Workers of the world unite with these classic films for Labor Day

Celebrations of labor rarely pause to acknowledge the kind that isn’t paid by the hour, but Chantal Akerman’s landmark film treats the work her titular protagonist does in the kitchen with as much dignity and seriousness as any assembly-line love letter. Using her aunt, whom she’d watched with rapt fascination as a child, for a model, Akerman lead actress Delphine Seyrig how to perform the tasks of a housewife with the offhand precision that comes from a lifetime of practice—in spite of the fact that the aristocratic Seyrig had never peeled a potato in her life. presents those tasks in near-real time (or at least a carefully choreographed simulation thereof), at a length that goes through drudgery to a kind of hypnotic fascination. When her actions start to veer off-course, a sense of palpable shock goes through the viewer’s body, prefiguring the movie’s shocking and yet inevitable conclusion.

It’s been more than 40 years since , Barbara Kopple’s Oscar-winning documentary about a miners’ strike in Kentucky coal country, was first released, but the persistence of cave-ins, health concerns, and deplorable working conditions has kept it in the public conscience. Kopple and her crew arrived in the area in 1972, intending to cover the contentious election of a new union president, but they stumbled onto the site of the one of the bloodiest union-busting operations in American history and discovered that little had changed. As the miners’ strike against the Duke Power Company drags on, Kopple’s cameras are there to catch some hired gun thugs sent to intimidate the workers (and Kopple’s crew) and the tensions that develop within the ranks as the weeks and months drag on. It’s a scenario that would repeat itself during the Hormel strike in Minnesota in Kopple’s excellent 1990 documentary American Dream.

Being grossly compensated for scoring a championship-winning touchdown doesn’t seem like work in the same way that spot welding or filing TPS reports does. But it’s a living. George Roy Hill’s bawdy hockey comedy is more explicit in its commentary on labor. Here, it’s not overpaid pro athletes, but aging amateurs who puts their bodies to brutal, bloody work to entertain unimpressed hometown crowds. Slap Shot connects the fate of the struggling Charlestown Chiefs to that of a local mill whose foreclosure seems imminent. It also works to demystify the system of ownership and management that often clouds working- and middle-class labor relations as the team’s player-coach (Paul Newman) attempts to locate the team’s white-collar owner.

’s directorial debut, , casts Yaphet Kotto, Harvey Keitel, and Richard Pryor as Detroit autoworkers who hatch a coked-up scheme to rip off their union. Beyond being an inventive caper, Blue Collar looks at the friction between the sense of fraternity that defines the spirit of labor unions and the all-American ideals of self-interest, determination, and covering your own ass. Schrader sees unions, or at least this union, as just another layer designed to keep workers complacent: In one scene, a dispute between Pryor and his foreman is resolved with the gifting of a bottle of Cutty Sark. Where a film like Norma Rae analyzes the problems of non-union labor in America, Blue Collar questions the various manipulations that turn organized workers against each other. As Kotto’s character puts it, “They’ll do anything to keep you on their line. They pit the lifers against the new boys, the old against the young, the black against the white—everybody—to keep us in our place.” Blue Collar is as much an indictment of the inherent corruption of any system of power as a complex look at the lives of its cash-strapped line workers, one that doesn’t fall into the trap of rosily romanticizing class struggle.

Sally Field finally escaped the long shadow of The Flying Nun with her Academy Award-winning performance in Martin Ritt’s 1979 labor drama , and in a way Field’s journey from Hollywood joke to the Oscar podium shadows that of her Norma Rae character. Here Field plays a textile worker and widowed mother who gets stirred up by outside agitator Ron Leibman and pushes her co-workers to unionize. A lot of stories about unions are about the power of the collective, but Field’s big scene where she silently stands in the middle of the shop floor with a hand-written “UNION” sign is more about Norma herself, demonstrating that while she may be small of stature, under-educated, and have a bad reputation around town, she still has value, and can make a difference.

This satirical workplace comedy from 1980 may look dated now, but the situations and themes it tackles are, unfortunately, timeless. Women in the workforce have always had trouble getting their male colleagues to take them seriously, and before the #MeToo era there wasn’t much they could do about it. Besides, you know, put rat poison in their lecherous, credit-stealing boss’ coffee, kidnap him, and blackmail him into shutting up about all of it. That’s the approach the powerhouse trio of Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, and Lily Tomlin take in when they’re left with no better options. With the boss (go-to smarmy ’80s bad guy Dabney Coleman) “tied up,” they take the opportunity back at the office to implement worker-friendly policies like flexible hours, part-time job sharing, on-site day care, and equal pay. The result is a 20 percent rise in productivity. Turns out, when workers are happy they do a better job. If only that lesson had proven to be as lasting as Parton’s catchy opening tune.

One of history’s most symbolic—and extreme—examples of worker exploitation and resistance is the story of Karen Silkwood. A metallurgy worker and union leader at an Oklahoma plutonium processing plant, Silkwood was killed in a car wreck on November 13, 1974 … on her way to speak to a journalist about her documentation outlining management’s unsafe practices. Allegedly, the documents were nowhere to be found. The inherent mystery around her suspicious death, of course, makes for a no-brainer jumping-off point for a Hollywood adaptation. But director Mike Nichols and screenwriters Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen, masters of both the personal and political, wisely keep the focus of 1983’s on the intimate details of this woman’s life, her burgeoning sense of injustice, and the relationships threatened by her rebellion, making this real-life story’s conclusion all the more tragic. Terrific performances from the Oscar-nominated duo of Meryl Streep and Cher further elevate this resonant portrait of union struggle.

Although he’s long since strayed from his proletarian beginnings, first made his mark as an affectionate, empathetic chronicler of blue-collar America. Demme’s devotion to characters like Melvin And Howard’s Melvin Dummar, a hapless working stiff who gives a lift to an errant Howard Hughes, hit its endpoint with 1984’s , which paid tribute to the women who took over factory jobs when their husbands and brothers were sent to fight World War II. Unfortunately, budding star Goldie Hawn had rather different aims for the film, which was re-cut after being taken out of the director’s hands. (During the filming of Philadelphia, Demme popped into a local video store and left a hand-scrawled note on Swing Shift’s video box, amiably explaining that a better version existed.) Even so, the film remains a fond if compromised portrayal of an aspect of the war effort that history books often neglect.

The low-budget film , from the independent director Lizzie Borden, chronicles a full day inside a terrific-looking, antiseptic piece of Manhattan real estate that serves as a bordello. The dates with the johns are little pieces of theater that only turn awkward when a regular client who’s gotten too attached to a girl—who’s especially good at catering to his fantasies—asks why they can’t see each other “on the outside.” When the girls aren’t in the bedroom, they hang out, shoot the shit, work the phones, and wait for the boss’ next tantrum. The economics of it all is more compelling to the women than their clients’ bodies or what they’re being asked to do with them, and when the heroine (Louise Smith) announces at the end that she’s fed up and won’t be coming back, she’s reacting against the fact that the madam has pressured her into taking extra shifts and doesn’t pay her a fair wage—that, more than what she’s doing for the money, makes her feel degraded. (It’s also anyone’s guess whether or not she really will be coming back.) This dispassionate, painstakingly unsexy film was an early success for Miramax Films, thanks in part to a sexy poster showing Smith smiling enticingly at potential ticket buyers.

Even before his movie career, when he was a novelist and short-story writer in his 20s, was unusual among young American artists for his class-conscious sense of history. His most ambitious film up to that point, is an attempt to throw a light on forgotten American history by recreating the events that led to the 1920 Matewan Massacre, a bloody shootout between residents of a West Virginia mining town and “detectives” hired as strike breakers by the Stone Mountain Coal Company. The film, which marks the debuts of both Chris Cooper (as a roving labor organizer who looks as if he’d stepped out of an old Wobblies poster) and the 17-year-old Will Oldham (as a teenage miner whose character serves as narrator), is notable for its depiction of how the bosses deliberately stir up racism among the workers as part of their divide-and-conquer strategy, bringing in a trainload of black replacement workers led by James Earl Jones. Aiming for a historical-documentary feel, Sayles also links his work to earlier tributes to the labor movement: Hazel Dickens, the labor activist and folk singer who appears as herself in Harlan County, U.S.A., plays a local woman who sings at the grave of a fallen worker.

Who would ever think to make a musical out of the true story of striking newsboys in New York City at the turn of the 20th century? Walt Disney Pictures, that’s who. Directed and choreographed by Kenny Ortega—who would go on to make a fortune for the studio with franchises like High School Musical and Descendants, not to mention a little seasonal flick called Hocus Pocus— is the ultimate David vs. Goliath tale. It features a young Christian Bale as Jack “Cowboy” Kelly, a newspaper hawker who leads his fellow workers in a standoff against one of the city’s most powerful media moguls, Joseph Pulitzer (played by a mustache-twirling Robert Duvall). Bill Pullman also turns in a typically affable performance as a sympathetic journalist covering the strike. But the real draw is the big ensemble numbers about the plight of the working class and sticking it to the man. Calls for solidarity run through the lyrics, with declarations like, “Pulitzer may own The World but he don’t own us!” and “Wrongs will be righted if we’re united!” If you’re at all familiar with the film (or the Broadway musical that came later), you might now have these songs stuck in your head. You’re welcome.

Solidarity, extortion, the workingman’s rebellion: not typically topics associated with animated, family friendly fare! In fact, even those who have seen Pixar’s might be surprised to see it on a list of Labor Day classics. But what is the conflict between Flik’s colony of grain-harvesting ants and Hopper’s greedy protection racket, if not a prime example of workers’ exploitation? While at first intimidated by the grasshopper gang (and very understandably—for a kids movie, those bugs are terrifying), the ants eventually realize they far outnumber these would-be protectors, rallying together to overthrow their system of oppression. Seen one way, this is just a charmingly diverting adventure about talking bugs. Seen another way, A Bug’s Life is an inspiring tale of proletariat triumph.

In broad outline, Travis Wilkerson’s hourlong documentary sounds unappetizingly vitamin-enriched: It’s a portrait of Butte, Montana, a mining town reduced to a vast pit of toxic sludge by rapacious, unchecked capitalism. But while the film delivers the expected lefty outrage, it does so via formal methods that are surprisingly, and often thrillingly, unconventional by creating a disorienting middle ground between agitprop and poetry. In lieu of archival footage or talking heads, Wilkerson assembles a collection of stills, maps, quotations, folk-song lyrics, and other ephemera, placing far more emphasis on mood than on presenting facts or building an argument; often, he’ll put seemingly random numbers onscreen, then gradually reveal their significance. Imagine the Flint, Michigan of Roger & Me, except a) far, far worse, and b) as presented by a mournful, non-hectoring disciple of Jean-Luc Godard. Few movies have made such a strong simultaneous case against greedy despoilment and for the beauty of cinema.

Contemporary cinema’s greatest poets of working-class life, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne never fail to pay close attention to their characters’ various métiers. That’s especially true of , where Olivier Gourmet’s carpentry business furnishes a bond between him and a young apprentice, wordlessly suggesting the more profound connection the film later reveals. Given the Dardennes’ Christian faith, Gourmet’s profession also links him to history’s most famous woodworker, whose forgiveness he struggles to emulate.

was sometimes dismissed as a misanthrope who made movies about disconnected loonies off in their own self-absorbed worlds; but throughout his career he was drawn to the idea of people working together to create something, be it a town in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, music in Nashville, or ballet in one of Altman’s last films, . So subtle that it’s practically plotless, The Company surveys Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet from its visionaries and accountants down to its dancers, who work until they bleed or break, always knowing that they can be replaced. Altman admires the outcome, but he doesn’t romanticize the process: Everybody’s a cog in a bigger machine.

The title says it all: —the second in a “globalization” trilogy from Michael Glawogger that includes 1998’s Megacities and 2011’s superb triptych about prostitution, —travels to five of the most dangerous work sites on Earth and finds desperate men endangering their lives for exceedingly modest pay. The sites include a ship-breaking yard in Pakistan, an open-air market in Nigeria where butchers slaughter their wares, and a Ukrainian mining system with a brazen lack of safety standards. Glawogger is far from an indifferent, point-and-shoot documentarian: Workingman’s Death has a compositional beauty that’s rare for the format, but its formal sheen only heightens the miseries of the people in front of the camera.

Not all workingmen are inherently noble, especially when they’re part of an institutionalized culture that wittingly and unwittingly subjugates a portion of its workforce: the workingwoman. The 2005 drama tells the dramatized story of the United States’ first sexual-harassment case, casting an un-glammed Charlize Theron as a newly single mother who goes to work in the harsh conditions of a Minnesota iron mine, and winds up facing worse conditions above ground than she does below at the hands of her ragingly sexist, verbally abusive male co-workers and superiors (and to an extent, her blind-eye-turning female co-workers). Things get worse when she brings a lawsuit against the company, insisting that she just wants to be able to work. In the end, Theron’s controversial victory ensures she doesn’t have to work at the mine anymore (not that she’d want to), but it also ensures that subsequent generations of female miners will be able do so without sacrificing their own well-being.

For just about everyone except for service workers, Las Vegas is an overbearingly opulent, decadent experience—and for Danny Ocean and his team of thieves and technicians, it always involves extremely high style, and even higher stakes. Perhaps that’s why in , screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien (Billions) decided it was important to inject a subplot about a workers’ uprising in Mexico, led by the group’s scrappiest members Virgil (Casey Affleck) and Turk Malloy (Scott Caan). What’s great about this digression from their fleecing of Willy Bank (Al Pacino) is that Virgil and Turk didn’t need to instigate a strike to accomplish their goal—and in fact it complicates their progress. But for a film, a series, and a place so utterly drenched in excessive wealth, taking a few moments to showcase and help some of the too-often forgotten people whose work makes a place like Vegas operate smoothly—if also in this case self-servingly—proved to be a wager that paid off handsomely.

Few films have clocked the dystopian trajectory of capitalism quite like this surreal and devastating black comedy from first-time director Boots Riley (who first gained notoriety as a political rapper and front man for the hip-hop group The Coup). It stars Atlanta’s Lakeith Stanfield as Cassius Green (as in “cash is green”), a telemarketer faced with compromising his principles—and even his own identity—when he’s offered a windfall promotion at a company that trades in human exploitation. But it’s Steven Yuen’s character Squeeze who’s the real working man’s hero here. He organizes the company’s low-level workforce into a union and initiates a work stoppage to call for better compensation and working conditions. We also get the bonus gift of Tessa Thompson as a “fiery” artist whose every aesthetic choice is political (her succession of statement earrings is one of the film’s best ongoing gags). It’s not really possible to do justice to the savage imagination of with a simple plot synopsis, though, as the bizarre turns it takes are too good to spoil. You just have to see it for yourself.

In , writer-director Andrew Bujalski centers working-class solidarity at an unexpectedly novel place of work: a Hooters-esque “breastaurant” known as Double Whammies. There, we follow one day in the life of manager Lisa Conroy (a nuanced and empathetic Regina Hall), who is juggling misbehaving coworkers and customers, a strained personal life, and the demands of a boss (James LeGros) who operates in that all-too-familiar space between incompetence and cruelty. This is a gorgeously acted and brilliantly paced film that sneak-attacks you with a stunner of a final scene: Lisa joins her former coworkers Maci and Danyelle (Haley Lu Richardson and Shayna McHayle) on a rooftop to let out primal scream. It’s cathartic and funny and sad, a spot-on depiction of how frustrating it can be eking out a living in America.