1. A Cop Movie (Una película de policías)
This documentary walks the line between fact and fiction, delving into corruption in the Mexican police through the experiences of two officers.
It has an average vote of 7.4 on TMDB.
2. Night School
Indianapolis has one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the country. Night School follows three adult students living in the city’s more impoverished neighborhoods as they attempt to earn their diplomas while juggling other difficult responsibilities and realities. Through their stories, the filmmakers explore many issues that low-income Americans deal with, including unjust minimum wage and working conditions, arbitrary legal hindrances, and race and gender inequality.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
3. A Scent of Chocolate (En doft av choklad)
Documentary about Margit Nielsen and her work at the Malmö chocolate factory.
4. The Rise and Fall of John Leslie
The story of one Britain's most famous TV presenters at the center of a media storm.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
5. The Good Housewife in Her Kitchen
Short public information film showing housewives' efficient and hygienic methods of food storage.
6. Harlan County U.S.A.
This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastovers refusal to sign a contract led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.
It has an average vote of 7.5 on TMDB.
7. Walter: A Life in Football
Documentary paying tribute to one of the most successful managers in the history of Scottish football, Walter Smith. A winner as manager for Rangers and Scotland, Walter Smith was a man whose character won respect across the hard tribal lines of our national game. Featuring rare archive, and told with interview contributions from the people who knew him best and who worked with him throughout his long and varied career, the programme explores the numerous successes at Rangers, his experiences as a manager when he headed south to Everton in the English Premiership, his leadership of the Scotland national men’s team and his sensational return to Rangers in 2007. Walter: A Life in Football follows the highs and lows of Smith’s career, exploring the characteristics that made players, fellow managers and supporters venerate him. He was genuinely loved and revered by many, including titans of the game such as Pep Guardiola and Sir Alex Ferguson.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
8. Workingman's Death
Is heavy manual labour disappearing or is it just becoming invisible? Where can we still find it in the 21st century? Workingman's Death follows the trail of the HEROES in the illegal mines of the Ukraine, sniffs out GHOST among the sulphur workers in Indonesia, finds itself face to face with LIONS at a slaughterhouse in Nigeria, mingles with BROTHERS as they cut a huge oil tanker into pieces in Pakistan, and joins Chinese steel workers in hoping for a glorious FUTURE.
It has an average vote of 7.2 on TMDB.
9. American Meth
Actor Val Kilmer narrates this powerful film exploring the methamphetamine epidemic that's ravaged blue-collar America. Putting a human face on the problem, filmmaker Justin Hunt reveals the damage being done by this rural drug of choice, as well as the steps being taken by communities across the nation to wipe out the scourge. From Wyoming to New Mexico, Montana and Oregon, American Meth paints a picture of both devastation and hope.
It has an average vote of 6.6 on TMDB.
10. How Every Film You Watch Tells You To Love The Rich and What To Do About It
"How Every Film You Watch Tells You To Love The Rich and What To Do About It" explores the representations of wealth in cinema. It looks into how most beloved characters are subtly more well-off than they should be, how criticisms of the system are crushed, how the rich have become the average in the world of the cinema. And it shows how these stories distort the view of the real world, and are used against you by politicians.
11. Le patro Le Prévost - 80 Years Later
Alanis Obomsawin turns her lens to Le Patro Le Prévost, a recreational centre in the Villeray quarter of Montreal. On the eve of its 80th anniversary in 1989, Le Patro is a vital focal point in the predominantly working-class neighbourhood. Beloved by the many generations who use the facilities and partake in activities daily, Le Patro encourages a strong sense of togetherness through principles of cooperation, respect and sharing. Obomsawin presents a tender portrait of a neighbourhood of diverse residents and the community centre many of them consider a second home.
12. The Story of Skinhead
Don Letts examines the history of this notorious subculture in a fascinating documentary, which features interviews with members of different skinhead scenes through the decades. Beginning in the late 1960s, Don fondly recalls a time of multiracial harmony as youngsters bonded over a love of ska, reggae and smart clothes as white working-class kids were attracted to Jamaican culture and adopted its music and fashions. But when far-right politics targeted skinheads in the 1970s and 1980s, an ugly intolerance emerged, and Don reveals how the once-harmonious subgroup has since struggled to shake this stigma.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
13. Sewing Sisters (미싱타는 여자들)
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, girls aged 12 to 16 began working at Pyeonghwa Market. Running sewing machines, they also study the Labor Standards Act under the tutelage of Jeon Taeil. On September 9, 1977, they were imprisoned fighting against the government that closed labor classes, shouting, “The next Jeon Taeil will be a woman!” Now the middle-aged girls recall the memories of the life of female workers, social contempt, and stigma. Watching the sunrise in the East Sea, they admire, ‘How fair it is because everybody can see it.’ Sewing Sisters rewrites the history of maledominated Korean labor struggles in the 1970s with news interviews of female workers belonging to the Cheonggye Clothes Union.
14. Home
A feature length documentary about love, passion, pigeons and what home means to people. Daniel-John Williams an unknown Teesside actor, explores the world of pigeons and producing his first feature film but he has no idea about either.
15. Being in a Place: A Portrait of Margaret Tait
Drawing on a wealth of unseen archival material and unpublished notebooks, the film weaves a complex and personal portrait of Margaret’s life, from the perspective of a fellow artist sensitive to the potential Margaret envisaged for film as a poetic medium.
It has an average vote of 5 on TMDB.
16. How the Berlin Worker Lives (Zeitprobleme: Wie der Arbeiter wohnt)
This documentary shows how the Berliner workers lived in 1930. The director Slatan Dudow shows through images: a) the workers leaving the factory; b) the raise of the rents; c) the "unpleasant" guest, meaning the justice officer that brings the eviction notice; d) the fight of classes of the houses of capitalists and working classes; e) the parks of the working class; f) the houses of the working class, origin of the tuberculosis and the victims; g) the playground of the working class; h) the swimming pool for the working class, ironically called the "Baltic Sea" of the working class; i) the effects of humidity of basement where a family lives, with one member deaf; j) one working class family having dinner while the capitalist baths his dog; k) the eviction notice received from an unemployed family and their eviction.
It has an average vote of 5.4 on TMDB.
17. Scheme Birds
As her adolescence gives way to the obligations of motherhood, troubled Gemma matures in Motherwell, her Scottish hometown, heavily dependent on the steel industry. Unfortunately for her, her hedonistic way of understanding the world does not fit in with the philosophy of the rest of the villagers, so trouble soon follows.
It has an average vote of 6.6 on TMDB.
18. September Five at Saint-Henri (À Saint-Henri le cinq septembre)
This short film is a series of vignettes of life in Saint-Henri, a Montreal working-class district, on the first day of school. From dawn to midnight, we take in the neighbourhood’s pulse: a mother fussing over children, a father's enforced idleness, teenage boys clowning, young lovers dallying - the unposed quality of daily life.
19. Unity SPD – KPD (Einheit SPD – KPD)
Documentary about the merging of the Communist Party of Germany and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in the Soviet occupation zone, a merger that would lead to the creation of the Socialist Unity Party that would rule the soon-to-be-created East Germany until 1989.
It has an average vote of 5 on TMDB.
20. Echoes of the North: Four Chapters in Time (Echoes of the North: Four Chapters in Time)
A new film made from more than a hundred fragments of archive film, Echoes of the North transports you back to Northern England a century ago, taking its audiences down the highways and byways of northern life in the early 20th century - its industries and rural life, its wartimes and festivals, its transport, holidays, family excursions and huge, city-wide occasions.
