Celebrate Earth Day with some of these great films about our planet, its beauties and its challenges:

1. An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary makes a powerful case for the dire effects of climate change — and an even more powerful case for our ability to prevent more damage before it is too late.

2. Crude from director Joe Berlinger, shows the complexity of the legal issues surrounding international environmental exploitation.

3. Flow: How did a handful of corporations steal our water? The California drought makes this compelling documentary about corporate payoffs and abuses essential viewing. Director Irena Salina told me: “the World Bank knows how to spend $100 million but it does not know how to spend $1000 a million times. For me, that is the essence of the problem. That could not describe better what I’ve seen around the world.” You will never want to buy bottled water again.

4. Silent Running Douglas Trumbull, who created the special effects for “Star Wars,” “Blade Runner,” and many other movies, directed this outer-space story about a botanist caring for the last remnants of plant life from Earth. It features three of the most adorable robots in movie history, named after Donald Duck’s nephews: Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

5. Dora the Explorer – Save the Mermaids Even the youngest children can learn the importance of caring for our planet and there is no better way to begin than this Dora story about saving mermaid friends from a garbage-dumping octopus.