Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute–supported “American Factory” was named Best Documentary Feature at the 92nd Academy Awards.
By Lucy Spicer
As with many U.S. holidays, it’s tempting to conflate Labor Day with shopping as scores of retailers advertise can’t-miss sale events. But we invite you to consider the original purpose of the holiday — to commemorate labor movements and recognize those who tirelessly advocated for workers’ rights, often at the expense of their own safety. As the landscape of the workforce continues to change in the face of automation and rapidly evolving industries, the fight for workers’ rights is never truly over.
Sundance Institute has a long history of supporting documentaries that center workers’ rights around the world, with films like Pat Fiske’s Rocking the Foundations and Kenneth Fink’s The Work I’ve Done screening at early iterations of the Sundance Film Festival (then called the U.S. Film Festival) in the 1980s. The Festival has continued to showcase films about labor through the years, including award-winning titles like Barbara Kopple’s American Dream in 1991. To commemorate Labor Day, we’ve revisited the Institute’s archives and compiled a list of nine powerful documentaries about workers’ rights that are available to watch online now.
Read on to learn about some of the groups that fought — and continue to advocate — for fair labor, from miners’ unions in the 19th century to the Amazon Labor Union founded in 2021.
American Factory — 2019 Sundance Film Festival; supported by Sundance Institute’s Producers Program
Longtime filmmaking team Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert’s fifth collaboration documents the collision of cultures that occurred when a Chinese car-glass manufacturing facility opened in a previously closed General Motors plant in Ohio in 2014. As the American and Chinese workers adjust to each other’s myriad cultural differences, issues of safety standards and inadequate pay arise as the idea of unionization rattles managing parties. A microcosmic view of the evolving identities of American and Chinese labor, American Factory took home the Directing Award: U.S. Documentary at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Check here for viewing options.
The Big One — 1998 Sundance Film Festival
When Michael Moore’s publisher sent the author and filmmaker on a tour to promote his new book (Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American) across the country, Moore took the opportunity — and a small crew — to film a documentary to shine a light on the plight of working-class America as corporations increasingly moved operations overseas in favor of cheaper labor and higher profits. Through lectures, interviews, and unannounced visits to various corporate headquarters, Moore profiles Americans facing unemployment and the indifferent industries that continuously seek to cut labor costs even as their profits soar. Check here for viewing options.
Bisbee ’17 — 2018 Sundance Film Festival; supported by Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program and Producers Program
In the early hours of July 12, 1917, some 2,000 striking miners living in the town of Bisbee, Arizona, were rounded up by a posse deputized by the county sheriff and Phelps Dodge mining corporation. After refusing to denounce unionization, 1,200 of the kidnapped miners were shoved into cattle cars and taken across the border to New Mexico, where they were left without money, food, or water and threatened with death if they ever returned to Bisbee. A century later, the townspeople of Bisbee are staging a reenactment of this haunting event based on personal accounts from the time. Director Robert Greene captures the reenactment and conflicting beliefs of the participants in an unsettling portrait of a country that continues to be violently divided on issues of immigration, unionization, and corporate greed. Check here for viewing options.
Dolores — 2017 Sundance Film Festival; supported by Sundance Institute’s Producers Program
While César Chávez is famous for his part in founding the National Farm Workers Association (which would later join with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to form the United Farm Workers union), lesser known is co-founder Dolores Huerta, a formidable advocate for laborers in her own right — and the originator of the union’s “¡Sí, se puede!” motto. Through archival footage and interviews with Huerta’s peers — and Huerta herself — director Peter Bratt’s dynamic film chronicles Huerta’s invaluable contributions to the labor movement as well as documenting her feminist journey even as critics from all sides sought to attack her character and diminish the fruits of her activism. Check here for viewing options.
Final Offer — 1987 Sundance Film Festival
When director Sturla Gunnarsson was granted unprecedented access to the 1984 contract negotiations between the United Auto Workers Union and General Motors, he probably didn’t expect to document a monumentally historic moment in an industry already facing crisis. But that’s exactly what occurred, as the documentarian’s footage captures behind-the-scenes negotiations that ultimately led to the formation of the Canadian Auto Workers Union as the Canadian branch of the UAW broke away from the American branch over disagreements regarding concessions. Anchored by Bob White, the charismatic and stalwart head of the Canadian branch, Final Offer is a vérité offering that feels like a narrative feature film. Check here for viewing options.
Harlan County, U.S.A. — 2005 Sundance Film Festival
One of director Barbara Kopple’s first films, Harlan County, U.S.A. was initially released in 1976 and would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary. In 2005, the Sundance Film Festival screened a restored print of this impactful film that closely documented the 1973 Brookside Strike. Kopple’s crew spent 18 months in Harlan County, Kentucky, and were able to capture the events of the strike in vivid detail by bunking in miners’ homes and filming them at meetings and on the picket line as they banded together to demand better wages and safer working conditions from the Duke Power Company. Unflinching in the face of violence — sometimes deadly — suffered during the strike, Kopple’s intense and ever-relevant documentary doesn’t shy away from what’s at stake as American laborers stand up to a powerful industry. Check here for viewing options.
An Injury to One — 2003 Sundance Film Festival
In Travis Wilkerson’s 53-minute documentary essay, the director employs archival images, voice-over narration, and music by Jim O’Rourke, Will Oldham, Low, and others to recount the birth of Butte, Montana, as a copper mining center in the 19th and 20th centuries. Anchored by the lynching of union executive Frank Little, the account of Butte’s mining history juxtaposes the power of workers’ solidarity with the insatiable — and violent — rapacity of the Anaconda mining company and an industry whose environmental effects continue to pose dangers to the area a century later. Check here for viewing options.
Struggles in Steel — 1996 Sundance Film Festival
When Ray Henderson saw a television program about the closure of a significant steel mill in Pennsylvania, he was shocked to find that none of the workers featured from the mill were Black. He himself had worked at that mill, along with many other Black laborers who were given the dirtier, more dangerous roles than their white counterparts. So Henderson reached out to a white friend of his from high school, filmmaker Tony Buba. Together, Henderson and Buba interviewed Black steelworkers to set the record straight about an overlooked community that helped to build the country even as they navigated an industry entrenched in racism. Check here for viewing options.
Union — 2024 Sundance Film Festival; supported by Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program
Co-directors Stephen Maing and Brett Story capture the daunting fight between a group of individuals and a corporate behemoth in Union, which won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for the Art of Change at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The documentary chronicles the uphill battle waged by the Amazon Labor Union — comprising current and former Amazon workers in Staten Island — as they seek to grow their movement, led by charismatic union leaders like Chris Smalls. Check here for viewing options.
