The Top 10 Best Movies To Watch To Celebrate National Arbor Day

As holidays go, Arbor Day doesn’t get enough love. Trees are essential for human survival, they are beautiful and complex living beings that provide us with food, shelter, and so much more. So in what is a long overdue movie list, here are the top 10 best films to watch for Arbor Day.

To be clear, this list is for National Arbor Day, the last Friday of April, which is on April 29th this year. Some states have their own Arbor Days as well, most of them in April but a few in other months. I chose to use National Arbor Day because it’s a single date everywhere in the country, and because it’s in April a week after Earth Day, making April feel appropriate for a one-two punch of environmental themes.

My criteria for the list is mostly that the films must feature trees in an important role representing larger themes and aspects of the story, and the films must fit alongside the other entries on the list as good films to watch on their own merits as well as collectively and in appreciation for their tree/environmental themes.

Now, without further ado, here are the top 10 best movies to watch for celebrating Arbor Day this year. I’ll be back with a separate list for Earth Day, so be sure to check this space again soon!

The Fountain — Three overlapping narratives about the mythical tree of life, each a love story about a man and woman for whom the tree is both literal and metaphorical salvation, a testament to love that grows and lasts forever across time and space.

The Tree of Life — A meditation on how our search for purpose amid love, loss, and grief teaches us even the most mundane or tragic lives give meaning to our Gods and our universe. We are the meaning, we are part of the tree, a simple but defining truth.

Poltergeist — A negative yet spectacular portrayal, and a powerful statement about forces of nature that shape childhood fears and dreams, silent and still for decades or centuries before one day — a storm, a fire, gravity? — felling a house or a life.

Guardians of the Galaxy — Trees as an expression of goodness and shared experience, blossoming with love and togetherness, manifested as sturdy and timeless, able to grant and preserve life. “We are Groot” is a lovely slogan for Arbor Day.

The Lorax — Only the documentary film on this list has a more overt pro-tree message, but this is perhaps the most well-known and long-lived story about respecting and saving the trees, and the need for us to speak out for them.

The Hidden Life of Trees — This documentary will shock you with its revelations about how trees interact with one another, form communities and help each other, and deserve far greater respect and protection than we’ve been willing to provide for them.

The Green Knight — Reimagining the Arthurian tale’s expression of nature at odds with civilization, revealing the conflict exists because we try, with walls and wealth and status, to separate ourselves from nature, an impossibility for us as creatures of nature.

Avatar — Our connection to the natural world, and the importance of preserving that world and connection, drive a thrilling narrative that has many influences but combines them into something fresh, resonant, and awesome to behold.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers — While not the central focus on the film, Treebeard and the Ents (which sounds like the name of a New Zeland folk band) are crucial to the story and help defeat Sauron’s forces.

A Monster Calls — If Guardians of the Galaxy was just an imaginary story in Quill’s mind to help him face his mother’s death in an otherwise harsh and realistic world, it would be A Monster Calls.

So there you have it, dear readers, my list of the top 10 best movies to watch on Arbor Day. I hope there are a few on the list you haven’t seen yet and will give a look. And be sure to watch for my list of the best films for celebrating Earth Day later this month.