The Writers Guild of America is on strike, screenwriters are picketing studios, and members of other guilds and unions — including SAG, DGA, ITA, and Teamsters, among many others — have joined the organized labor action. So that means it’s the perfect time for my list of the top 20 best movies about unions and labor strikes.
Criterion Collection poster for “Matewan”
Screenwriters went on strike due to increasingly narrower employment standards and lower pay coinciding with large executive bonuses and studio profits, as well as dramatically worse contract conditions for streaming writers and the desire among studios to use A.I. writing to reduce reliance on human screenwriters. There is also a growing tendency of studios to demand actors sign away their likeness — physical and voice — for studio-owned exploitation with deepfake technologies in the future.
Hollywood has made many films about labor rights, the fight for equal and fair treatment for workers, the ins and outs of bad or outright abusive workplaces where people had to fight back, and the often difficult life of a screenwriter.
I’ve collected what I feel are the very best films from among those collections. First, I focused on a primary set of 10 films that are about labor organizing movements, from documentaries to features based on true stories to fictional tales reflecting the realities of unions and strikes.
Next, I looked for movies that weren’t specifically about unions and organized labor, but about workers in exploitative jobs and the ways they fought back. This set of films includes fiction and non-fiction as well, and I selected five of these for inclusion on my list.
Lastly, I wanted some films specifically about screenwriters and the Hollywood experience. It’s telling that most of these are satires, and I think the collection I’ve chosen provide the right tone and fit well with the other 15 selections on my list.
So without further ado, here (in generally the order I’d rank them but with some fluidity based on the list’s context) are my picks for the top 20 best movies about unions and labor strikes — and about screenwriters, for some deliciously relevant spice — for your viewing pleasure this week!
- Germinal (1993)
- At the River I Stand (1993)
- Matewan (1987)
- Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976)
- Salt of the Earth (1954)
- Norma Rae (1979)
- The Killing Floor (1984)
- The Take (2004)
- The Molly Maguires (1970)
- F.I.S.T. (1978)
- 9 to 5 (1980)
- North Country (2005)
- Sorry to Bother You (2018)
- The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
- Silkwood (1983)
- The Player (1992)
- Barton Fink (1991)
- Late Night (2019)
- Adaptation (2002)
- Sunset Boulevard (1950)
And there you have it, dear readers, my 20 movie suggestions for you to watch, in honor of the ongoing WGA strike. Pick a few off the list you haven’t seen before and give them look, I promise you won’t be disappointed.
If there are some films on this list you don’t like, that’s fine. If there are some films not included on my list that you like, that’s fine, too. Watch the films you like, for sure, and don’t watch films you don’t like. My reasons for excluding certain films varies — some I don’t like as much as others do, some I consider “dishonorable” in the context of this list (and I’m sure you know which ones I mean, and if you disagree that’s fine, you can of course make your own list and watch whatever you prefer, but these are my picks for my reasons). As usual, then, this is a list on the internet and your mileage may vary.
Most of these are available on various streaming services, and most of those services do offer initial free trials — anywhere from several days to a month free. So, anybody who wants to watch some strike- and writer-related films, but who doesn’t want to necessarily sign up to streamers and pay to view them all, can simply look the films up on Google and find places to stream them this way. It’s even technically possible to first sign up to a particular streaming site as an add-on with a free trial, through a bundle site like Amazon or Hulu for example, and then end it and re-sign up directly on that streaming site itself for another free trial.
The point is, you can enjoy most films on this list a variety of ways, including cost-effective options for folks who can’t or won’t spend money to sign up for a streamer at this time.
Be sure to check back here again soon for more movie recommendations, reviews, box office updates, and other analysis. I’ll have more about the WGA strike, and any potential expansion of a strike by other guilds or any deal that ends the strike, so stay tuned.