• The Phoenix
  • Posts
  • Don't Look Up didn't win Best Picture, but it's still a pretty great movie

Don't Look Up didn't win Best Picture, but it's still a pretty great movie

The cast of "Don't Look Up" at the movie's world premiere. (Netflix)

The Oscars just ended, and although tonight had a lot of drama, long-shot climate movie Don't Look up didn't win in any of the four categories it was nominated for. That's OK — Don't Look Up is still a movie worth celebrating for what it means: At last climate movies have hit the mainstream.

In my review when it came out back in December, I called it the climate movie I was waiting my whole life for.

Back in December I interviewed director-writer Adam McKay and screenwriter David Sirota, who had this to say:

I reached out to McKay and Sirota, and they both confirmed this hunch I had that the movie wasn't just a political satire, it was a gift for battle-weary activists after several long, hard years of struggle. "We literally made Don't Look Up for the climate community," McKay told me.

When I asked Sirota about the movie's lack of a preachy, prescriptive call-to-action takeaways at the end, he said that was intentional.

"We want it to be a clarion call for the movement," Sirota said, "But also respect that the movement should decide its tactics."

If you haven't already, you should watch the entire movie on Netflix:

Could the movie have been even better? Yes.

A few weeks ago, Netflix asked me (squeeee!!) and 13 other climate leaders from around the world to think up alternate endings to Don't Look Up.

Authentic climate action is way easier than shooting nukes at a comet -- it's treating each other and the Earth better. It's listening. It's building systems of power to replace the systems that have been built to kill us.

It's up to us, the climate movement, to redirect the energy that Don't Look Up gives us.

On Tuesday at 9PM ET / 6PM PT, I'll be chatting on Twitter Spaces with another of the people that Netflix invited to write new endings to the movie — Heather McTeer Toney, former regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama and current Vice President of Community Engagement at Environmental Defense Fund. We'll talk about the movie and our thoughts for where the climate movement might go in the post-Don't Look Up era.

I'll share a link for the conversation on Twitter as soon as I get it!

In the meantime, read all 14 endings here: