Films
Founded in 1934, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a philanthropic, not-for-profit grant making institution based in New York City. Sloan's program in Public Understanding of Science, Technology & Economics supports various media to commission, develop, produce, and distribute new work mainstreaming science and technology to reach a wide, non-specialized audience. Watch award-winning Sloan short films here.
Oliver Sacks: His Own Life
A documentary exploring the life of neurologist and best-selling author Oliver Sacks—an old-fashioned polymath and natural historian who redefined our understanding of brain and mind.
One Man Dies a Million Times
Two Russian botanists in a besieged city must protect the invaluable edible specimens of a seed bank from their starving fellow citizens, enemy forces, rats, and each other.
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
A boy in Malawi helps save his village from famine by building a wind turbine after reading about them in a library book.
To Dust
A mourning Hasidic widower enlists a reluctant biology professor in his obsessive quest to understand what exactly will happen to his young wife's body as it returns to dust.
The Sound of Silence
A successful "house tuner" in New York City, who calibrates the sound in people's homes in order to adjust their moods, meets a client with a problem he can't solve.
First Man
The riveting story of NASA’s mission to land a man on the moon, focusing on Neil Armstrong and the cost—on Armstrong, his family, his colleagues, the nation—of one of the most dangerous missions in history.
Searching
In this thriller that unfolds entirely on computer screens, the desperate father of a missing 16-year-old girl breaks into her laptop to look for clues to find her.
The Catcher Was a Spy
The true story of Moe Berg: Major League Baseball player, Ivy League graduate, attorney who spoke nine languages...and top-secret spy who helped the U.S. beat Germany in the race to build the atomic bomb.
The Bit Player
A film about Claude Shannon, father of information theory: a playful genius whose name is largely unknown though his work revolutionized nearly every aspect of modern life.
The House of Tomorrow
A sheltered, socially-awkward teen living in a geodesic dome with his Buckminster Fuller-worshiping grandmother becomes friends with a green-haired heart transplant patient who introduces him to punk rock.
Sensitivity Training
A misanthropic scientist is forced into sensitivity training at work and forms an unlikely friendship with the bubbly woman assigned to be her coach.
Basmati Blues
A scientist creates genetically modified rice and is sent India to sell it to rural farmers.
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story
This documentary reveals the Hedy Lamarr hidden behind the famously beautiful Hollywood star's glamorous image: a technological trailblazer whose inventions form the basis of modern WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth systems.
Marjorie Prime
In the near future, in a time of artificial intelligence, 86-year-old Marjorie has a handsome new companion who looks like her deceased husband and is programmed to feed the story of her life back to her.
Hidden Figures
A team of African American women provide NASA with important mathematical data needed to launch the program's first successful space missions.
The Man Who Knew Infinity
A true story based on the life of math genius Srinivasa Ramanujan and Professor G.H. Hardy, who recognized Ramanujan’s brilliance despite the latter’s lack of formal training and education.
Operator
When a programmer is hired to create the ideal personality for an automated call center, his attempts to quantify what it means to be human throws his life into chaos.
Embrace of the Serpent
The story of the relationship between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and last survivor of his people, and two scientists who work together over the course of 40 years to search the Amazon for a sacred healing plant.
Experimenter
In 1961, famed social psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of radical behavior experiments that tested ordinary humans willingness to obey authority.
The Martian
When astronauts mistakenly leave Mark Watney behind on Mars, the stranded visitor must use his wits, spirit, and scientific know-how to find a way to survive on the hostile planet.
The Stanford Prison Experiment
In 1971, Stanford Professor Philip Zimbardo conducts a controversial psychology experiment in which college students pretend to be either prisoners or guards, but the proceedings soon get out of hand.
The Imitation Game
During World War II, mathematician Alan Turing tries to crack the enigma code with help from fellow mathematicians.
2030
In a near future Vietnam where global warming and rising seawater levels have forced cultivation to be done on floating farms, a strong-willed woman has to make a critical decision about her ex-lover, a suspect of her husband's murder.
I Origins
A molecular biologist and his laboratory partner uncover evidence that may fundamentally change society as we know it.