An Inconvenient Truth is an American documentary film about global warming, presented by former United States Vice President Al Gore and directed by Davis Guggenheim.[2] The film premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and opened in New York and Los Angeles on May 24, 2006. The film was released on DVD by Paramount Home Entertainment on November 21, 2006. A companion book by Gore, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, reached #1 on the paperback nonfiction New York Times bestseller list on July 2, 2006.[3] The documentary won Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and for Best Original Song. [4]
Earning $49 million at the box office worldwide, An Inconvenient Truth is the fourth-highest-grossing documentary film to date in the United States (in nominal dollars, from 1982 to the present), after Fahrenheit 9/11, March of the Penguins and Sicko.[5]
An Inconvenient Truth focuses on Al Gore and his travels in support of his efforts to educate the public about the severity of the climate crisis. Gore says, "I've been trying to tell this story for a long time and I feel as if I've failed to get the message across." The film closely follows a Keynote presentation (dubbed "the slide show") that Gore presented throughout the world. It intersperses Gore's exploration of data and predictions regarding climate change and its potential for disaster with Gore's life story.
It weaves in events that changed his world view, including his college education with early climate expert Roger Revelle at Harvard University, his sister's death from lung cancer and his young son's near-fatal car accident. For comic effect, Gore also uses a clip from the Futurama episode "Crimes of the Hot" to explain global warming. In an emotional scene, Gore refers to his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 United States presidential election as a "hard blow" yet subsequently "brought into clear focus, the mission [he] had been...