The 11 Best Movies About Trees

Every year, 24 hours are set aside for the appreciation and celebration of trees. That's Arbor Day in a nutshell. Nah, not those trees -- they're celebrated on 420 (and every other day, depending who you ask). Arbor Day is devoted to real trees -- redwoods, oaks, maple, etc. Not all of these movies are explicitly about trees but they are featured pretty prominently.






11. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

10. The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life is a philosophical movie in which middle-aged Jack, in the midst of an existential crisis, reflects back on his entire life -- especially his 1950s childhood and his relationship with his pops -- who he felt was too hard on him at the time.

The best scene is the opening, which takes you on a ride from the Big Bang through the creation of life to the time of dinosaurs on through to Jack as a kid in Waco, Texas.









9. FernGully: The Last Rainforest

FernGully is the movie that Avatar ripped-off. While that movie is set on another planet, FernGully takes place in an Australian rainforest. One of the primitive fairies who lives there, Crysta, has to stop a logging company and a pollution monster from cutting down all of the trees and destroying their way of life. Crysta's grandmother, Magi, is the queen of her tribe. Of course, Crysta meets a human dude who's brought into her world and she promptly saves his life. He actually works for the logging company but keeps that fact secret from Crysta and the rest of the fairies. The two of them fall for each other and the dude (Zak) decides to help the fairies drive the other humans away.









8. A Monster Calls

 

The monster in the story is a humongous yew tree that can talk. Not just three words like Groot, either. This thing is a storyteller.

Twelve-year-old Conor, whose mother is dying from cancer, is a captive audience to the tree's stories and he's warned that he'd better reciprocate with a story of his own -- or else. On top of all that, because mom is sick, Conor has to move in with his mean grandma and he gets beat up by the school bully on a daily basis. He just can't win.





 



7. The Happening

The Happening is a cautionary tale about the dangers of not being good to trees. If you haven't seen it, it's best that you know as little as possible going in. Jay-Z told you, "The Streetz is Watching." Well, maybe the woods are too. Watch yourself.









6. The Two Towers

The Two Towers is the middle of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Lots of new characters are introduced, including the king of the forest -- Treebeard. Sounds like a drunk up pirate but Treebeard aka Fangorn, is an Ent -- a 14-foot-tall walking tree. He may be what Groot would've been if he hadn't rebelled and agreed to be the sidekick of the raccoon version of Tommy from Goodfellas.

Treebeard ends up leading an army of thousands of trees in an attack against the wizard, Saruman, who's been threatening the forest. TB's not the type to wait for Smokey the Bear -- he gets his own hands (branches, I guess) dirty.

In case you were wondering, Towers isn't only about trees. There are plenty of dudes, wizards, orcs, elves and hobbits to go around too -- if you like that sort of thing. 









5. The Tree

After eight-year-old Simone witnesses her father's fatal heart attack, she comes to believe that his spirit resides in the Moreton Bay fig tree next to her house. After some initial skepticism, her mom and brother, Lou, are convinced as well.









4. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2

After sacrificing himself for the rest of the team in the first Guardians of the Galaxy, Groot started to regrow from a seed. This time around he's a sapling, fresh out the pot, and while not much help this time around (a good bit of his teammates' time is spent baby-sitting him), he's more fun to watch than ever.  









3. Guardians of the Galaxy

After I saw the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy, I had no interest in seeing it. But then, critics kept comparing the main character, Peter Quill, to Han Solo. Now, I love space action and The Force Awakens was more than a year away at that point, so I figured Guardians might be a good way to get a Star Wars fix in the meantime. Wrong. None of it reminded me of Star Wars or Han Solo.

But it wasn't all bad. The best thing about it is the bounty hunter team of Rocket and Groot, who are pretty funny. Rocket is a trash-talking raccoon with a short-man complex and Groot is a tree that walks and sort-of talks -- he only says three words. Groot turns out to be the biggest hero of the bunch too. He sacrifices himself to save the rest of the team.









2. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3

Unfortunately, the movie's resident tree, Groot, is less exciting and not as funny than he is in two of his previous appearances (Infinity War and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, respectively) but he does show off new abilities.

1. Infinity War

Groot almost helps to save the day in Infinity War. Almost, because intergalactic tyrant Thanos still manages to chalk up a "W" after Thor hits him with his new axe, which Groot helped to create. The teen twig donated a limb for use as Stormbreaker's (the axe) handle.





Updated 7/13/23

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