The Secret Life of Plants

December. 09,1979      G
Rating:
7.2
Trailer Synopsis Cast

A documentary about the study of plant sentience with original music by Stevie Wonder. Utilizing time-lapse photography, the film proposes that plants are able to experience emotions and communicate with the world around them.

John Ashley Hamilton as  Himself (as Ashley Alexander)
Eartha Robinson as  Black Orchid

Similar titles

Red Planet
Red Planet
Astronauts search for solutions to save a dying Earth by searching on Mars, only to have the mission go terribly awry.
Red Planet 2000
Spider-Man 2
Starz
Spider-Man 2
Peter Parker is going through a major identity crisis. Burned out from being Spider-Man, he decides to shelve his superhero alter ego, which leaves the city suffering in the wake of carnage left by the evil Doc Ock. In the meantime, Parker still can't act on his feelings for Mary Jane Watson, a girl he's loved since childhood. A certain anger begins to brew in his best friend Harry Osborn as well...
Spider-Man 2 2004
Stalag 17
Stalag 17
It's a dreary Christmas 1944 for the American POWs in Stalag 17 and the men in Barracks 4, all sergeants, have to deal with a grave problem—there seems to be a security leak.
Stalag 17 1953
Silent Running
Silent Running
After the entire flora goes extinct, ecologist Lowell maintains a greenhouse aboard a space station for the future with his android companions. However, he rebels after being ordered to destroy the greenhouse in favor of carrying cargo, a decision that puts him at odds with everyone but his mechanical companions.
Silent Running 1972
Ten Ways The World Will End
Ten Ways The World Will End
There are endless gruesome ways that the world could end; through nasty, natural disasters or because of some man-made abomination. From maniac killer robots and super volcanoes, to an alien invasion and mutant psycho humans, all options are covered in Ten Ways the World Will End.
Ten Ways The World Will End 2005
The Remains of the Day
Paramount+
The Remains of the Day
A rule bound head butler's world of manners and decorum in the household he maintains is tested by the arrival of a housekeeper who falls in love with him in post-WWI Britain. The possibility of romance and his master's cultivation of ties with the Nazi cause challenge his carefully maintained veneer of servitude.
The Remains of the Day 1993
Junior
Starz
Junior
A research scientist becomes the world's first pregnant man in order to test a drug he and a colleague have designed for expectant women. To carry out the trial, he has an embryo implant, believing that he will only carry the baby for three months – hardly expecting to face the prospect of giving birth.
Junior 1994
Century
Prime Video
Century
Turn-of-the-century love story centered around a young doctor and the emergence of modern science.
Century 1993
Alien
Prime Video
Alien
During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortunate host is birthed.
Alien 1979
Unrest
Unrest
When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s "all in her head." Determined to live, she sets out on a virtual journey to document her story—and four other families' stories—fighting a disease medicine forgot.
Unrest 2017

Reviews

Evengyny
1979/12/09

Thanks for the memories!

... more
FeistyUpper
1979/12/10

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

... more
Baseshment
1979/12/11

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

... more
Frances Chung
1979/12/12

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

... more
paul-shankwiler
1979/12/13

I saw this movie in the mid 1980's in Berkeley. I found it at times incredibly touching, at other times uproariously funny. I left the theater convinced that plants are sentient beings who experience love, pain, and loss. My conviction and enthusiasm have waned over the years, but I still sometimes feel a twinge of guilt when I bite into a stick of celery. My son is now in fourth grade and wants to do a science experiment for school in which he tests whether or not plants that are talked to grow better than plants who are emotionally neglected. I think this film would be informative and helpful for him, but I can't find a copy anywhere. Does anyone know how I can borrow or rent a copy?

... more
smichal
1979/12/14

The Secret Life of Plants is a fascinating documentary featuring time lapse photography, historical film clips, and the music of Stevie Wonder. The best parts were the scientific experiments where people all over the world hooked up various plants to oscilloscopes, lie detectors, etc. to see if they feel pain, fear, etc. The film tries to prove that there is some sort of global consciousness. I don't really believe that, but am still amazed by the results of the experiments. For instance, a cabbage had a reaction when smokers blew smoke at it. In another test, an office plant hooked up to a lie detector started reacting when its owner thought of burning it.

... more
mrboo
1979/12/15

I saw this Paramount flick quite a few times, back when I was a projectionist just out of high school at the local art movie house, (this was circa 1982). I remember it being a mixture of dry documentary stuff and wonderful musical bits. Of the docu part I remember a scene where they hook a plant up to electrodes and measure it's sensitivity while they chop a head of lettuce in front of it (the plant freaks out on the machine's readout). I also remember a cool time lapse sequence with flowers blooming while they play "Here Come's The Sun". And the bits with Stevie Wonder wondering through a field of flowers was cool (and comical, as there was nothing for him to bump into). I've searched for years for this on video but I'm sure it's held up in musical right's limbo (that and the fact that no one's ever heard of it).

... more
zherzog
1979/12/16

I saw this movie with my wife many years ago in a small theater in Baltimore, Maryland, after hearing the great soundtrack. I have tried unsuccessfully to purchase/sees any copy of it via the producer, distributor to no avail. Other viewers/fans unite! contact me.

... more