The Wobblies (1979)
Founded in Chicago in 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) took to organizing unskilled workers into one big union and changed the course of American history. This compelling documentary of the IWW (or “The Wobblies” as they were known) tells the story of workers in factories, sawmills, wheat fields, forests, mines and on the docks as they organize and demand better wages, healthcare, overtime pay and safer working conditions. This film was recently inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
Link: Full Movie - The Wobblies (1979)
Harlan County, USA (1976)
Harlan County, USA is a documentary film covering the "Brookside Strike", an effort of 180 coal miners and their wives against the Duke Power Company-owned Eastover Coal Company's Brookside Mine and Prep Plant in Harlan County, southeast Kentucky in 1973. This film won the 1976 Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Link: Full Movie - Harlan County, USA (1976)
Link: Video - The Making of Harlan County, USA (2004)
Joe Hill (1971)
A 1971 biopic about the legendary Swedish-American labor activist and songwriter Joe Hill. The film is a dramatization of Hill's life, depicting Hill's arrival as a poor immigrant in New York in 1902, his involvement with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and his trial for murder, during which he defended himself. This film won the Jury Prize at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
Link: Trailer - Joe Hill (1971)Link: Full Movie - Joe Hill (1971)
Link: Video - Paul Robeson Sings “Joe Hill” to Coal Miners (1949)
Link: Video - Phil Ochs Sings “The Ballad of Joe Hill” on Swedish TV (1968)
Link: Video - Joan Baez Sings “Joe Hill” at Woodstock Festival (1969)
Link: Video - Bruce Springsteen Sings “Joe Hill” on International Workers’ Day (2014)
Matewan (1987)
This film dramatizes the events of the Battle of Matewan, a coal miners' strike in 1920 in Matewan, a small town in the hills of West Virginia. The film received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography in 1988, and received a Criterion Collection re-release in 2019.
Link: Trailer - Matewan (1987)Link: Full Movie - Matewan (1987)
F.I.S.T. (1978)
This film is loosely based on the Teamsters Union and their former President Jimmy Hoffa. Sylvester Stallone plays “Johnny Kovak”, a Cleveland warehouse worker who becomes involved in the labor union leadership of the fictional "Federation of Inter-State Truckers" (F.I.S.T.). This film is not available for streaming, as the movie rights are now owned by Amazon, and new Teamsters President Sean O’Brien has publicly stated intent to unionize Amazon workers.
Link: Trailer - F.I.S.T. (1978)
Metropolis (1927)
In the year 2026, in the futuristic city of Metropolis, society is sharply divided between two distinct classes: the employing class and the working class. The employing class are rich industrialists who live and plan in beautiful utopian skyscrapers high above the earth, supported by the mistreated workers. The working class are poor laborers who live and toil in a bleak dystopian underground, enduring a bare-bones existence of back-breaking work, wage slaves to the whistle of a 10-hour clock. Nearly 100 years after its release, this influential science fiction film still bears relevance today.
Link: Trailer - Metropolis (1981 Restoration)Link: Full Movie - Metropolis (1981 Restoration)
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