FIlms about organized labor

[NightTrain]

Help me out here, folks. I'm trying to compile as complete a list as I can of non-documentary films dealing with labor unions. Here's what I've come up with so far:

BREAD & ROSES (2000)
F*I*S*T (1978)
HOFFA (1990)
LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN (1990)
MATEWAN (1987)
NORMA RAE (1980)

There must be more, though. So what did I forget?

[NewHampshireDem]

1. Here's a list from IMDB.com

http://www.imdb.com/List?tv=on&&keywords=labor-union&&heading=19;labor-union

I was also thinking "Brassed Off," which is one of my favorite films of all time. It revolves around the closure of a coal mine and the hardships of the community, as seen through the members of the colliery brass band. It stars Ewan McGregor and Pete Postlethwaite. Check it out if you haven't seen it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115744/combined

[NightTrain]

2. Ooo! "Brassed Off." Excellent call!

:yourock:

[Doctor_J]

11. I love that movie!

Very anti-Thatcher.

[zx22778a]

3. How Green was my Valley

It doesn't show in the IMDB listing, but it's a classic and an important part of the plot is to organize a union at a Welsh coal mine.

[NewHampshireDem]

4. Yeah ...

the IMDB list is very much incomplete, but a good place to start.

[gpandas]

8. blue collar nt

[strategery blunder]

5. October Sky, a little

Even though the movie was not made to address labor issues, it still has a good depiction of a company town and the oppressive atmosphere thereof. (think 1950's coal town)

[Lisa]

6. "Fast Food High"

I know the title sounds like a teen-sploitation flick, and it does involve high school kids -- but it's one of the smartest, most realistic movies I've seen dealing with the problems of organizing labour in "McJobs". Some of the background is based on real-life attempts to set up unions in fast-food restaurants in Canada, but the story itself is fictional -- dealing with some typical teens and the choices they have to make, deciding whether or not to commit. A friend, a chef whose restaurant organized the year before, said that the flaws pointed out in the union people were right on target, though the film itself is very supportive of unions.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0340109/

[solinvictus]

7. "Reds"

It had Big Bill Haywood in it. And that English movie about the dancing kid was set in the midst of a coal strike.

[BlackVelvetElvis]

9. Sergei Eisenstein's "Strike"

It's a silent (made in the 20's) in the embryonic Soviet Union.

[Shrek]

10. Here's a link

The Stax Report: Special Edition on Labor Movies.

Hope it's useful.

[JanMichael]

12. Great list. Try "the Navigators" by Ken Loach.

About the privatisation of British rail in the mid-90's.

It'll get your blood boiling.

[sir_captain]

13. Chaplin's Modern Times

features some stuff involving unions

[greendog]

14. Live Nude Girls UNITE!

A documentary about strippers unionizing.

http://www.livenudegirlsunite.com/

[no_hypocrisy]

15. "Metropolis" by Fritz Lang

[makhno]

16. Matewan is amazing

Anyone who comes out of this movie feeling anything but contempt for unrestrained capitalism is a heartless freeper.

Others have covered good union movies. Eisenstein's "Strike" is great. He had the knack for showing how simple people can say a big "fuck you" to the man when pushed too far. Good stuff.

Another worthwhile Russian movie is "Arsenal." While not specifically union, it contains some amazingly powerful scenes of the people getting fed up with the bs and organizing against the tsarist/capitalist reactionaries during the Russian civil war in the 1920s.

[EstimatedProphet]

17. King Vidor's "Our Daily Bread"

Somewhat overly sentimental, but embodies the spirit of the Steinbeck/Guthrie era

[Faygo Kid]

18. "On the Waterfront"

Think you missed one, here.

[mobuto]

20. Well, that's a great movie

but its anti-labor. Or at least anti-corrupt-labor.

[TahitiNut]

19. Billy Eliott has a union strike as a subplot.