Take Care of My Cat (2001), Guantanamera (1994), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), I, Daniel Blake (2016), What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984), Bitter Rice (1949), Sorry We Missed You (2019), Footlight Parade (1933) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Economic Hardship movies.
Storyline: Five girls in the South Korean port city of Incheon graduate from high school and struggle to keep their friendship alive, even as adulthood forces them down separate paths. Hae-Jo (Ok Go-woon) takes a job in the financial world, while Ji-young becomes withdrawn following a family tragedy. Twin sisters are satisfied peddling junk jewelry on the street. And despite the best efforts of Tae-hee (Rachel Lillian Goldberg) to keep everyone together, the girls become increasingly distant.
Plot Keywords: youth, friendship, coming of age, korean cinema, women, urban life, confusion ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: While visiting the small town of Guantanamo, the famous singer Yoyita (Conchita Brando) dies unexpectedly while reminiscing with her old flame, Candido (Raúl Eguren). When Yoyita's niece, Georgina (Mirta Ibarra), makes plans for a funeral in Havana, her undertaker husband (Carlos Cruz) uses the opportunity to implement his gas- and money-saving coffin transportation scheme across Cuba. The trip results in misadventures, black-market dealings and insights into life and politics in Cuba.
Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, music, road movie, cultural clash, political satire, social commentary ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The Joad clan, introduced to the world in John Steinbeck's iconic novel, is looking for a better life in California. After their drought-ridden farm is seized by the bank, the family -- led by just-paroled son Tom -- loads up a truck and heads West. On the road, beset by hardships, the Joads meet dozens of other families making the same trek and holding onto the same dream. Once in California, however, the Joads soon realize that the promised land isn't quite what they hoped.
Plot Keywords: poverty, social injustice, family struggle, american dream, class conflict, labor exploitation, resilience ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A 59 year old carpenter recovering from a heart attack befriends a single mother and her two kids as they navigate their way through the impersonal, Kafkaesque benefits system. With equal amounts of humor, warmth and despair, the journey is heartfelt and emotional until the end.
Plot Keywords: social realism, working class, bureaucracy, poverty, british society, unemployment, social injustice ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A Madrid housewife (Carmen Maura) tries to retain her sanity in a household full of difficult and odd relatives.
Plot Keywords: black comedy, family drama, social satire, spanish cinema, female protagonist, working class, family conflict ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Francesca and Walter are two-bit criminals in Northern Italy, and, in an effort to avoid the police, Francesca joins a group of women rice workers. She meets the voluptuous peasant rice worker, Silvana, and the soon-to-be-discharged soldier, Marco. Walter follows her to the rice fields, and the four characters become involved in a complex plot involving robbery, love, and murder.—Laura Ernestina Ruberto <lruberto@ucsd.edu>
Plot Keywords: italian cinema, rural life, class conflict, female protagonist, labor exploitation, social criticism, poverty ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Ricky and his family have been fighting an uphill struggle against debt since the 2008 financial crash. An opportunity to wrestle back some independence appears with a shiny new van and the chance to run a franchise as a self employed delivery driver. It's hard work, and his wife's job as a carer is no easier. The family unit is strong but when both are pulled in different directions everything comes to breaking point.
Plot Keywords: social realism, working class, family struggle, economic hardship, british film, ken loach, social critique ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Chester Kent produces musical comedies on the stage. With the beginning of the talkies era he changes to producing short musical prologues for movies. This is stressful to him, because he always needs new units and his rival is stealing his ideas. He can get an contract with a producer if he is able to stage in three days three new prologues. In spite of great problems, he does it.—Stephan Eichenberg <eichenbe@fak-cbg.tu-muenchen.de>
Plot Keywords: musical, comedy, romance, great depression era, broadway, musical theater, warner bros ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Lilly (Baby Face) sleeps her way from basement speakeasy bartender, literally floor by floor, to the top floor of a New York office building. Bank sub-manager Jimmy McCoy finds her a job in the bank only to be cast aside as she hooks up with the bank's president. When he complains of not seeing her she says: "I'm working so hard I have to go to bed early every night."—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: pre-code hollywood, drama, romance, feminism, prostitution, ambition, sexual liberation ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Three people board the train bound for Johannesburg. Strangers, each on their own mission, with a simple task to complete and in search of family to help them. But when they are betrayed by the very people whose protection they sought, they find themselves trapped in the city - invisible and alone. Vaya interweaves three separate plots, that intersect and intertwine in a gripping, deeply moving and often funny narrative about struggling for survival and dignity in the city. In the first story a rural man has been promised a job, by his big city cousin. The money from the job will allow him to pay lobola back home which will change his life forever. He's excited; his cousin is an important man, whose patronage the village has relied on for many years. To work for him is a great honour. But on arrival he discovers that the job is not quite what he thought. He is required to kill his cousin's rival. In the second story a young man is sent to Jozi to reclaim his father's body, only to discover that the body has already been claimed. His father's hitherto unknown 'city family' has taken it, and they are not giving it back. The young must find a way to return the body to his rural home or risk the family reputation forever. In the third story a young woman takes her aunt's young daughter to Joburg to live with her mother for the first time. But she has her own plans. To dump the child and finally escape the boredom of rural life to explore her own dreams and ambitions in the city. But she soon discovers that her aunt, is not who she thought she was. She runs a shebeen and lives with an extremely devious gangster who supports her. She is unable to take care of herself let alone a small child. The young woman must now choose between her own dreams or saving the small child and ruining everything.
Plot Keywords: social realism, urban life, poverty, migration, unemployment, family, struggle ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: On the outskirts of a small coastal town in the Barents Sea, where whales sometimes come to its bay, lives an ordinary family: Kolya (Aleksey Serebryakov), his wife Lilya (Elena Lyadova) and their teenage son Romka. The family is haunted by a local corrupted mayor (Roman Madyanov), who is trying to take away the land, a house and a small auto repair shop from Kolya. To save their homes Kolya calls his old Army friend in Moscow (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), who has now become an authoritative attorney. Together they decide to fight back and collect dirt on the mayor.
Plot Keywords: political corruption, social injustice, bureaucracy, abuse of power, family tragedy, moral dilemma, despair ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: On the day of his daughter's (Joey Singer) birthday, William "D-Fens" Foster (Michael Douglas) is trying to get to his estranged ex-wife's (Barbara Hershey) house to see his daughter. He has a breakdown and leaves his car in a traffic jam in Los Angeles and decides to walk. Along the way he stops at a convenience store and tries to get some change for a phone call but the owner, Mister Lee (Michael Paul Chan), does not give him change. This destabilizes William who then breaks apart the shop with a baseball bat and goes to an isolated place to drink a coke. Two gangsters (Agustin Rodriguez & Eddie Frias) threaten him and he reacts by hitting them with the bat. D-FENS continues walking and stops at a phone booth. The gangsters hunt him down with their gang and shoot at him but crash their car. William goes nuts and takes their gym bag with weapons proceeding in his journey of rage against injustice. Meanwhile Sergeant Martin Prendergast (Robert Duvall), who is working on his last day ...
Plot Keywords: violence, midlife crisis, anger, urban life, mental breakdown, revenge, american dream ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Halley lives with her six year old daughter Moonee in a budget motel along one of the commercial strips catering to the Walt Disney World tourist clientele outside Orlando, Florida. Halley, who survives largely on welfare, has little respect for people, especially those who cross her, it an attitude that she has passed down to Moonee, who curses and gives the finger like her mother. Although the motel's policy is not to allow long term rentals, Bobby, the motel manager, has made arrangements for people like Halley to live there while not undermining the policy as he realizes that many such tenants have no place to go otherwise. Halley, Moonee and Moonee's friends, who live in the motel or others like it along the strip and who she often drags into her disruptive pranks, are often the bane of Bobby's existence, but while dealing with whatever problem arises, Bobby has a soft spot especially for the children and thus, by association, their parents, as he knows that Moonee and others ...
Plot Keywords: poverty, childhood, single-parent family, social issues, florida, child's perspective, realistic theme ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: At the bottom of the depression, Tom's mother has been out of work for months when Ed's father loses his job. Not to burden their parents, the two high school sophomores decide to hop the freights and look for work. Wherever they go, there are many other kids just like them, so Tom, Ed and now Sally stick together. They camp in places like 'Sewer City' as long as they can until the local authorities run them off. They travel all over the mid west and when they get to New York, Ed thinks that they may finally find work.—Tony Fontana <tony.fontana@spacebbs.com>
Plot Keywords: great depression, social realism, poverty, homelessness, economic hardship, friendship, coming of age ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Edna Spalding finds herself alone and broke on a small farm in the midst of the Great Depression when her husband the Sheriff is killed in an accident. A wandering black man, Moses, helps her to plant cotton to try and keep her farm and her kids together. She also takes on a blind boarder, Mr. Will, who lost his sight in the first World War. She must endure storms and harsh labor to try and make her mortgage payment on time.—Susan Southall <stobchatay@aol.com>
Plot Keywords: drama, family, historical, american south, great depression, race relations, widow ...
Movie Details Click Here !