2025; R; 1h 59m
An investigation into the life, work, and enduring influence of the writer George Orwell, connecting his ideas to the contemporary world.
Director: Raoul Peck
Writer: Raoul Peck
Stars: Damian Lewis, George Orwell, U Win Khine
Category Archives: Themes
ORWELL 2 +2=5
ANIMAL FARM
2025; PG; 1h 36m
An animal revolution is corrupted from within, fulfilling Orwell’s warning about communism.
Director: Andy Serkis
Writers: George Orwell; Nicholas Stoller
Stars: Gaten Matarazzo, Seth Rogen, Glenn Close
Opening May 1 2026
Rolling Papers (Pikad Paberid)
2024; 1h 38m
Director: Meel Paliale
Writers: Meel PalialeUrmet Piiling Stars: Mihkel Kuusk; Karl Birnbaum; Edgar Vunsh
A portrait of European youth as they navigate life in their twenties, grappling with uncertainty and searching for purpose.
NO OTHER CHOICE
2025 * R * 2h 19m
Director: Park Chan-wook
Writers: Donald E. Westlake; Park Chan-wook; Lee Kyoung-mi
Stars: Lee Byung-hun; Son Ye-jin; Woo Seung Kim
After being unemployed for several years, a man devises a unique plan to secure a new job: eliminate his competition.
Self Driver
A desperate cab driver joins a mysterious money-making app, leading him into society’s shadows. As the night progresses, his morals are tested and free will questioned. The depths he’ll sink reveal themselves as darkness falls.
2024
1h 30m
Director: Michael Pierro
Writer: Michael Pierro
Stars
Nathanael Chadwick
Reece Presley
Lauren Welchner
Baristas vs. Billionaires (2025)
Contact: nicholas.wolaver@gmail.com
Starbucks baristas in Buffalo unite against corporate exploitation during the pandemic, sparking a generational uprising among working-class Millennials and Gen Z as they challenge a powerful billionaire CEO and fight for their rights.
World Premiere at the Buffalo International Film Festival, October 10th, 2025.
A film by Mark Mori.
See more on our website: https://www.baristasvsbillionaires.com
X: https://x.com/BaristasVsBill
Instagram: / baristasvsbillionaires
Facebook: / the-baristas-vs-the-billionaire-6155471785…
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29103859…
Day Shift (2022)
R; 1h 53m
A hard-working, blue-collar dad just wants to provide a good life for his quick-witted 10-year-old daughter. His mundane San Fernando Valley pool cleaning job is a front for his real source of income: hunting and killing vampires.
‘Day Shift’ Review: Stakes Out
Emily the Criminal (2022)
R; 1h 37m
Emily (Aubrey Plaza) is saddled with student debt and locked out of the job market due to a minor criminal record. Desperate for income, she takes a shady gig as a “dummy shopper,” buying goods with stolen credit cards supplied by a handsome and charismatic middleman named Youcef (Theo Rossi). Faced with a series of dead-end job interviews, Emily soon finds herself seduced by the quick cash and illicit thrills of black-market capitalism, and increasingly interested in her mentor Youcef. Together, they hatch a plan to bring their business to the next level in Los Angeles.
Director
Get a Job (2016)
The Spook Who Sat By the Door (1973)
1973 action crime–drama film based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Sam Greenlee (which was first published in the United Kingdom by Allison and Busby after being rejected by American publishers). It is both a satire of the civil rights struggle in the United States of the late 1960s and a serious attempt to focus on the issue of Black militancy. Dan Freeman, the titular protagonist, is enlisted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in its elitist espionage program, becoming its token Black person. After mastering agency tactics, however, he becomes disillusioned and drops out to train young Black people in Chicago to become “Freedom Fighters”. As a story of one man’s reaction to white ruling-class hypocrisy, the film is loosely autobiographical and personal.
The novel and the film also dramatize the CIA’s history of giving training to persons and/or groups who later utilize their specialized intelligence training against the agency – an example of “blowback.”
Directed by Ivan Dixon, co-produced by Dixon and Greenlee, from a screenplay written by Greenlee with Mel Clay, the film starred Lawrence Cook, Paula Kelly, Janet League, J. A. Preston, and David Lemieux. It was mostly shot in Gary, Indiana, because the themes of racial strife did not please Chicago’s then-mayor Richard J. Daley. The soundtrack was an original score composed by Herbie Hancock, who grew up in the same neighborhood as Greenlee.
In 2012, the film was added to the National Film Registry, which annually chooses 25 films that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”.
THE LABOR FILM DATABASE 