Union Songs

Workers in Struggle: Film, Video and DVD (136 Selections)

1924 Strike, Sergei Eisenstein
1925 Battleship Potemkin, Sergei Eisenstein
1936 The Plow That Broke The Plains, Pare Lorentz
1936 Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin
1937 The River, Pare Lorentz
1941 Devil and Miss Jones, Sam Wood
1942 The Land, Robert Flaherty
1946 Indonesia Calling, Joris Ivens
1953 - 1959 Waterside Workers' Film Unit
1954 Salt of the Earth, Herbert J. Biberman
1960 Deadly the Harvest, Society of Friends
1963 Compagni, I (The Organiser), Mario Monicelli
1968 Not a Penny on the Rent, Cinema Action
1969 Adalan, Bo Widerberg
1969 The Big Flame, Ken Loach
1970 Fighting the Bill, Cinema Action
1970 People of Ireland, Cinema Action
1971 UCS I, Cinema Action
1971 The Ballad Of Joe Hill, Bo Widerberg
1971 UCS II, Cinema Action
1972 Tout Va Bien, Jean-Luc Godard
1973 Arise Ye Workers, Cinema Action
1975 The Miners' Film, Cinema Action
1976 Harlan County, U.S.A., Barbara Kopple
1976 Victoria Street May Day 1976, Robert Lee Chittick
1976 The Painters & Dockers Strike - Garden Island, Russ Hermann and Tom Zubrycki
1978 Norma Rae, Martin Ritt
1978 Sack Black - The struggle for democracy in the BLF, Russ Hermann and Tom Zubrycki
1979 Evictions, Richard Lowenstein
1979 The Wobblies, Deborah Shaffer & Stewart Bird
1980 The Life And Times Of Rosie The Riveter, Connie Field
1980 Nine To Five, Colin Higgins
1981 Waterloo, Tom Zubrycki
1981 So That You Can Live, Cinema Action
1981 Rocking the Boat, Cinema Action
1982 A Crime to Fit the Punishment, Barbara Moss & Stephen Mack
1983 The Centenary of the Painters & Dockers, Russ Hermann
1983 Silkwood, Mike Nichols
1983 Carry Greenham Home, Beeban Kidron
1984 Strikebound, Richard Lowenstein
1983 Kemira - Diary of a Strike, Tom Zubrycki
1983 Silkwood , Mike Nichols
1984 The Good Fight: The Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the Spanish Civil War, Mary Dore, Noel Buckner, and Sam Sills
1984 Which Side Are You On?, Ken Loach
1984 Meantime, Mike Leigh
1984 For Love or Money, Megan McMurchy, Margot Nash, Margot Oliver and Jeni Thornley
1984 Which Side Are You On?, Ken Loach
1986 Mine War on Blackberry Creek, Anne Lewis
1986 Rocking the Foundations, Pat Fiske
1986 Rocinante, Cinema Action
1987 How the West Was Lost, David Noakes
1987 Wall Street, Oliver Stone
1987 Matewan, John Sayles
1988 Deep Bells Ring: Paul Pobeson, Russ Hermann
1988 Amor, Mujeres y Flores, Marta Rodriguez
1989 Friends & Enemies, Tom Zubrycki
1989 Business As Usual, Lezli-Ann Barrett
1989 Roger and Me, Michael Moore
1990 Riff-Raff, Ken Loach
1991 The Killing of Angel Street, Donald Crombie
1993 At the River I Stand, David Appleby, Allison Graham and Steven Ross
1993 Germinal, Claude Berri
1994 Freedom On My Mind, Connie Field
1994 Ready for Harvest: Clearcutting in the Southern Appalachians, Anne Lewis
1996 Brassed Off, Mark Herman
1997 Vickery Life on the Picket, Russ Hermann
1997 The Flickering Flame, Ken Loach
1997 Defying The Law, Marta Nielsen-Hastings
1998 Zapatista!, Big Noise Films
1998 Seeds of Hope, Neil Goodwin
1999 Paul Robeson: Here I Stand, St. Clair Bourne
1999 Made In Thailand, Eve-Laure Moros and Linzy Emery
1999 Cradle Will Rock, Tim Robbins
1999 Bread and Roses, Ken Loach
1999 Dockers, Bill Anderson
1999 Oh Freedom After a While, Steven John Ross
1999 Oakdale, Russ Hermann
1999 Cradle Will Rock, Tim Robbins
2000 National Textiles, Russ Hermann
2000 La Commune, Peter Watkins
2000 Bread and Roses, Ken Loach
2001 Baran, Majid Majidi
2001 Freedom Highway: Songs that Shaped a Century, Philip King
2002 Not This Time, Conscious Cinema
2002 Drowned Out, Franny Armstrong
2002 Wal-Mart's War On Workers, UFCW
2002 Spring: The Story of Hsu Chin-Yu, Tseng Wen-Chen
2002 Mondays in the Sun, Fernando León de Aranoa
2003 Friends or Foe, Jiyoung Lee
2003 The Globalisation Tapes, Independent Plantation Workers' Union of Sumatra
2003 Standing Together, Joan Robinson
2003 Shots on the Docks, Steve Zeltzer
2004 Greenham: The Making of a Monument, Ian and Thalia Campbell
2004 The Money Masters, i-Contact
2004 The Take, Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein
2004 Militant & Progressive, Russ Hermann
2004 Solidarity at Home and Abroad, Russ Hermann
2004 Fighting Films Book Launch, Russ Hermann
2004 A Celebration of the Life of Tas Bull, Russ Hermann
2004 The Union: Fighting for a Fair Go, Paddy Gorman and Russ Hermann
2004 The Human Cost of Mining, Paddy Gorman and Russ Hermann
2004 MUA Films
2005 McLibel DVD, Franny Armstrong
2005 Lewis County: Hope and Struggle, Anne Fischel
2005 Time To Go John
2005 The American Ruling Class, John Kirby
2006 Hula Girls, Sang-il Lee
2006 Have You Heard from Johannesburg?: Apartheid and the Club of the West, Connie Field
2006 ¡Salud!, Connie Field
2007 Lockout, Jason Van Genderen
2007 From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks, Haskell Wexler
2007 Bastard Boys, Raymond Quint
2007 Hold The Line, Joan Robinson
2007 Constructing Fear, Joe Loh
2007 Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, Jim Brown
2008 Tanaka-san Will Not Do Callisthenics, Maree Delofski
2008 Encirclement - Neo-Liberalism Ensnares Democracy, Richard Broulliette
2009 Beneath Black Skies, Sandra Pires
2009 Looking for Eric, Ken Loach
2009 Weabak: Stayed Out All Night, Kim Mi-re
2009 Nagai Park Elegy, Sato Leo
2009 Kotsunagi - Iriai, Commons in Japan, Nakamura Kazuo
2009 Indonesia Calling: Joris Ivens In Australia, John Hughes
2009 The Age of Stupid, Franny Armstrong
2009 The Coca Cola Case, German Gutierrez and Carmen Garcia
2009 Last Train Home, Lixin Fan
2010 You and Me, Aunty Carol Cooper, Prue Adams and Virginia Field
2010 Made in Dagenham, Nigel Cole
2010 Butte, America, Pamela Roberts
2010 Deep Down, Jen Gilomen, Sally Rubin
2010 Way Down in the Hole, Alex Johnston
2010 Last Stand At Nymboida, Jeff Bird
2010 The Pipe, Risteard O Domhnaill
2011 Triangle Fire, Jamila Wignot
2011 Anne Braden: Southern Patriot , Anne Lewis & Mimi Pickering
2011 Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune, Kenneth Bowser
2011 American Teacher, Vanessa Roth
2012 Who Bombed Judi Bari?, Mary Liz Thomson
2012 After I Pick the Fruit, Nancy Ghertner
2013 The Condition of the Working Class, Mike Wayne and Deidre O'Neill
2014 Still the Enemy Within, Owen Gower, Sinead Kirwan and Mark Lacey

see also

AFL-CIO:Working Class Heroes: List of Films
The Online Labor Film Database
Berkeley Labor Guides
British Film Institute: Political Film
California Newsreel
Canadian Labour International Film Festival (CLiFF)
Clarity Films
Culture Shop
La Lutta New Media Collective
Labor Beat
Labor-Related Films in the Library of Congress Collection
Laborfest
Labor Heritage Foundation Catalogue
LabourStart DVD shop
LabourStart.tv
May Day Labor Film Festival
Screen Australia
Seditious Intent: films inspired by Australia's Anti-Terror Bill
Spanner Films
United Mine Workers of America

and for prospective films

Democracy Project

Eric Lee from LabourStart writes:

NORMA RAE, MATEWAN, HOFFA - WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE TRADE UNION FILM?

There is nothing like a great trade union film to make a compelling case for the labour movement. Take "Norma Rae" for example. There's a scene where Norma is about to be forcibly removed from the factory in which she once worked and is now trying to unionize. She stands on a machine holding up a sign with one word on it. The word is "union". One by one, all her co-workers shut down their machines. The factory falls completely silent. This is what solidarity is all about -- and there's nothing like a film to make this clear and memorable.

That's why I'm so pleased that the unionized online bookshop Powells.com has started selling thousands of DVD titles (with free shipping within the USA). We've selected some of the very best union films (including Norma Rae) and we're sure that many of you will consider purchasing these for yourselves and for your union branch or local. And with the new year coming up, what could make a better holiday gift than a film about unions, purchased from a unionized bookshop, with part of the proceeds going to support LabourStart?

Check out our new DVD shop today:
http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/bookoftheday/show_dvds.pl

LabourStart.tv!

A collection of links to short videos produced by and for trade unions around the world. The current archive (November 2005) now includes links to 97 of these.

http://www.labourstart.org/tv/

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