15 Best Gardening Movies of All Time

Plants, trees and flowers, someone’s beloved hobbies and passion, are often portrayed in movies, in a combination with a love story, family drama or even a mysterious horror. There have been many interesting movies dealing with gardening of various sorts of plants, with people’s love for Botanics and all the benefits it brings. This is a list of the 15 best gardening movies of all time.

1. Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

This Frank Oz musical classic is a comedy horror about a geeky florist who finds a way to find success with love and romance, in the most unusual of ways. Rick Moranis is Seymour Krelborn, a nerdy botanist who works at Mushnik’s, a flower shop in Skid Row.

Seymour has a crush on Audrey, his co-worker who sees him only as a friend. One day Seymour finds an interesting, mysterious plant he names Audrey II and soon discovers it is a flesh-eating monster craving for blood. Somehow, Seymour finds himself feeding it with people he doesn’t like but soon, he realises that his plant might be too dangerous even for him.

2. The Secret Garden (1993)

A beloved children’s book by Frances Hodgson Burnett has been made into this wonderful family movie about a young privileged girl who has been left an orphan after the death of her parents. Mary Lennox is sent from India back to England after her parents were killed in an earthquake.

She arrives at her uncle Lord Archibald Craven’s Estate where she is about to live until she turns 18. Mary likes her new home but she is eager to find something interesting to do and soon she befriends the sickly young Colin Craven and finds a secret garden.

3. Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (1992)

Samantha Mathis, Christian Slater and Robin Williams voiced the main protagonists living in the rainforest in this beautiful animated movie. It is a story about the fairies who are living in a peaceful place full of magic. 

They are all convinced humans don’t exist until a crazy bat tells them a story about humans who held him captive and tortured him. Even though completely terrified, most of the fairies don’t believe him, besides Crysta who decides to find out if humans are real and embarks on a journey that will broaden her horizons.

4. The Lorax (2012)

This interesting cartoon tells the story of a boy named Ted who hopes to win the heart of Audrey, the girl of his dreams. He lives in a town full of artificial things, with no flowers and plants and where even air is a commodity.

But when Audrey wishes to see a real tree, Ted will try to do everything to make her wish come true. He decides to find the old man living in the wasteland outside the city, a man who gave in to his greed for profits. Ted decides to undo the catastrophe but there is a big obstacle in form of the town’s mayor who is only looking for money, forgetting about natural beauties and real plants.

5. Greenfingers (2000)

This crime comedy-drama was based on true events and it introduces us to Colin Briggs, a prison inmate who discovers he has a talent for growing flowers. He is part of an experimental “open” prison where the inmates can walk around freely and get a job to pay off their crimes.

Briggs’ talent is recognised by a gardening guru who convinces him and four other inmates to enter a national gardening competition.

6. A Little Chaos (2014)

Directed by Alan Rickman, this beautiful romantic drama tells the story of a famous builder Le Notre who gets the task to build a gorgeous palace for King Louis XIV. Le Notre hires a skilful architect named Sabine de Barra to construct the outdoor ballroom.

He is soon captivated by her beauty and Sabine feels attracted to him but is struggling with her own demons, mostly concerning her past. While building the garden for the King, the two artists will find themselves in a relationship that might bring more bad things than good.

7. This Beautiful Fantastic (2016)

This is a romantic comedy-drama about Bella Brown, a young woman with obsessive-compulsive disorder. She dreams of writing a children’s book while working at the public library and has a problem with her fear of plants because of which she neglects the garden of her rented house.

When her landlord gives her one month to improve the garden, Belly will slowly start changing, meeting people who will turn her world upside down, such as her next-door neighbour, his doctor, her cook and housekeeper and an inventor who comes to her library. 

8. Bee Movie (2007)

This adventure comedy is an animated movie about a bee who discovers that humans eat honey and decides to sue them. Barry B.Benson is a college graduate who becomes aware that he is going to be doing the same job for the rest of his life.

Completely disappointed, he joins a group responsible for bringing the honey and pollination of the flowers since he wants to visit the world outside the beehive. There he meets Vanessa Bloome who tells him about how people exploit bees to sell the honey they produce.

9. The Martian (2015)

This brilliant sci-fi directory by Ridley Scott is a story about Mark Watney, an astronaut who finds himself lost and stranded on an unknown planet, without his crew and any kind of help. He will have to depend completely on himself and his wits and knowledge in order to find a way to signal to the Earth he is alive.

Back home, NASA and his fellow scientist are doing everything they can to bring their co-worker home who, in the midtime, discovers fascinating things about his new planet, plants and the way to grow potatoes in space.

10. Dare to be Wild (2015)

This romantic comedy is a lovely story inspired by true events about Mary Reynolds, a young landscape artist who wants to preserve wild nature. Being an outsider in Dublin’s wealthy society, Mary will have to cross a long way from a humble designer to the winner of a Gold Medal at the Chelsea Flower Show. 

Mary will try to do everything she can, even go on an adventure to find the only man who can help her, a man whose task is to make the desert bloom. In combination with a passionate woman who wants to change the world, this story will become successful against all odds.

11. Back to Eden (2011)

This is an interesting and extremely important documentary about Paul Gatschi, a man who got fed up with all the effects of man-made growing systems. The most vital issues in agriculture today include irrigation, fertilization and pest control, among many, and none of them exists in Paul’s world of plants and flowers.

Paul decided to go for sustainable organic growing methods that can be successfully implemented in various diverse climates around the world. He is teaching everyone who is interested the ways to make it work and stop causing more and more damage to our planet.

12. Tom’s Midnight Garden (1999)

Tom Long must stay with his aunt and uncle while his brother recovers from the measles. Staying at their flat, Tom is disappointed there is no garden he can spend time in but he soon discovers a magical garden which appears only at night when his old grandfather clock strikes thirteen.

Tom is enjoying his night visits to the garden, especially when he finds out that the people he meets there cannot see him, except a little girl named Hatty.

13. Master Gardener (2022)

This is an interesting thriller that brings Narvel Roth, a meticulous horticulturist to the centre of attention when he gets employed by a wealthy dowager Mrs. Haverhill to tend to her wonderful estate. But this isn’t the only thing she demands of him.

She orders him to take her troubled great-niece Maya as his apprentice and soon his life will get turned upside down when the secrets from his past begin to emerge.

14. Minari (2020)

This beautiful and touching drama will teach us the importance of farming but also the importance of a family. Jacob Yi dreams of having a small piece of land and so he decides to move his family from California to 1980 rural Arkansas to try and experience the American Dream.

But as beginnings are always difficult, Jacob also faces problems with selling Korean fruits and vegetables, but remains determined and convinced that he has found a slice of Eden in this unwelcoming Arkansas land.

15. The Gardener (2016)

Another documentary and a must-watch for everyone who wants to learn or simply know a bit more about gardening. It is about Frank Cabot’s Les Quatre Vents (Cabot Garden), a glorious private garden in the beautiful Charlevoix region near Quebec City.