
American Factory(2019)
dir. Steven Bognar & Julia Reichert
No villain speech. Just what actually happens.
Where to watch: Streaming on NetflixLetterboxd ↗
A Chinese-owned auto-glass plant reopens a shuttered Ohio GM factory, and cultural and labor tensions surface as American and Chinese workers try to build something together.
Why it’s here
Refuses the easy version of this story — nobody here is simply the hero or the problem, Chinese management included. The first film the Obamas' production company ever released, and it earns that distinction by trusting the footage over a thesis.
Where This Film Lives
- Setting
- North America
Read Alongside
Books that share a topic, theme, or setting with this film.
Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone
Sarah Jaffe

"Do what you love" is a pay cut.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Affluenza
John de Graaf, David Wann & Thomas Naylor

Consumerism is a disease. Here are the symptoms.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World's Most Powerful Industry
JS Tan and Clarissa Redwine

How Silicon Valley became a ruling class.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand

The capitalist fever dream that won’t die.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Black Boy
Richard Wright

The autobiography Jim Crow didn't want written.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition
Cedric J. Robinson

Capitalism was racial from day one.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Thomas Piketty

The numbers don't lie. The rich make the rules.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Capitalism and Slavery
Eric Williams

Slavery didn't fund empire. Slavery WAS empire.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
