The Emerald Forest

The Emerald Forest (1985) is a British-American adventure drama directed by John Boorman — watch online on iFILM. Powers Boothe plays Bill Markham, an American engineer building a dam on the edge of the Brazilian rainforest whose five-year-old son vanishes into the trees. Bill spends the next decade looking.

He finally finds Tommy — now a skilled tribesman, played by the director's own son Charlie Boorman, a casting choice that sharpens every father-son scene. Boorman shot on location in the Amazon with the cooperation of indigenous communities, so the forest on screen is not a studio set. The film asks who is civilized and who needs rescuing — and sits with the discomfort of not giving an easy answer. Stream The Emerald Forest (1985) on iFILM.