

Surviving Progress
2011-11-04 · 86 min · ★ 7.4
Humanity’s ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, “A Short History Of Progress” inspired “Surviving Progress”, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by “progress traps”—alluring technologies and belief systems that serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. As pressure on the world’s resources accelerates and financial elites bankrupt nations, can our globally-entwined civilization escape a final, catastrophic progress trap? With potent images and illuminating insights from thinkers who have probed our genes, our brains, and our social behaviour, this requiem to progress-as-usual also poses a challenge: to prove that making apes smarter isn’t an evolutionary dead-end.
Trailers are previews, not full movies.
No authorized playback source configured. Use the legal watch options below.
Production details
- Directors
- Harold Crooks, Mathieu Roy
- Production companies
- Big Picture Media Corporation, ONF | NFB
- Countries
- Canada
- Status
- Released
- Revenue
- USD 108,640
Top Cast
Stephen HawkingSelf
David SuzukiSelf
Jane GoodallSelfTitle information and images are supplied by TMDb. Explore our discovery guide for advice on comparing metadata and legal viewing options.
Where to watch
Availability provided by JustWatch via TMDb. Offers can change. Provider links are listed on TMDb; full playback requires a separately authorized source.
Streaming
OVID
Rental
Amazon Video
Free
Kanopy, Fawesome
With ads
The Roku Channel, Tubi TV
View authorized watch options on TMDbSeasons & episodes
Recommendations

David Attenborough and scientist Johan Rockström examine Earth's biodiversity collapse and how this crisis can still be averted.

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

A decade after An Inconvenient Truth brought climate change into the heart of popular culture comes the riveting and rousing follow-up that shows just how close we are to a real energy revolution. Vice President Al Gore continues his tireless fight, traveling around the world training an army of climate champions and influencing international climate policy. Cameras follow him behind the scenes—in moments private and public, funny and poignant—as he pursues the empowering notion that while the stakes have never been higher, the perils of climate change can be overcome with human ingenuity and passion.

A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.

A look at how climate change affects our environment and what society can do to prevent the demise of endangered species, ecosystems, and native communities across the planet.

David Attenborough takes viewers on a breathtaking journey showing there is nowhere more vital for our survival, more full of life, wonder, or surprise, than the ocean. Through spectacular sequences featuring coral reefs, kelp forests and the open ocean, Attenborough shares why a healthy ocean keeps the entire planet stable and flourishing.

Follow the shocking, yet humorous, journey of an aspiring environmentalist, as he daringly seeks to find the real solution to the most pressing environmental issues and true path to sustainability.

In the mountains of Sichuan, China, a researcher forms a bond with Qian Qian, a panda who is about to experience nature for the first time.

In Angola's mist-shrouded highlands, three KhoiSan master trackers embark on a spiritual quest to rediscover the legendary "ghost elephants" of Lisima, creatures presumed lost but remembered in ancestral trance, ritual, and memory.

Michael Moore comes home to the issue he's been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world).

Capturing Avatar is a feature length behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Avatar. It uses footage from the film's development, as well as stock footage from as far back as the production of Titanic in 1995. Also included are numerous interviews with cast, artists, and other crew members. The documentary was released as a bonus feature on the extended collector's edition of Avatar.

In 1974, Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky embarked on the quixotic project of adapting Frank Herbert's influential novel Dune (1969) for the big screen. After investing two years, and millions of dollars, the gigantic project ended in failure; but the artists Jodorowsky brought together to carry it out continued to work together, and ended up laying the foundations for modern science fiction cinema.

The vaquita, the world’s smallest whale, is nearing extinction as its habitat is destroyed by Mexican cartels and the Chinese Mafia, who harvest the totoaba fish, the “cocaine of the sea.” Environmental activists, the Mexican navy, and undercover investigators are fighting back against this illegal multimillion-dollar business.

Never-before-seen footage shows how our living in lockdown opened the door for nature to bounce back and thrive. Across the seas, skies, and lands, Earth found its rhythm when we came to a stop.

Interviews with leading authors, philosophers and scientists, with an in-depth discussion of the Law of Attraction. The audience is shown how they can learn and use 'The Secret' in their everyday lives.

Although first glance reveals little more than stones and sand, the desert is alive. Witness moving rocks, spitting mud pots, gorgeous flowers and the never-ending battle for survival between desert creatures of every shape, size and description.

A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.

A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions.

Sheds light on an alternative approach to farming called “regenerative agriculture” that could balance our climate, replenish our vast water supplies, and feed the world.

An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.
Similar titles

Follows the story of "Grizzly Man" Timothy Treadwell and what the thirteen summers in a National Park in Alaska were like in his attempt to protect the grizzly bears. The film is full of unique images and a look into the spirit of a man who sacrificed himself for nature.

A post in the debate on Swedish forestry highlighting the difficulties and consequences of a hard deforestation with fast-growing forest plantations and a devastating short-sightedness. The documentary shows the vulnerability in the transition to a fossil-free society where we become increasingly dependent on the forest as a natural resource.



One of the most important Kentuckians of the 20th century, Harry Caudill brought the story of Appalachia to national attention when his book “Night Comes to the Cumberlands” was released in 1963. The nonfiction account of Eastern Kentucky’s coal region, part history and part polemic, eloquently recounted the exploitation of Appalachia’s land and its people by business and government interests, and made Caudill a national spokesperson for his homeland. Harry Caudill spent his life advocating for Eastern Kentucky, with the aim of helping the powerless as well as securing the region’s unmatched natural resources for future generations. His work led to lasting government reforms for Appalachia, and his legacy remains a touchstone for activists today.

Unknown short stories from the past, the present and the future of fascism and its relation to the economic interests of each era. We will travel from Mussolini’s Italy to Greece under the Nazi occupation, the civil war and the dictatorship; and from Hitler’s Germany to the modern European and Greek fascism.

Documentary featuring contemporary interviews with 5 of the revolutionary activists who kidnapped US ambassador Charles Embrick in August 1969 in Rio de Janeiro and some of the political prisoners who were freed from prison in exchange of the ambassador's liberty and flown out of Brazil to Mexico in an army cargo airplane "Hércules 56".

Good Copy Bad Copy is a documentary about copyright and culture in the context of Internet, peer-to-peer file sharing and other technological advances.

On the 22nd of May 2021, around 100 Animal Rebels shut-down all four McDonald's distribution centers across the UK. Shutting down their factories for a total of 96 hours and disrupting over 1300 of McDonald's restaurants across the country.

Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created


Michael Moore comes home to the issue he's been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world).


At Arcata, California, testing technology for landing planes in fog. Also: a high-tech barber shop in Westwood Village, California; manufacture of precision steel gauge blocks in Eskilstuna, Sweden.
Rocky is the face of Astoria Pug; a micro composting operation in Astoria organized by Caren Tedesco and Lou E Reyes. In this "dogumentary", we see Rocky as boss as he takes us on a mini journey with food scraps

This documentary analyses the perverse monetary policies initiated before the euro inception. It focuses on the case of Spain and the terrible housing bobble that developed there.


A documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure that rules our nation and the world today. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money.

Conservation biologist Tim Shields sees urgency in the field and finds that traditional conservation practices are lacking when it comes to saving desert tortoise populations from ravens. He goes rogue, employing an arsenal of lasers, exploding model turtles, drones and desert rovers as a means of protecting the tortoise's dwindling numbers.

Documentary about the degraded rivers of Canterbury, New Zealand.