Highest-Rated Movies about 'Labor'

Modern Times (1936), The Bicycle Thief (1948), Casino (1995), On the Waterfront (1954), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Shoplifters (2018), The Promised Land (1975), The Insider (1999) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Labor movies.

#1. Modern Times (1936)

Storyline: Chaplin's last 'silent' film, filled with sound effects, was made when everyone else was making talkies. Charlie turns against modern society, the machine age, (The use of sound in films ?) and progress. Firstly we see him frantically trying to keep up with a production line, tightening bolts. He is selected for an experiment with an automatic feeding machine, but various mishaps leads his boss to believe he has gone mad, and Charlie is sent to a mental hospital - When he gets out, he is mistaken for a communist while waving a red flag, sent to jail, foils a jailbreak, and is let out again. We follow Charlie through many more escapades before the film is out.

Plot Keywords: jail, actor director writer, music score composed by director, factory, satire, old dark house, escalator ...

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#3. Casino (1995)

Storyline: This Martin Scorsese film depicts the Janus-like quality of Las Vegas--it has a glittering, glamorous face, as well as a brutal, cruel one. Ace Rothstein and Nicky Santoro, mobsters who move to Las Vegas to make their mark, live and work in this paradoxical world. Seen through their eyes, each as a foil to the other, the details of mob involvement in the casinos of the 1970's and '80's are revealed. Ace is the smooth operator of the Tangiers casino, while Nicky is his boyhood friend and tough strongman, robbing and shaking down the locals. However, they each have a tragic flaw--Ace falls in love with a hustler, Ginger, and Nicky falls into an ever-deepening spiral of drugs and violence.

Plot Keywords: casino, crime epic, mafia, rise and fall, las vegas nevada, exploding car, gangster ...

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#4. On the Waterfront (1954)

Storyline: Terry Malloy dreams about being a prize fighter, while tending his pigeons and running errands at the docks for Johnny Friendly, the corrupt boss of the dockers union. Terry witnesses a murder by two of Johnny's thugs, and later meets the dead man's sister and feels responsible for his death. She introduces him to Father Barry, who tries to force him to provide information for the courts that will smash the dock racketeers.

Plot Keywords: title spoken by character, jacket, oath, alley, assault, corpse, famous line ...

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#5. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

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: great depression, cowboy shirt, hunger, dancing, death of grandmother, earring, farmhouse ...

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#6. Shoplifters (2018)

Storyline: A Japanese couple stuck with part-time jobs and hence inadequate incomes avail themselves of the fruits of shoplifting to make ends meet. They are not alone in this behaviour. The younger and the older of the household are in on the act. The unusual routine is about to change from care-free and matter-of-fact to something more dramatic, however, as the couple open their doors to a beleaguered young girl. The reasons for the family's habit and their motivations come under the microscope.

Plot Keywords: female nudity, upskirt, miniskirt, pink bra, hiked skirt, short skirt, girl wears a miniskirt ...

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#7. The Promised Land (1975)

Storyline: At the turn of the century, Lodz, Poland was a quick-paced manufacturing center for textiles, replete with cutthroat industrialists and unsafe working conditions. Three young friends, a Pole, a Jew and a German, pool their money together to build a factory. The movie follows their ruthless pursuit of fortune.—krasnoludek

Plot Keywords: doctor, father daughter relationship, father in law son in law relationship, father son relationship, fiancee, fight, fire engine ...

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#8. The Insider (1999)

Storyline: Balls-out "60 Minutes" producer Lowell Bergman sniffs a story when a former research biologist for Brown & Williamson, Jeff Wigand, won't talk to him. When the company leans hard on Wigand to honor a confidentiality agreement, he gets his back up. Trusting Bergman and despite a crumbling marriage, he goes on camera for a Mike Wallace interview and risks arrest for contempt of court. Westinghouse is negotiating to buy CBS, so CBS attorneys advise CBS News to shelve the interview and avoid a lawsuit. "60 Minutes" and CBS News bosses cave, Wigand is hung out to dry, Bergman is compromised, and the CEOs of Big Tobacco may get away with perjury. Will the truth come out?

Plot Keywords: whistleblower, journalism, censorship, corporate crime, courtroom, court, tobacco ...

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#9. Roma (2018)

Storyline: Cleo is one of two domestic workers who help Antonio and Sofía take care of their four children in 1970s Mexico City. Complications soon arise when Antonio suddenly runs away with his mistress and Cleo finds out that she's pregnant. When Sofía decides to take the kids on vacation, she invites Cleo for a much-needed getaway to clear her mind and bond with the family.

Plot Keywords: maid, male full frontal nudity, male frontal nudity, 1970s, nanny, mexico city, class differences ...

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#10. Ip Man 2 (2010)

Storyline: Ip Man 2 is a 2010 Hong Kong biographical martial arts film loosely based on the life of Ip Man, a grandmaster of the martial art Wing Chun. A sequel to the 2008 film Ip Man, the film was directed by Wilson Yip, and stars Donnie Yen, who reprises the leading role. Continuing after the events of the earlier film, the sequel centers on Ip's movements in Hong Kong, which is under British colonial rule. He attempts to propagate his discipline of Wing Chun, but faces rivalry from other practitioners, including the local master of Hung Ga martial arts.

Plot Keywords: poverty, rooftop, death, family dinner, water torture, brawl, childhood friend ...

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#12. Man of Iron (1981)

Storyline: A worker becomes a "man of iron" forged by experience, a son comes to terms with his father, a couple fall in love, a reporter searches for courage, and a nation undergoes historic change. In Warsaw in 1980, the Party sends Winkel, a weak, alcoholic TV hack, to Gdansk to dig up dirt on the shipyard strikers, particularly on Maciek Tomczyk, an articulate worker whose father was killed in the December 1970 protests. Posing as sympathetic, Winkel interviews people who know Tomczyk, including his detained wife, Agnieszka. Their narrations become flashbacks using actual news footage of 1968 and 1970 protests and of the later birth of free unions and Solidarity.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: negotiation, heroism, friend, friendship, footbridge, filmmaker, father son relationship ...

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#13. Salt of the Earth (1954)

Storyline: Based on an actual strike against the Empire Zinc Mine in New Mexico, the film deals with the prejudice against the Mexican-American workers, who struck to attain wage parity with Anglo workers in other mines and to be treated with dignity by the bosses. In the end, the greatest victory for the workers and their families is the realization that prejudice and poor treatment are conditions that are not always imposed by outside forces.—Bob Shields <rshields@igc.apc.org>

Plot Keywords: strike, political activism, eviction, feminism, women's rights, labor strike, national film registry ...

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#14. Bound for Glory (1976)

Storyline: This film is an excellent biography of Woody Guthrie, one of America's greatest folk singers. He left his dust-devastated Texas home in the 1930s to find work, and discovered the suffering and strength of America's working class.—L.H. Wong <as9401k56@ntuvax.ntu.ac.sg>

Plot Keywords: based on novel, brawl, great depression, starving, guitarist, dancer, dancing ...

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#15. Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940)

Storyline: Biopic of Abe Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, from his early days in backwoods Kentucky to his election as President. After a time running livestock to New Orleans, he settles in New Salem where he meets and falls in love with Ann Rutledge who is already engaged to someone. Abe makes a home for himself in New Salem, eventually running a store and becoming the postmaster. He's popular with the locals and is eventually elected to the State legislature but afterward established himself in the practice of law. He eventually meets Mary Todd who would become his wife and and is sent to Washington as a Congressman before he is elected president.—garykmcd

Plot Keywords: american president, speech, job, love at first sight, fiancee, injustice, freedom ...

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