Why We Can't Wait

Julien Temple builds a portrait of Joe Strummer out of old footage, animation, home movies and interviews with friends and bandmates, many of them filmed around campfires. It follows him from a diplomat's son at boarding school, through the squats and the 101ers, to The Clash, the years in the wilderness and his late-life band, The Mescaleros. Strummer died in 2002, and the film is part elegy, part argument about what a punk is for.

Why it’s here: It's a film about a man who made a politics out of a band and then had to live with it. What's punk is the whole arc: the squat, the Clash's call to listen to the world, and the later years of trying to be useful. What's pedagogical is how it admits the contradictions, including the privileged start he downplayed and the way he treated some bandmates. Pairs with The Punk Rock Politics of Joe Strummer, England's Dreaming and Please Kill Me. Note: NR; drugs, a family suicide discussed, and a fair amount of swearing; older teens and adults.

Dagenham, 1968. The 187 women who sew car seats at Ford's plant are classed as unskilled and paid a fraction of the men. When Ford tries to cut them further, they walk out, and the strike shuts down the company's British production. Led by a factory worker, Rita, they take their case all the way to the Employment Secretary, Barbara Castle. The strike was real and it pushed Britain toward the Equal Pay Act of 1970. A warm, funny and well-acted drama.

Why it’s here: It's a film about women who wouldn't be told their work was worth less. What's punk is the walk-out and the cheerful insistence. What's pedagogical is how it shows a pay gap as a classification trick, 'unskilled' meaning 'women', and how a handful of workers moved a government. Pairs with Salt of the Earth and Harlan County, USA. Note: rated R/PG-13 depending on cut (some swearing); dramatized, and Rita O'Grady is a composite character. A mainstream crowd-pleaser, so it sits well next to the heavier documentaries.