This essay investigates cinema’s engagement with the neo-Malthusian movement to control global overpopulation in the long 1960s. It examines the contested production and reception of $Z.P.G.:\; Zero\; Population\; Growth$ (Michael Campus, 1972) and $Soylent\; Green$ (Richard Fleischer, 1973) to shed new light on the nexus of science, activism, and the media. It argues that the history of the movement, usually reconstructed as an elite scientific and political discourse, cannot be fully understood without also taking into account mass-market entertainment.