Harlan County, U.S.A.(1976)
dir. Barbara Kopple
Shot from inside the picket line, not above it.
Where to watch: Streaming on Criterion ChannelLetterboxd ↗
Cinema-verité account of a 13-month Kentucky coal miners' strike against Eastover Mining, filmed from inside the picket line as violence escalates on both sides.
Why it’s here
No talking-head remove — Kopple lived with the strikers for over a year, and the film's authority comes from proximity, not narration. A founding text for what labor documentary can look like when the filmmaker picks a side and stays there.
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
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
Amal Unbound
Aisha Saeed
The debt wasn't hers. The cage is.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Black Boy
Richard Wright
The autobiography Jim Crow didn't want written.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type
Doreen Cronin
Cows, a typewriter, and a labor strike.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives
Siddharth Kara
The true cost hiding in your pocket.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Germinal
Émile Zola
They had nothing left to lose. They struck anyway.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor
Russell Freedman
Photographs as evidence. Evidence as law.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST