Cli-Fi on the Screens

What is it about?

The article looks at how climate change has been represented in some sixty films over the past thirty years. These films, grouped by the climate impacts they depicts, are then evaluated by criteria provided by the secondary literature, especially the work on communicating climate change.

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Why is it important?

This is the most comprehensive study of cli-fi films to date. It is also one of the first to consider how the norms of film production--for made-for-TV B films as well as major theatrical releases--shape the depiction of climate change in these films. The article shows that (1) many more films have addressed climate change than previously thought, (2) most of these films fall into the disaster, apocalyptic, and dystopic genres, (3) these genres systematically distort the perception of climate change, (4) some of the best and most explicit engagements with climate change occur earlier in the period reviewed, and (5) later films are more guarded ("climate change" is not named) or more cynical (they suggest that action on climate change is more dangerous than climate change itself).

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