The Best Documentaries About Oil

The best documentaries tackle the controversies and importance of oil, including how it affects different countries and regions, how it impacts the climate and environment, its complicated politics, and how much oil we must have to sustain our everyday lives. What are the best documentaries about oil? The oil industry affects the deepest parts of the environment and just about every nation in the world. Massive oil spills and related pollution have dominated news outlets for decades. Who doesn’t remember seeing image after image of animals covered from an oil spill?

This list discusses the best documentary films discussing the oil industry, including: Collapse, Crude, The End of Suburbia, Fuel, PetroApocalypse Now?, FrackNation, Pipe Dreams, and Gasline. Vote up the most educational and entertaining, and add any that are missing from the list.

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  • In 1956, geologist Marion King Hubbard proposed the peak oil theory: Once easily extractable oil reserves are depleted, demand will exceed supply and the natural-gas-dependent global economy will ...more
  • Collapse
    2
    Michael Ruppert
    10 votes
    • Released: 2009
    • Directed by: Chris Smith
    Independent American reporter Michael Ruppert is the subject of this documentary, which looks at how the ex-police officer managed to predict the massive Wall Street crash of 2008 years before it ...more

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  • The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
    3

    The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

    7 votes
    The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil is an American documentary film that explores the Special Period in Peacetime and its aftermath; the economic collapse and eventual recovery of Cuba ...more
  • Crude
    4
    Pablo Fajardo, Kent Robertson, Amy Goodman
    7 votes
    • Released: 2009
    • Directed by: Joe Berlinger
    In this documentary, director Joe Berlinger looks into a major environmental disaster in the Amazon, which involves the oil industry in Ecuador. While the film explores the human toll of the ...more
  • The Story of Petroleum
    5

    The Story of Petroleum

    4 votes
  • Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet
    6
    David Attenborough, Johan Rockström
    8 votes
    • Released: 2021
    • Directed by: Jon Clay
    Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet is a 2021 American documentary film directed by Jon Clay. David Attenborough and scientist Johan Rockström examine Earth's biodiversity collapse and how ...more