Common Ground

Audience Reviews

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Jonathan B Packed with great information and storytelling! Stunning visuals, amazing narration, clear explanations. This movie is sobering, practical, hopeful and inspiring, all at the same time. Ill be watching it again! Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 12/08/23 Full Review Heather Finally, a movie that doesnt just tell us everything weve done to destroy our planet with ominous warnings of doom if we dont do something to change but a thoughtful, easy to understand, well laid out and clear SOLUTION. This film should be played in every high school in the country. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 10/11/23 Full Review Christie S SO IMPORTANT for humanity's future! Everyone should watch this well-done documentary. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 08/15/25 Full Review Nat R Definitely a must watch Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 08/03/25 Full Review Isaiah A Gabe Brown stands between two fields. To his left is a vast expanse of lifeless dirt. To his right, a sprawling field of perennial pastures and verdant trees. On his neighbor’s plot, wind has eroded away the healthy topsoil, leaving the ground desolate and bare. On his own land, a line of trees and robust crops ensure that the soil holds firm. The difference between these two fields – industrial farming versus regenerative soil management – could decide the fate of humanity. Before discovering this film, I, like many others, had no concept of the severity with which conventional agriculture damages our health and our environment. Common Ground reveals how agro-industrial chemicals and tillage damage the microbial biome in the soil and reduce the nutritional content of the food we grow. What’s more, carcinogenic chemicals leach into our food, damaging our health and the health of future generations. While at first this news shocked and disheartened me, the film soon revealed how the very methods that made Gabe Brown’s field green even while his neighbor’s land remained desolate are the same methods that do away with harmful tillage and chemicals. These soil-healthy practices include growing cover crops and conducting managed grazing with livestock. By working in tandem with nature, rather than against it, these methods ensure that strong, healthy plants grow to feed strong, healthy humans. Collectively known as regenerative agriculture, this soil-conscious approach to farming not only prevents the loss of the soils we need to feed the world, but also draws carbon out of the atmosphere, mitigating and even reversing the adverse effects of climate change! The documentary reveals how, if embraced on a large enough scale, regeneration might make the difference between ecological disaster and human flourishing. Longtime eco-documentarians Joshua and Rebecca Tickell bring together an all-star team of soil health advocates and celebrities. Familiar faces such as Rosario Dawson, Jason Momoa, and Laura Dern, whose sobering narrations paint a harrowing yet impassioned picture of how we can change. Meanwhile, down-to-earth farmers like Rick Clark, Glenn Elzinga, and Alejandro Carillo deliver first-hand experience implementing these methods, and reaping benefits both ecological and financial. The Tickells do an impeccable job balancing a diverse collection of voices, channeling them all into one beautiful and harmonious call to action. Before seeing this film, I was prone to despair for the future of our planet. But after seeing how regeneration has healed places like Salmon Idaho and Chihuahua Mexico, it’s difficult not to imagine how great a difference we can make if we act now. This is a film I will definitely be revisiting again as a reminder of how I can do my part in making the future just a little brighter, a little cleaner, and a little greener for generations to come. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 07/18/25 Full Review Joshua H If you drive by a small cornfield, you wouldn’t think much of it. It’s just a small field, with a small barn. What more is there to understand? Well, through directors Joshua and Rebecca Tickell’s vision, the documentary Common Ground has opened my mind and understanding on how a tiny farm can play a huge role in environmental health. With the harming practices of modern agriculture, directors Joshua and Rebecca Tickell present perhaps the most powerful tool that heals environmental health. And we are standing right on top of it. Soil can play a huge role in not just improving our world’s health, but also improving our lives in the process. Regenerative agriculture is the key that the documentary represents, the process of working with nature to benefit our lives but also enhancing the world’s health like reducing the carbon in the atmosphere and maintaining water cycles. The documentary takes the audience on a journey all across America -even in Mexico- to gain unique insights from soil experts and regenerative farmers to experience the power of regenerative agriculture. Regenerative rancher Alejandro Carillo shows how he reshapes desert landscapes from an endless sea of sand into thriving green fields just from using cow poop. Rancher Roy Thompson was able to heal his Crohn’s disease through eating natural grown produce he grows from regenerative practices without the use of pesticides. And we even see Mia Vaughnes helping her neighbors grow natural produce in their own backyard so they can have their own supply of nurturing produce. The directors also pull the curtain back on how agrochemical companies truly run our food supply. We get to see how far the agrochemical companies reach within the educational and agricultural business systems from filling the pockets of politicians to creating a cycle of money flowing back to them from farmers. They spread misinformation while benefiting the damage from those same misinformation. Zianna Milito’s detailed animation helps visualize the explanations so an audience member can follow and understand. It feels at moments that I was part of the explanation with the camera flowing with the carbon dioxide through tree roots and swimming in a cluster of microorganisms underneath the soil. The Tickell’s also wrote fantastically for the documentary, breaking down the scientific explanations into easy digestible sentences for the audience. They did a great job selecting subjects for the documentary, such as Gabe Brown and Roy Thompson. Despite the different backgrounds, all interviewees share the same sincerity of speech, engaging the audience with the narrative. The celebrity cast like Laura Dern, Jason Momoa, and Rosario Dawson bring an earnest and hopeful delivery in their narration during the documentary. But the documentary's greatest strength is in how well it balances the tone. For somber moments, Ryan Michael Demaree’s score quiets down as a single guitar is played over the slower shots of the documentary highlighting the seriousness of the scene. But depressing the audience is not the goal. The documentary naturally integrates colorful thriving environments and the score uplifts to a hopeful melody that sparks the hope within their audience. Regenerative agriculture doesn’t just heal the world, it can heal our health and our future generation’s health to come. Common Ground is not just a hidden gem on Amazon. It has elevated itself to a piece of art that delivers a critical environmental message and hope that change is possible. It is never too late to change our way for the future. And the future for that tiny cornfield. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 07/18/25 Full Review Read all reviews

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