the machine of the future. Thanks to it, we will finally be able to go back in time to the origin of our universe. But which way do we go to set up the largest scientific instrument of all time? Between metaphysics and underground tunnels, a story of the preparations or how men are ready to move mountains for more knowledge.

7.3

The Game Changers

Sep 16, 2019

From the UFC Octagon in Las Vegas and the anthropology lab at Dartmouth, to a strongman gym in Berlin and the bushlands of Zimbabwe, the world is introduced to elite athletes, special ops soldiers, visionary scientists, cultural icons, and everyday heroes—each on a mission to create a seismic shift in the way we eat and live.

0.0

Life 2,000 Meters Under the Sea

Jun 23, 2014

Deep down at the bottom of the ocean lies the mysterious world of the abyss. In the midst of boiling, toxic geysers, a rich ecosystem flourishes. This miracle is possible thanks to bacteria, micro-organisms crucial to all living beings. How can bacteria survive in such extreme conditions?

The Botany of Desire

Overview

Genres

The Botany of Desire Trailers