Part science class, part horror movie, part redemption arc for the guy who did (kind of) invent the internet.
Al Gore’s Powerpoint slideshow wins an Oscar.
Trailer for “An Inconvenient Truth”
Watch “An Inconvenient Truth”
You can watch “An Inconvenient Truth” for free (with library card) on Kanopy at https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/inconvenient-truth and Pluto TV (with ads) at https://pluto.tv/us/on-demand/movies/5bad6e86ac5d753a4b63db42
It’s also available for $ on Amazon Prime, Apple et al. You can find the latest streaming options at https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/an-inconvenient-truth
Ratings:
- My Rating: 92/100
- IMDB Rating: 7.4/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Ratings: 79/100 (Users); /100 (Critics)
Director’s Note — Davis Guggenheim directed this 100-minute doc. He’s known for “It Might Get Loud” (which I ranked 88/100), “He Named Me Malala,” “Waiting for ‘Superman’,” “From the Sky Down” and “Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates.”
He also produced “Summer of Soul” (which I ranked 95/100!) “Boys State,” and “Where’s My Roy Cohn?”—and has directed a sh*t ton of TV, including episodes of “Deadwood,” “24,” and “NYPD Blue.”
Release Date: January 24, 2006 (Sundance Film Festival); May 24, 2006 (theatrical release)
My Review of “An Inconvenient Truth”
The Setup
This documentary turns Al Gore’s climate change slideshow into a global wake-up call. It’s part science lesson, part personal memoir—showing how a former Vice President rebrands himself as an environmental crusader armed with a laptop and years of climate data.
You Can’t Make This Sh*t Up
- By the time of filming, Gore had given his slideshow over 1,000 times across the globe, often solo, with a laptop and a portable screen.
- In one scene, he rides a cherry picker up a giant graph to illustrate how sharply CO₂ levels have risen. Yes, he needed machinery to fit the spike on screen.
More Highlights from the Doc
- Gore studied CO₂ under Harvard professor Roger Revelle—one of the first scientists to measure atmospheric carbon—and later brought Revelle to testify in the first congressional hearings on global warming.
- The “hockey stick” graph shows CO₂ concentrations skyrocketing beyond anything in the past 650,000 years, based on ice core samples.
- Time-lapse glacier footage shows ice sheets vanishing in mere decades.
- Gore uses animations to simulate what would happen if the Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheets melted—drowning cities like Shanghai, Calcutta, and lower Manhattan.
- Personal moments add weight: Gore’s sister died of lung cancer, prompting his family to quit tobacco farming; his son’s near-fatal accident reshaped his urgency on climate action.
- The film won two Oscars (Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song) and helped Gore win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize alongside the IPCC.
Cameos
- Stephen Colbert mocks climate denial in a brief clip.
- NASA scientist James Hansen and Princeton’s Michael Oppenheimer appear as expert voices.
- Archival footage shows President George W. Bush dismissing climate reports.
Lesser-Known Details from the Doc
- Gore helped negotiate the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which the U.S. Senate later rejected 95-0.
- Footage from an early-1990s congressional hearing shows Gore publicly dismantling climate skeptic John Sununu—but political will stalled afterward.
- The original version of Gore’s presentation used carousel slide projectors before evolving into the digital keynote seen in the film.
- Guggenheim initially passed on the project, assuming it’d be boring—until he saw Gore present it live and changed his mind.
- The polar bear animation—showing bears drowning as they search for ice—was inspired by real reports of increased polar bear mortality due to melting Arctic sea ice.
Wrap Up
“An Inconvenient Truth” transformed climate change from a scientific debate into a public emergency.
It proved a slideshow—if done right—can win Oscars, a Nobel Prize, and maybe change the course of history.
Thanks for reading!
Rob Kelly, Chief Maniac, Daily Doc