Wind Energy / Wind Turbines in movies

August 28, 2015 6:48 AM

I am looking for as many examples of wind energy in movies as possible. No limits in terms of country of origin, language, genre, etc.

I'm primarily looking for modern wind turbines (three bladed but any others as well) but happy to have old style ones also. Don't worry about it being on Netflix or similar. I am looking for representations of wind energy to inform an academic paper I am planning to write.

I would be more than happy to receive feedback on this question via memail should anyone spot a wind turbine in a film in the future, I suspect I will be looking for a fair bit longer.

I asked a similar question some time ago but have been thinking it through further and narrowed it down to wind energy specifically, I just need more examples to be able to examine a thesis I have been developing.

posted by biffa to Society & Culture (21 answers total)

Best answer: There is a wind turbine field in the background of one of the scenes in Rain Man. (Tom Cruise, 1988)
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 7:27 AM on August 28, 2015

Best answer: Maybe not a great fit, but there's a sequence in Big Hero 6 where they fly through a cluster of floating wind turbines above San Fransokyo.
posted by that's candlepin at 7:27 AM on August 28, 2015

Best answer: Mission Impossible III - Helicopter gets chopped by a blade.
posted by guy72277 at 7:34 AM on August 28, 2015

Best answer: The ending of Less Than Zero.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:40 AM on August 28, 2015

Best answer: A scene from 28 Days Later was filmed at a wind farm.
posted by seasparrow at 7:48 AM on August 28, 2015

Best answer: Searching Google with "Wind Turbine" "Movie Review" I get the following.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - There's a boy with a Wind Turbine

The Last Mountain Documentary - Kennedy visits a Wind Tunnel on Rhode Island - apparently a heavenly shot.

The Dead 2: India - Involves an American Wind Turbine Engineer - Must be shots of Turbines.

I guess you could try a Google search for - site:imdb.com "wind turbine"
posted by guy72277 at 7:59 AM on August 28, 2015

Watch any Danish film and there is a pretty good chance you'll see a wind turbine.
posted by ssg at 8:11 AM on August 28, 2015

Best answer: At Any Price with Dennis Quaid is about modern farming in Iowa, the cutthroat seed business, and has wind turbines as a backdrop.
posted by cecic at 8:23 AM on August 28, 2015

Best answer: I just watched Welcome to Me on Netflix and it has wind turbines in the background all the time.
posted by Ragged Richard at 8:40 AM on August 28, 2015

Is anime OK? Academy City is full of wind turbines in the series To Aru Majutsu no Index and the related series To Aru Kagaku no Railgun. Here's a publicity picture which shows some of them in the background.

They are actually a plot point in one episode of the second Railgun series.

There was an Index movie and they would have shown up in that, too.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:29 AM on August 28, 2015

You've already got Man of La Mancha, right?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 9:47 AM on August 28, 2015

(and The Wizard of Oz)?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 9:49 AM on August 28, 2015

Response by poster: Didn't think of it, am less interested in old style windmills.
posted by biffa at 9:53 AM on August 28, 2015

Best answer: The Mariner's boat has a huge vertical wind turbine in Waterworld.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 10:04 AM on August 28, 2015

Not sure if it is what you are looking for, but I just saw this in today's paper.

Here is the YouTube video without the news story.
posted by AugustWest at 10:29 AM on August 28, 2015

Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940)
...only to find out that the real Van Meer is still alive, being kept against his will in a windmill...
posted by Gungho at 12:03 PM on August 28, 2015

Response by poster: ssg: I have been working my way through the Danish section on Amazon Prime, Netflix and my uni DVD collection! That stuff is central to what I am thinking of.

cecic: I heard about the Quaid film ages ago but it seemed to have disappeared - I didn't think it had been released, I will chase this up under this name. Thanks!

Thanks everyone for some useful answers! Keep 'em coming!
posted by biffa at 12:48 PM on August 28, 2015

Best answer: Heartlands has the best wind turbine scene I know of, filmed at Royd Moor in Yorkshire.

I've got the old National Grid "Power from the Wind" video around somewhere. Featuring David Bellamy being very positive about wind turbines ...
posted by scruss at 3:34 PM on August 28, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks scruss, I'm sticking to features for this, so will chase up Heartlands.
posted by biffa at 6:29 AM on August 29, 2015

Just to cover the obvious angle - do movies about sailing ships count? Wikipedia also mentions some instances of land sailing in various media.
posted by Dr Dracator at 12:09 PM on August 30, 2015

Response by poster: I'm not looking for sailing ships, thanks.
posted by biffa at 2:19 AM on September 1, 2015