The Lovely Month of May (1963), The Wide Blue Road (1956), Circo (2010), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978), Days of Heaven (1978), Makala (2017), Pelle the Conqueror (1987) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Labor movies.
Storyline: Actors Yves Montand and Simone Signoret narrate an introduction to springtime in Paris, as described by its citizens.
Plot Keywords: documentary, paris, 1960s, cinéma vérité, social observation, everyday life, politics ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A provincial fisherman (Yves Montand) angers other villagers by using dynamite illegally to expedite his catch.
Plot Keywords: drama, adventure, italian cinema, poverty, survival, family, sea ...
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: 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 life inside a farm in Italy at the end of the 19th century. Many poor country families live there, and the owner pays them by their productivity. One of the families has a very clever child. They decide to send him to school instead of make him help them, although this represents a great sacrifice. The boy has to wake up very early and walk several miles to get to the school. One day the boy's shoes break when returning home, but they do not have money to buy another pair. What can they do?—Michel Rudoy <mdrc@hp9000a1.uam.mx>
Plot Keywords: drama, rural life, italian cinema, poverty, family, faith, tradition ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Bill and Abby, a young couple who to the outside world pretend to be brother and sister are living and working in Chicago at the beginning of the century. They want to escape the poverty and hard labor of the city and travel south. Together with the girl Linda (who acts as the narrator in the movie) they find employment on a farm in the Texas panhandle. When the harvest is over the young, rich and handsome farmer invites them to stay because he has fallen in love with Abby. When Bill and Abby discover that the farmer is seriously ill and has only got a year left to live they decide that Abby will accept his wedding proposal in order to make some benefit out of the situation. When the expected death fails to come, jealousy and impatience are slowly setting in and accidents become eventually inevitable.
Plot Keywords: drama, romance, rural, american, classic, poetic, nature ...
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: 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: The Morgans, a loving and strong family of Black sharecroppers in Louisiana in 1933, face a serious family crisis when the husband and father, Nathan Lee Morgan, is convicted of a petty crime and sent to a prison camp. After some weeks or months, the wife and mother, Rebecca Morgan, sends the oldest son, who is about 11 years old, to visit his father at the camp. The journey becomes something of an odyssey for the boy. During the journey, he stays a little while with a dedicated Black schoolteacher.—Ed Cannon <ecannon@mail.utexas.edu>
Plot Keywords: drama, family, race, american south, great depression, african american, poverty ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Stan works in drudgery at a slaughterhouse. His personal life is drab. Dissatisfaction and ennui keep him unresponsive to the needs of his adoring wife, and he must struggle against influences which would dishonor and endanger him and his family.—Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>
Plot Keywords: independent film, realism, working class, los angeles, social commentary, everyday life, poetic ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.
Plot Keywords: documentary, experimental film, visual poetry, globalization, social change, modernity, urban life ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Jennifer Baichwal's cameras follow Edward Burtynsky (1955- ) as he visits what he calls manufactured landscapes: slag heaps, e-waste dumps, huge factories in the Fujian and Zhejiang provinces of China, and a place in Bangladesh where ships are taken apart for recycling. In China, workers gather outside the factory, exhorted by their team leader to produce more and make fewer errors. A woman assembles a circuit breaker, and women and children are seen picking through debris or playing in it. Burtynsky concludes with a visit to Shanghai, the world's fastest growing city, where wealth and poverty, high-rises and old neighborhoods are side by side.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Plot Keywords: documentary, environment, industry, globalization, photography, china, human impact ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Crotchety old Mrs. Bransom hires a charming young man named Danny as a live-in companion. Less charmed by Danny is Mrs. Bransom's niece, Olivia, a repressed young woman who suspects Danny of foul play. When news of a local murder is revealed, Olivia suspects Danny. Although repulsed by the thought he may have committed the crime, Olivia also finds herself becoming increasingly attracted to him at the same time.—Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com>
Plot Keywords: documentary, british film, 1930s, black and white, realism, social documentary, industry ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Director Rahul Jain presents an intimate, observantly portrayal of the rhythm of life and work in a gigantic textile factory in Gujarat, India. Moving through the corridors and bowels of the enormous and disorientating structure, the camera takes the viewer on a journey to a place of dehumanising physical labor and intense hardship, provoking cause for thought about persistent pre-industrial working conditions and the huge divide between first world and developing countries. Since the 1960s the area of Sachin in western India has undergone unprecedented, unregulated industrialisation, exemplified in its numerous textile factories. MACHINES portraits only one of these factories, while at the same time representing the thousands of labourers working, living and suffering in an environment they can't escape without unity. With strong visual language, memorable images and carefully selected interviews of the workers themselves, Jain tells a story of inequality and oppression, humans and machines.
Plot Keywords: documentary, india, social issues, exploitation, poverty, human rights, globalization ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Carlos Galindo is a decent man, a Mexican single parent working as a gardener in California to raise Luis, his fourteen-year-old son, whom Carlos is frightened will drift into local gang culture. Carlos buys a truck for his work with money loaned by his sister but a shifty new employee steals it from him and, though Carlos and Luis track the thief down, he has sold the truck. Father and son bond as they reclaim the vehicle from the pound but Carlos attracts police attention, making his future in America uncertain when it is discovered that he is an illegal immigrant.
Plot Keywords: immigration, father-son relationship, los angeles, mexico, social class, poverty, struggle ...
Movie Details Click Here !