From \u201cBee Movie\u201d to \u201cOffice Space,\u201d the definition of labor movies has come a long way from \u201cSalt of the Earth\u201d and \u201cNorma Rae.\u201d Dozens of\u00a0Labor Notes<\/i>\u00a0readers responded to our call for your favorite recent feature films (since 2000) about workers, work, and the workplace.<\/p>\n
As director of the\u00a0D.C. Labor FilmFest<\/a>\u2013now in our 13th year\u2013I spend a lot of time looking for new movies that show us how central work is to our culture.<\/p>\n While there are many wonderful documentaries, one of the most exciting things that\u2019s happened to labor movies in recent years has been the proliferation of feature films. Not just dramas but comedies, thrillers, and even science fiction movies with work and workers at their centers have hit the silver screen.<\/p>\n Sympathetic, mainstream portrayals of the lives of workers are an important weapon in our ongoing struggles. But just as important, this latest batch of movies is astoundingly entertaining. They\u2019re not only films you want to see as an activist, but ones your family and friends come out smiling and talking about.<\/p>\n Before a screening of \u201cOffice Space\u201d in Dublin a few years ago, a moviegoer spent 15 minutes telling me why he hated unions. After the screening, he stopped to tell me how much he enjoyed the film\u2013and how it had made him begin to think maybe unions might be necessary, after all.<\/p>\n With a warning that this list is far short of complete, here\u2019s what we\u2019ve been watching, with\u00a0Labor Notes<\/i>\u00a0readers\u2019 comments. (For a searchable list of 2,000 films about work, workers, and workers\u2019 issues, check out the\u00a0Labor Film Database<\/a>. It includes a\u00a0\u201cHighly Recommended\u201d<\/a>\u00a0shortlist.)<\/p>\n Labor comedy sounds like the ultimate oxymoron, but\u00a0Office Space<\/b>\u00a0(1999) has been such a hit for the D.C. Labor FilmFest that it\u2019s the only film we show every year. \u201cIt captures the absurdity of work life for so many of us,\u201d says Mark Piotrowski, speaking for millions of beleaguered cubicle-dwellers.<\/p>\n I\u2019d include Steven Soderbergh\u2019s\u00a0The Informant<\/b>\u00a0(2009) in this category as well. Matt Damon\u2013in one of his most nuanced performances\u2013blows the whistle on price fixing at Archer Daniels Midland. Based on a true story, \u201cThe Informant\u201d is simultaneously hugely comedic and terribly tragic.<\/p>\n Kenny<\/b>\u00a0is a 2006 Australian mockumentary starring Shane Jacobson as a Portajohn \u201cengineer.\u201d \u201cFunny, based on real situations, and poignant,\u201d says Bill Yund. \u201cThe struggling life of a working man in one of the most necessary and thankless jobs there is. You\u2019ll never lift your nose at a porta-potty worker again.\u201d<\/p>\n Also check out the surprisingly feisty\u00a0Morning Glory<\/b>\u00a0(2010). Rachel McAdams stars as the hard-working producer of a New York morning talk show.<\/p>\n The Trotsky<\/b>\u00a0(2009) is \u201ca great flick about a kid who thinks he\u2019s the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky and organizes a union at his high school,\u201d says John Tucker. \u201cFunny and very relevant.\u201d Tucker notes that the film is available on Netflix; in the Labor Film Database we include an\u00a0Available Online<\/a>\u00a0category, which currently has some 74 entries.<\/p>\n Skip\u00a0Oblivion<\/b>\u00a0and instead check out the mesmerizing\u00a0Moon<\/b>\u00a0(2009), which the new Tom Cruise vehicle rips off shamelessly. Sam Rockwell plays a lonely miner, completing a three-year contract on the moon, who discovers things are not at all what he thought. \u201cAn excellent, allegorical depiction of the alienated character of laborers and labor-processes,\u201d says Will Meyrowitz. \u201cEmbedded in that movie,\u201d adds Leonard Stoehr, \u201cis a critique of the modern workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n Alex Rivera\u2019s\u00a0Sleep Dealer<\/b>\u00a0(2008) is a prophetic sci-fi thriller that beautifully weaves together immigration issues and drones. \u201cThe main character is a worker in Mexico who beams his labor to the U.S. over the Net and works in construction, erecting a skyscraper in California,\u201d\u00a0writes Rivera<\/a>. \u201cThe secondary character is a drone pilot who is physically in the U.S. but who sends his energy to the global south in the form of a military drone, expressing his telepresence in the destruction of buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n And several readers picked up on the labor issues implicit in Andrew Niccol\u2019s haunting 2011 filmIn Time<\/b>, starring Justin Timberlake. Will Meyrowitz says it contains a \u201csubtle representation of the equation of time and money and its effects on the lives of labor and the poor.\u201d Kate Spaulding praises the film\u2019s treatment of \u201cthe horrible effects of income inequality and revolutionizing society.\u201d<\/p>\n You could fill an entire labor film festival with the films of British director Ken Loach (and in fact, one year, we did just that in D.C.). His eyes, ears, and heart are always attuned to ordinary people.<\/p>\n Top of the list for many is\u00a0Bread and Roses<\/b>\u00a0(2000), a moving drama set in the Justice for Janitors organizing campaign, featuring terrific performances by Adrien Brody, Pilar Padilla, and Elpidia Carrillo. You see an organizing drive up close, you see some warts on the union, and you see a relationship between sisters that will knock your socks off.<\/p>\n In\u00a0It\u2019s A Free World<\/b>\u00a0(2007), an ambitious, working-class British woman, frustrated after being fired from yet another dead-end job, sets up her own staffing agency for immigrants. This is one of my favorite recent Loach films, managing to win our sympathy for a lead character even as she slips deeper and deeper into a moral abyss.<\/p>\n The Irish struggle for independence is intertwined with the Irish labor movement, so it\u2019s no surprise that\u00a0The Wind that Shakes the Barley<\/b>\u00a0(2006) also attracted readers\u2019 attention. It\u2019s set during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, in the early 20th century.<\/p>\n Though Loach\u2019s 1991 film\u00a0Riff-Raff<\/b>\u00a0is before our 2000 cut-off, in light of the Iron Lady\u2019s recent demise, Aaron Brenner notes that it\u2019s \u201ca great look at work and working-class life in Thatcherite England.\u201d<\/p>\n And let me add a plug for Loach\u2019s latest, a terrific comedy-drama called\u00a0The Angel\u2019s Share<\/b>, in which a young Glasgow lad and his friends from a community service group find a way out of their troubles through a trip to a whisky distillery. It\u2019s touching, funny, and true.<\/p>\n In the animated feature\u00a0Bee Movie<\/b>\u00a0(2007), Jerry Seinfeld stars as Barry B. Benson, a bee who has just graduated from college. He\u2019s disillusioned at his lone career choice (making honey) and winds up suing humans for stealing the bee\u2019s honey. Thin premise and not a great movie, but hey, the field of pro-worker cartoons is pretty sparse, so we\u2019ll take it.<\/p>\n Much better is\u00a0Chicken Run<\/b>\u00a0(2000), with Mel Gibson and Julia Sawalha organizing chickens to rebel against evil farm owners and escape from the farm of doom. \u201cGreat organizing film hiding as a children\u2019s story,\u201d says reader Robert Lindquist.<\/p>\n French director Laurence Cantet\u2019s films offer a \u201ccomplex look into the competing pressures on workers and bosses,\u201d says Aaron Brenner, \u201cwhile leaving no doubt that capitalism is a brutal system that has to go.\u201d<\/p>\n Human Resources<\/b>\u00a0(1999) is one of my favorites. Frank, a business school graduate enthralled with the idea of \u201cemployee involvement,\u201d returns to his provincial hometown to take a management position in the factory where his father has worked for 30 years. After Frank makes the mistake of asking assembly line workers for their opinions, and management manipulates his findings to lay off employees\u2013creating a huge rift not only between labor and management but between father and son. It\u2019s a human morality tale that illustrates the personal risk behind political ideas.<\/p>\n Time Out<\/b>\u00a0(2001) is based on a true story about an executive who fabricates an imaginary job so that his family and friends won\u2019t know he\u2019s out of work. At first this pantomime of work registers as sad, even pathetic. Slowly and unnervingly, it becomes terrifying.<\/p>\n Other Cantet must-see films include\u00a0Heading South<\/b>\u00a0(2005), about sex tourism in Haiti, and\u00a0The Class<\/b>\u00a0(2008), a drama about a middle-school teacher in Paris that stars the actual teacher, Fran\u00c3\u00a7ois B\u00c3\u00a9gaudeau.<\/p>\n Given the much greater class consciousness in Europe, it\u2019s no surprise that a lot of the best labor films hail from there\u2013but that\u2019s really a whole other list. A few of my recent favorites include\u00a0The Women on the 6th Floor<\/b>\u00a0(Les femmes du 6\u00c3\u00a8me \u00c3\u00a9tage) (2010, France), the films of Michael Glawogger from Austria (especially\u00a0Workingman\u2019s Death<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0Whores\u2019 Glory<\/b>), and\u00a0My Piece of the Pie<\/b>\u00a0(Ma part du g\u00c3\u00a2teau) (2011, France).<\/p>\n Michael Pollak picked one of my personal favorites, Ramin Bahrani\u2019s 2005 gem\u00a0Man Push Cart<\/b>, set in New York.<\/p>\n \u201cThe long silent passages seem to perfectly capture the work of working a cart,\u201d Pollak says. \u201cAnd I loved the reverse point of view. I had simply never thought about the view from inside the cart, the work necessary to haul it to the spot.\u201d<\/p>\n Pollak also appreciated the immigrant perspective, \u201cwhere the most disparate people hang together and feel they have more in common than the natives\u201d\u2013both in \u201cMan Push Cart\u201d and inDirty Pretty Things<\/b>\u00a0(2003), Steven Frears\u2019s brilliant and shocking film, in which an illegal Nigerian immigrant discovers the ugly underside of London life.<\/p>\n North Country<\/b>\u00a0(2005) is a brutal portrait of sexual harassment on the job, though nothing beats Craig Zobel\u2019s chilling 2012\u00a0Compliance<\/b>\u00a0for addressing this issue.<\/p>\n Up In the Air<\/b>\u00a0(2010) \u201csends a strong message on downsizing and how the workforce is regarded as expendable, no matter how much of their labor they contributed to building profit for a corporation,\u201d says Kit Rafferty.<\/p>\n And\u00a0Made in Dagenham<\/b>\u00a0(2010) vividly brought to life an unlikely\u2013and largely forgotten\u20131968 strike by women workers at a car plant in England. It also brought cheering audiences around the world to their feet, showing that basic workplace justice issues are timeless.<\/p>\n Chris Garlock<\/strong> is the director of the DC Labor FilmFest. Check out the\u00a0Labor Film Database<\/a>\u00a0for a searchable list of 2,000 films about work, workers, and workers\u2019 issues<\/i>.<\/p>\n This article originally appeared on LaborNotes<\/a>.<\/p>\nComedy<\/h3>\n
Sci-Fi<\/h3>\n
Ken Loach<\/h3>\n
Kids\u2019 Movies<\/h3>\n
Laurence Cantet<\/h3>\n
Other Faves<\/h3>\n