The Ecoterrorist's (Vegan) Cookbook
By: Chai Walla
If you’ve ever felt the urge to chain yourself to an imperiled tree / take to the sea to protest an oil rig / free the animals from the zoo / opt for the veggie burger, here is a grab bag of variously mischievous and subversive films to get you fired up – or just to facilitate meditation on the beauty of this whirling, green orb of ours.
It’s a bit splattercore but sometimes lists are just like that.

Not symbols or art objects, and far outside of the decelerated eroticism of Cockfighter and the belligerent non-eroticism of Cook/Thief (pictured), the rest of the animal kingdom are compatriots, the wilderness a wisecracking best friend and a headmaster. Westerns know this instinctively (the more hands-in-the-soil-rain-in-the-face, the better). Enough prattle, though – let’s have a quick word form Edward Abbey, spiritual granddaddy of the modern environmental guerrilla:
“We can have wilderness without freedom; we can have wilderness without human life at all, but we cannot have freedom without wilderness, we cannot have freedom without leagues of open space beyond the cities, where boys and girls, men and women, can live at least part of their lives under no control but their own desires and abilities, free from any and all direct administration by their fellow men.”
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01Stefan Jarl
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02Georges Franju
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03Mark Lewis
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04Werner Herzog
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05Louie Psihoyos
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06Laura Gabbert
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07David Miller
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08Ivko Šešić
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09Lim Woo-seong
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10Hayao Miyazaki
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11Robert Kenner
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12Philippe de Broca
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13Wes Anderson
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14Ilisa Barbash
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15Bill Kroyer
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16James Cameron
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17Alan Bridges
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18Werner Herzog
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19Nikolaus Geyrhalter
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20Apichatpong Weerasethakul
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21Frédéric Back
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22Chris Marker
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23Jennifer Baichwal
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24Carlos Saura
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25Davis Guggenheim
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26Jorge Furtado
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27Thomas Michael Donnelly
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28Mario Ruspoli
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29Michael Apted
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30Larry Fessenden
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31Steven Seagal
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32James B. Clark
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33Monte Hellman
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34Jean-Pierre Jeunet
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35Lloyd Kaufman
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36Joy Batchelor
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37Nick Broomfield
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38Wolfgang Petersen
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39Mike Nichols
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40Gregory Colbert
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41Lloyd Kaufman
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42Lloyd Kaufman
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43Lloyd Kaufman
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44Lloyd Kaufman
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45Emily Richardson
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46Tony Scott
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47Werner Boote
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48Jamie Uys
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49John Gilling
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50Michaël R. Roskam
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51Will Parrinello
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52Stefan Jarl
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53Ramin Bahrani
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54Josh Fox
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55Marshall Curry
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56Aris Bafaloukas
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57Mahesh Mathai
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58Joe Cross
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59Isabella Rossellini
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60Isabella Rossellini
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61Jason Eisener
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62Fredrik Gertten
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63Cao Hamburger
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64Henriette Mantel
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65Peter Fonda
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66Robert Bresson
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67Mark Kitchell
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68Denis Côté
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69Jason Cortlund
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70Briar March
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71Niccolo Bruna
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72Peter Whitehead
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73Pare Lorentz
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74Syrus Neshvad
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75Park Seon-uk
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76Nikolaus Geyrhalter
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77Toshi Fujiwara
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78Andrew Beck Grace
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79Pierre Perrault
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80Udo Maurer
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81Nina Hedenius
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82Pierre Perrault
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83Nicholas Ray
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84Imre Azem
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85Michel Brault
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86Dimitri Kirsanoff
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87Janina Lapinskaitė
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88Carroll Ballard
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89Hubert Sauper
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90Coline Serreau
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91Henri Safran
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92Mihai Grecu
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93Shira Potash
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94Adam Wakeling
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95Micha X. Peled
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96Ellen Goosenberg Kent
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97Mika Kaurismäki
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98Dario Novellino
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99Volkan Işıl
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100Pezhman Mazaheripoor
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101Aleksandar Manic
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102Lee Fulkerson
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103Fatih Akin
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104Elham Hosseinzadeh
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105Candida Brady
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106Jean-Michel Barjol
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107Luc Moullet