Movies Like Amazonia: Healing with Sacred Plants

Attiuk

1963

The people of Unamenshipu (La Romaine), an Innu community in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, are seen but not heard in this richly detailed documentary about the rituals surrounding an Innu caribou hunt. Released in 1960, it’s one of 13 titles in Au Pays de Neufve-France, a series of poetic documentary shorts about life along the St. Lawrence River. Off-camera narration, written by Pierre Perrault, frames the Innu participants through an ethnographic lens. Co-directed by René Bonnière and Perrault, a founding figure of Quebec’s direct cinema movement.

Baraka

1992

A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.

My Mom Jayne

2025

Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.

Don Emilio and His Little Doctors

1982

Don Emilio is a humble, 63-year-old man who lives in the Amazon rainforest, seven miles from the city of Iquitos, Peru. For all of his adult life he has worked as a curandero and vegetalista, a traditional healer. He estimates that in his career he has treated more than 2,500 clients. Through the camera lens of anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna, Don Emilio tells us about his practice, his beliefs, his community, and his life. He shows us how he prepares ayahuasca and other herbal medicines. Finally, we see Don Emilio treat a man who has come to him for help, and hear from a poor woman who has brought her infant son for medical care.

Rätsel der Urwaldhölle

1938

Koyaanisqatsi

1983

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.

Earth: One Amazing Day

2017

An astonishing journey revealing the awesome power of the natural world. Over the course of one single day, we track the sun from the highest mountains to the remotest islands to exotic jungles.

Tears in the Amazon

2010

A documentary about environment destruction in the Amazon and the tribes living there. Produced for the 48th anniversary of MBC, Korea. A brilliant records of the itinerary for 250 days through the Amazon.

Being James Bond

2021

Daniel Craig candidly reflects on his 15 year adventure as James Bond. Including never-before-seen archival footage from Casino Royale to the upcoming 25th film No Time To Die, Craig shares his personal memories in conversation with 007 producers, Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.

Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth

2020

On the eve of Earth Day, a precocious seven-year-old learns about the wonders of the planet from his parents—and a mysterious exhibit at the aptly named Museum of Everything.

Burden of Dreams

1982

The Amazon rain forest, 1979. The crew of Fitzcarraldo (1982), a film directed by German director Werner Herzog, soon finds itself with problems related to casting, tribal struggles and accidents, among many other setbacks; but nothing compared to dragging a huge steamboat up a mountain, while Herzog embraces the path of a certain madness to make his vision come true.

Uncharted Amazon

2016

Deep in the jungles of Peru, a silky anteater is fighting to stay awake and a mother humming bird is struggling to raise her chick. Through millions of years of evolution they have developed bizarre relationships and unexpected strategies to overcome them changing conditions, but for all their ingenuity, they were never prepared for the arrival of a new species on the scene.

The Irishman: In Conversation

2019

Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino in conversation about The Irishman.

The Lost Children

2024

After a plane crash, four indigenous children fight to survive in the Colombian Amazon using ancestral wisdom as an unprecedented rescue mission unfolds.

Wildcat

2022

Back from war in Afghanistan, a young British soldier struggling with depression and PTSD finds a second chance in the Amazon rainforest when he meets an American scientist, and together they foster an orphaned baby ocelot.

Powaqqatsi

1988

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

The Last Shaman

2017

James, giving himself 12 months before he has "a license to kill himself," sets off to the Amazon rainforest with hopes of finding a shaman who can save his life.

Ainbo: Spirit of the Amazon

2021

An epic journey of a young hero and her Spirit Guides, 'Dillo' a cute and humorous armadillo and "Vaca" a goofy oversized tapir, who embark on a quest to save their home in the spectacular Amazon Rainforest.