Environmentalist voices like the Earth Liberation Front have been labeled "eco-terrorists." The 2011 documentary film "If a Tree Falls" explores how "eco-terrorism" troubles the unstable border between activism and terrorism. This essay offers a textual analysis of the film's negotiation of the activism/terrorism dichotomy, arguing that it both destabilizes and reifies dominant paradigms for understanding eco-revolutionary activism as environmental communication. I suggest that the film cultivates for its audiences a space of critical engagement with the complexities of such activist practices in the age of terror anxiety, contributing welcome nuance to the public conversation about radicalization in environmental activism.