The Devil's Miner (2005), Circo (2010), The Real Dirt on Farmer John (2005), Koshish (1972), A Time for Drunken Horses (2000), Dangal Yuddham (2016), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), Mother India (1957) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Hardship movies.
Storyline: Filmmakers Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani profile Basilio, a 14-year-old Bolivian who supports his family by working in a silver mine. Like his fellow workers, the boy looks to Satan for protection from the daily hazards he encounters in the bowels of the Earth.
Plot Keywords: documentary, poverty, survival, social issues, family, traditional culture, exploitation ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Throughout the world, the circus is an old-fashioned form of entertainment that's slowly fading away, and in Mexico, the situation is no different. The Ponces, captained by lead manager and ringmaster Tino, struggle to bring in the crowds and keep their generations-old family business going strong. Compounding this challenge is a weakened economy, particularly in the rural areas where the Ponces pitch their big tent. The soundtrack is enlivened by the music of country-rock band Calexico.
Plot Keywords: documentary, family, circus, mexico, traditional culture, poverty, struggle ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Filmmaker Taggart Siegel captures two turbulent decades in the life of John Peterson, an Illinois farmer who not only tends the land but also delves into writing and performance art. A man who would as soon work the fields in a feather boa as in a pair of jeans, Peterson rises out of the bankruptcy and depression plaguing Midwest farm communities in the 1980s and saves his livelihood through organic agriculture.
Plot Keywords: documentary, biography, agriculture, rural life, independent film, community, tradition ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Romantic drama spaning nearly 20 years involving a deaf-mute couple, Haricharian and Aarti. Deaf and dumb bicycle messenger Haricharian meets equally deaf Aarti, and persuades her to go to sign language school to communicate with her mother and brother. The courtship leads to marriage and ultimately a child born to them. Years later, after the death of Aarti from a brief illness, Haricharian's teenage son tries to deal with the after effects as well as his history of being raised by two deaf parents when he begins courting another young girl who also happens to be deaf.—Matthew Patay
Plot Keywords: drama, family, emotional, social issues, romance, indian cinema, classic ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Kurdish orphans work odd jobs for food and to raise money so their severely handicapped brother can have surgery.
Plot Keywords: war, children, poverty, iran, family, survival, border ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Biopic of Mahavir Singh Phogat, who taught wrestling to his daughters Babita Kumari and Geeta Phogat. Geeta Phogat was India's first female wrestler to win at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, where she won the gold medal (55 kg) while her sister Babita Kumari won the silver (51 kg).—Dibyayan_Chakravorty
Plot Keywords: action, drama, sports, biography, indian cinema, wrestling, family ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Having returned from fighting in World War I, James Allen doesn't want to settle into a humdrum life and decides to set off to find his fortune. He travels the length and breadth of America, working as a skilled tradesman in the construction industry. When times get tough however, he finds himself living in a shelter where an acquaintance suggests they go out for a hamburger. What the friend really has in mind is to rob the diner and Allen soon finds himself working on a chain gang with a long jail sentence. Allen manages to escape however and heads to Chicago where over several years he slowly but surely works his way up the ladder to become one of the most respected construction engineers in the city. His past catches up with him and despite protestations from civic leaders and his many friends in Chicago, he finds himself again on the chain gang. Escaping for a second time, he accepts that to survive, he must lead a life of crime.
Plot Keywords: crime, drama, prison, fugitive, social injustice, justice system, oppression ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The film begins with the finishing of a water canal for the village set in the present. Radha (Nargis), as the mother of the village, is asked to open the canal and remembers back to her past when she was newly married, mirroring the new independence of India. The wedding between Radha and Shamu (Raaj Kumar) was paid for by Radha's mother-in-law, who got a loan from the moneylender Sukhilala. This event starts the spiral of poverty and hardship that Radha endures. The conditions of the loan are disputed, but the village elders decide in favor of the moneylender, after which Shamu and Radha are forced to pay three-quarters of their crop as interest on the loan of 500 rupees. While trying to use more of their land to alleviate their poverty, Shamu's arms are crushed by a boulder. He is shamed by his helplessness and is humiliated by others in the village. Deciding that he is no use to his family, he leaves and does not return. Soon after this, Radha's mother-in-law dies. Radha continues to work in the fields with her children and gives birth again. Sukhilala offers to help alleviate her poverty in return for Radha marrying him, but she refuses to sell herself. A storm sweeps through the village that destroys the harvest and kills Radha's youngest child, and the villagers start to migrate but decide to stay and rebuild because of Radha's urging. The film then skips forward several years to when Radha's two surviving children, Birju (Sunil Dutt) and Ramu (Rajendra Kumar), are young men. Birju, embittered by the exactions of Sukhilala since he was a child, takes out his frustrations by pestering the village girls, especially Sukhilala's daughter. Ramu, by contrast, has a calmer temper and is married soon after. He becomes a father ,but his wife is soon absorbed into the cycle of poverty. Birju's anger finally becomes dangerous and, after being provoked, attacks Sukhilala and his daughter and violently lashes out at his family. He is chased out of the village and becomes a bandit. On the day of the wedding of Sukhilala's daughter, Birju returns to exact vengeance. He kills Sukhilala and takes his daughter--but Radha, who had promised that Birju would not do harm, shoots Birju, who dies in her arms. The film ends with her opening the canal and reddish water flowing into the fields.—gavin@sunny_deol2009@yahoo.com
Plot Keywords: drama, family, rural, motherhood, sacrifice, poverty, indian society ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In the middle of the 19th century, Kristina and Karl-Oskar live in a small rural village in Smaaland (southern Sweden). They get married and try to make a living on a small spot of land. However, the small size of their land, the infertile soil, and some bad harvests make it tough. One of their children even starves to death. Thus, they decide to emigrate to the U.S. They meet a group of farmers with their families planning the emigration under the leadership of a banned priest. They sell everything and embark for the U.S. The journey on the sailing ship is long and tedious. Some of the emigrants will never reach the New World.—Gerhard Windecker <g.wind@mbox300.swipnet.se>
Plot Keywords: historical, drama, sweden, 19th century, poverty, family, struggle ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Based on a true story about a man named Christopher Gardner. Gardner has invested heavily in a device known as a "bone density scanner". He feels like he has it made selling these devices. However, they do not sell well as they are marginally better than x-ray at a much higher price. As Gardner works to make ends meet, his wife leaves him and he loses his apartment. Forced to live out in the streets with his son, Gardner continues to sell bone density scanners while concurrently taking on an unpaid internship as a stockbroker, with slim chances for advancement to a paid position. Before he can receive pay, he needs to outshine the competition through 6 months of training, and to sell his devices to stay afloat.
Plot Keywords: inspirational, biographical, drama, family, father and son, struggle, poverty ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Trials tribulation dreams and aspirations of a young farmer earning a living making and selling charcoal in Congo.
Plot Keywords: documentary, poverty, survival, family, rural, social reality, africa ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Near Penn Station, next to the Amtrak tracks, squatters have been living for years. Marc Singer goes underground to live with them, and films this "family." A dozen or so men and one woman talk about their lives: horrors of childhood, jail time, losing children, being coke-heads. They scavenge, they've built themselves sturdy one-room shacks; they have pets, cook, chat, argue, give each other haircuts. A bucket is their toilet. Leaky overhead pipes are a source of water for showers. They live in virtual darkness. During the filming, Amtrak gives a 30-day eviction notice.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Plot Keywords: documentary, homelessness, underground, survival, poverty, urban life, independent film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The story of Ingmar Bergman's parents. In 1909, poor, idealistic theology student Henrik Bergman falls in love with Anna Åkerbloom, the intelligent, educated daughter of a rich family in Uppsala. After their wedding Henrik becomes a priest in the north of Sweden. After a few years Anna can't stand living in the rural county with the uncouth people. She returns to Uppsala, Henrik stays in the north.—Robert Stroetgen <stroetgen@rrz.uni-hamburg.de>
Plot Keywords: drama, family, biography, romance, marriage, sweden, black and white ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: When his wife dies, Lassefar (Max von Sydow) takes his 12-year-old son, Pelle (Pelle Hvenegaard), from their home in Sweden to Denmark in search of a better life. Signing on as laborers at a large farm, father and son undergo numerous trials, including prejudice against immigrants and run-ins with those more powerful than themselves in both the physical and the social sense. Over the course of a year, young Pelle learns what it takes to survive in a harsh and unforgiving world.—yusufpiskin
Plot Keywords: drama, historical, family, swedish, immigration, poverty, father-son relationship ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In a time when "The West" pretty much ends in Texas and only California is slowly being populated by the white men, there's a severe lack of women among the workers on Roy Whitman's farm in the California Valley. So he goes back east to Chicago to recruit 150 women willing to become wives for his employees. From the candidates he selects 138 who seem able to survive a months long journey across "The Great American Desert" and the Rocky Mountains.—Tom Zoerner <Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
Plot Keywords: western, female protagonist, 19th century, journey, courage, perseverance, romance ...
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