''The 11th Hour'' is a 2007

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

on the state of the

natural environment The natural environment or natural world encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to the Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses ...

created, produced, co-written and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio. It was directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners and financed by Adam Lewis and Pierre André Senizergues, and distributed by

Warner Independent Pictures Warner Independent Pictures was an independent film division of the American film studio Warner Bros., itself a division of Warner Bros. Discovery, which then was known as TimeWarner. Established in August 2003, its first release was 2004's ' ...

. Its world premiere was at the 2007 60th Annual

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

(May 16–27, 2007) and it was released on August 17, 2007, in the year in which the Fourth Assessment Report of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

global warming panel

IPCC The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ...

was published and about a year after

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic no ...

's ''

An Inconvenient Truth ''An Inconvenient Truth'' is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate people about global warming. The film features a slide show that, by Gore's own e ...

'', another film documentary about

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

Synopsis

With contributions from over 50 politicians, scientists, and

environmental A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

activists, including former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, physicist Stephen Hawking,

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

winner

Wangari Maathai Wangarĩ Muta Maathai (; 1 April 1940 – 25 September 2011) was a Kenyan social, environmental and a political activist and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. As a beneficiary of the Kennedy Airlift, she studied in the Un ...

, journalist Armand Betscher, and

Paul Hawken Paul Gerard Hawken (born February 8, 1946) is an American environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, economist, and activist. Biography Hawken was born in San Mateo, California, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where his father worked at ...

, the film documents the grave problems facing the planet's life systems. Global warming,

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated ...

, mass species extinction, and depletion of the oceans' habitats are all addressed. The film's premise is that the future of humanity is in jeopardy. The film proposes potential solutions to these problems by calling for restorative action by the reshaping and rethinking of global human activity through technology,

social responsibility Social responsibility is an ethical framework in which an individual is obligated to work and cooperate with other individuals and organizations for the benefit of the community that will inherit the world that individual leaves behind. Social ...

and

conservation Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws. Conservation may also refer to: Environment and natural resources * Nature conservation, the protection and managem ...

Quotes

People interviewed

Kenny Ausubel Kenny Ausubel is a social entrepreneur, investigative journalist, and award-winning filmmaker. He launched the annual National Bioneers Conference in 1990 with Nina Simons. He has received the Buckminster Fuller Institute’s Challenge Award as wel ...

Thom Hartmann Thomas Carl Hartmann (born May 7, 1951) is an American radio personality, author, former psychotherapist, businessman, and progressive political commentator. Hartmann has been hosting a nationally syndicated radio show, ''The Thom Hartmann Pr ...

* Sandra Postel *

Paul Stamets Paul Edward Stamets (born July 17, 1955) is an American mycologist and entrepreneur who sells various mushroom products through his company. He is an author and advocate of medicinal fungi and mycoremediation. Early life Stamets was born in ...

David W. Orr David W. Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics Emeritus at Oberlin College, and presently Professor of Practice at Arizona State University. During his tenure at the Environmental Studies Center at O ...

* Stephen Hawking * Oren Lyons * Andrew C. Revkin * Sylvia Earle *

Janine Benyus Janine M. Benyus (born 1958) is an American natural sciences writer, innovation consultant, and author. After writing books on wildlife and animal behavior, she coined the term Biomimicry to describe intentional problem-solving design inspire ...

* Stuart Pimm *

Paolo Soleri Paolo Soleri (21 June 1919 – 9 April 2013) was an Italian-born American architect. He established the educational Cosanti Foundation and Arcosanti. Soleri was a lecturer in the College of Architecture at Arizona State University and a National ...

* David Suzuki *

James Hillman James Hillman (April 12, 1926 – October 27, 2011) was an American psychologist. He studied at, and then guided studies for, the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich. He founded a movement toward archetypal psychology and retired into private pract ...

* James Parks Morton *

Nathan Gardels Nathan Gardels (born December 22, 1952) is the editor-in-chief of Noema Magazine. He is also the co-founder of and a senior adviser to the Berggruen Institute. He previously served as editor-in-chief of The WorldPost, a partnership with The Wa ...

* Wes Jackson *

Joseph Tainter Joseph Anthony Tainter (born December 8, 1949) is an American anthropologist and historian. Biography Tainter studied anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley and Northwestern University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1975. he hol ...

* Richard Heinberg *

James Woolsey Robert James Woolsey Jr. (born September 21, 1941) is an American political appointee who has served in various senior positions. He headed the Central Intelligence Agency as Director of Central Intelligence from February 5, 1993, until January 1 ...

* Vijay Vaitheeswaran * Brock Dolman * Stephen Schneider * Bill McKibben * Peter de Menocal *

Sheila Watt-Cloutier Sheila Watt-Cloutier (born 2 December 1953) is a Canadian Inuk activist. She has been a political representative for Inuit at the regional, national and international levels, most recently as International Chair for the Inuit Circumpolar Counc ...

* Ray Anderson * Tim Carmichael * Omar Freilla * Wallace J. Nichols *

Diane Wilson Diane Wilson is an American environmental activist, an anti-war activist, and an author. In 1989, she was a shrimp boat captain in Calhoun County, Texas, and she saw an Associated Press article saying that the county had the most toxic waste dispo ...

Andrew Weil Andrew Thomas Weil (, born June 8, 1942) is an American celebrity doctor who advocates for alternative medicine including the 4-7-8 breathing technique. Early life and education Early years Andrew Thomas Weil was born in Philadelphia on June 8, ...

* Theo Colborn *

Jeremy Jackson Jeremy Dunn Jackson (born October 16, 1980) is an American actor and singer. He is best known for his role as Hobie Buchannon on the television show ''Baywatch''. Career Television Jackson appeared in 159 episodes of the TV series ''Baywatch' ...

* Tzeporah Berman * Gloria Flora * Mikhail Gorbachev * Thomas Linzey * Michel Gelobter *

Lester Brown Lester Russel Brown (born March 28, 1934) is an American environmental analyst, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and founder and former president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. B ...

* Herman Daly * Betsy Taylor * Wade Davis *

Jerry Mander Jerry Irwin Mander (born May 1, 1936) is an American activist and author, best known for his 1978 book, ''Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television''. In a more recent book, ''The Capitalism Papers'', Mander argues against capitalism as a ...

William McDonough William Andrews McDonough is an American architect, designer, and author. McDonough is founding principal of William McDonough + Partners, co-founder of McDonough MBDC, and co-author of '' Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things'' ...

Bruce Mau Bruce Mau D.Litt. (born October 25, 1959) is a Canadian designer and educator. He began his career a graphic designer and has since applied his design methodology to architecture, art, museums, film, eco-environmental design, education, and conc ...

* John Todd *Rick Fedrizzi *Greg Watson *

Leo Gerard Leo W. Gerard (born 1947) is a retired steelworker and Canadian and American labor leader. He was elected president of the United Steelworkers (USW) in 2001, becoming the second Canadian to head the union. He served in the role until July 2019. H ...

* Mathew Petersen * Peter Warshall *

Andy Lipkis TreePeople is an educational and training environmental advocacy organization based in Los Angeles, California. The TreePeople organization advocates and works to support a sustainable urban ecosystems in the Greater Los Angeles area through e ...

Environmental views

Experts interviewed underlined that everyone must become involved to reverse the destruction and climate change. The role of humans in the destruction of the environment is explained from the viewpoint of several different professional fields including environmental scientists, oceanographers, economic historians, and medical specialists. The many experts called upon in this documentary demonstrate a consensus concerning human-caused climate change, and the many other impacts of industrialization such as the dramatic loss of species (

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...

Critical response

In March 2008 ''The 11th Hour'' was awarded the Earthwatch Environmental Film Award at National Geographic in Washington, DC. The film received generally favorable reviews from critics, with a 67% "Fresh" rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on 94 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Well-researched and swimming in scientific data, this global warming documentary offers some practical and wide-ranging solutions to our climate crisis." It has an average score of 63% on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

based on 30 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Kevin Crust, a critic from the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'', rated the film highly:

References

External links

* (Moved t
Warner Bros. : MOVIES 11th Hour

Official Eleventh Hour Action site
*

(

E! Online E! (an initialism for Entertainment Television) is an American basic cable channel which primarily focuses on pop culture, celebrity focused reality shows, and movies, owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of NBCUniver ...

Article)
Vanity Fair Article

EarthLab.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:11th Hour, The 2007 in the environment 2007 films American documentary films Documentary films about environmental issues 2007 documentary films Films produced by Leonardo DiCaprio Documentary films about global warming 2000s English-language films 2000s American films