Patrice Taddonio: 10 Documentaries on the Science, Politics and Impact of Our Changing Climate

In the FRONTLINE documentary Alaska’s Vanishing Native Villages, residents of a coastal Alaska Native community called Hooper Bay confront a dilemma.

Their way of life relies in part on harvesting food directly from the sea. But as the documentary explores, flooding, erosion, warming temperatures and thawing permafrost are forcing conversations about relocating to higher ground.

“This climate change thing is wreaking havoc,” says Agatha Napoleon, the climate change coordinator for one of the Alaska Native tribes that lives in Hooper Bay.

Alaska’s Vanishing Native Villages, a collaboration with the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University, premiered on April 22, 2025. The following month, FRONTLINE aired a new joint investigation with NPR, Hurricane Helene’s Deadly Warning. Building on a decade of reporting on disasters and their aftermath, the documentary investigates how Helene — whose floods caused death and destructioneven in inland, elevated areas — became an ominous warning about America’s lack of preparedness for climate change-related storms.

These two films are the latest installments in FRONTLINE’s years of documentaries on the science, politics and impact of climate change — from early research into climate change by fossil fuel companies, to the organizations that fought the scientific establishment to shift the climate conversation in the U.S., to the role of climate change in deadly American wildfires.

Explore a selection of these documentaries below.

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Hurricane Helene’s Deadly Warning (2025)

An examination of Hurricane Helene’s aftermath in North Carolina, and how and why the U.S. is more vulnerable than ever to climate change-related storms.

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Alaska’s Vanishing Native Villages (2025)

A look inside Alaska Native villages fighting for survival against climate change.

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Maui’s Deadly Firestorm (2024)

A documentary investigating the deadliest American wildfire in a century, and how changes to the climate and landscape have made Maui increasingly vulnerable to fires.

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The Power of Big Oil (2022)

This three-part documentary series investigates the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long history of casting doubt and delaying action on climate change. Part One: Denial charts the fossil fuel industry’s early research on climate change, investigating industry efforts to sow seeds of doubt about the science:

Part Two: Doubt explores the industry’s efforts to stall climate policy, even as evidence about climate change grew more certain in the new millennium:

Part Three: Delay follows the rise of natural gas and examines the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations’ actions on climate change:

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Fire in Paradise (2019)

A film on the 2018 Camp Fire, California’s deadliest-ever wildfire, that examines contributing factors, including climate change.

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The Last Generation (2018)

With The GroundTruth Project, an interactive exploration of climate change as seen through the eyes of three children living in the Marshall Islands, a nation threatened by rising seas.

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Greenland Melting 360° (2018)

A 360-degree documentary set amid Greenland’s melting glaciers, from FRONTLINE, NOVA, Emblematic Group, X-Rez Studio and Realtra.

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War on the EPA (2017)

A documentary examining how the antiregulatory movement in America gained power.

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Exxon Researched Climate Change in 1977 (2015)

A short documentary about Exxon’s early research into climate change, produced in collaboration with InsideClimate News.

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Climate of Doubt (2012)

A look inside the organizations that fought the scientific establishment to shift the direction of the climate debate.

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Patrice Taddonio is Senior Digital Writer, FRONTLINE