As environmental crises intensify, environmentally-motivated sabotage and violence (‘eco-tage’ and ‘eco-terrorism’) are likely to play a more prominent role in terrorism discourse. Building on research linking fictional depictions of political violence to public attitudes toward real-world instances, this article examines portrayals of eco-tage and eco-terrorism in influential fiction films from the past five decades. Contrary to claims that the media is too fragmented to shape opinion, it identifies consistent narrative patterns in these films with the potential to influence views on activism, legitimacy, and state repression. Analysing 32 commercially and culturally significant films released between 1972 and 2023 and applying Murray Smith’s Structures of Sympathy framework, the study identifies a strong negative correlation between the severity of violent acts and their moral justification, with more extreme violence typically portrayed as illegitimate. Commercially successful films tend to depict more severe violence, with binary depictions of heroes and villains most common, rather than morally complex portrayals. This narrative polarisation moderately correlates with box office performance and year of release, illustrating a broader trend towards reductive storytelling. This is the first study to systematically assess cinematic portrayals of environmental violence over time, offering a high-level typology to connect narrative trends with cultural and commercial dynamics. Identified groupings generate hypotheses for future research on the extent to which portrayals of environmental violence influence public perceptions, as well as how narrative framing in entertainment media shapes political attitudes and policy responses more widely.
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