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Arts >
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> Directors > 20th, 21st century
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Barbara Kopple
American Dream
Barbara Kopple
1990
video
Janus Film
Official 4K Restoration Trailer 9 April 2026
Winner of the 1991 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature,
Barbara Kopple’s American Dream
unflinchingly details the explosive 1985–86 labor strike
against Hormel Foods in Austin, Minnesota, a city ripped apart
in the tumult.
Fed up with dangerous plant conditions and drastic wage cuts,
Austin’s Local P-9 went against the advice
of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union
and,
with the help of labor activist Ray Rogers’s campaign
to damage the meatpacking giant’s public reputation,
conducted a nearly yearlong walkout.
But as the strike dragged on,
some workers found themselves desperate to make ends meet
and ready to cross the picket line,
dividing a community already betrayed by a once progressive
company
and roiled by blockades, riots, and the intervention of the
National Guard.
Following up her landmark documentary
Harlan County USA
with another engrossing report from the trenches of
working-class America,
Kopple poignantly captures the human and political costs
of one of the most significant setbacks to organized labor
amid the unchecked corporatism of the Reaganomics era.
Supervised and approved by director Barbara Kopple,
this 4K digital restoration was undertaken
by Janus Films and the Criterion Collection
from a scan of the 16 mm internegative.
The original monaural soundtrack was remastered
from the 35 mm DME magnetic track.
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyEpRoAcJp4
Harlan County USA original
trailer 1976
Harlan County USA Barbara Kopple
1976
video original trailer
Janus Film
Barbara Kopple’s Academy Award–winning HARLAN COUNTY USA
unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners’ strike
in a small Kentucky town.
With unprecedented access,
Kopple and her crew captured the miners’ sometimes violent
struggles
with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs.
Featuring a haunting soundtrack
—with legendary country and bluegrass artists
Hazel Dickens, Merle Travis, Sarah Gunning, and Florence
Reece—
the film is a heartbreaking record of the thirteen-month
struggle
between a community fighting to survive
and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiW_K2QLBGk
Barbara Kopple
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Barbara_Kopple
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/may/02/
50-years-of-labor-union-documentaries
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/
movies/documentaries-streaming.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/
movies/desert-one-review.html
https://www.npr.org/2016/07/28/
487707877/soul-singer-sharon-jones-
the-cancer-is-here-but-i-want-to-perform
https://archive.nytimes.com/
artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/12/
a-yearlong-celebration-of-the-nations-150th-anniversary/
https://www.npr.org/2011/04/10/
135289369/gun-fight-relives-va-tech-shooting-revives-debate
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/
arts/television/21george.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/£
arts/television/13woodstock.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/
nyregion/03lives.html
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/oct/29/
1
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/
movies/27chic.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/
movies/in-an-instant-country-stars-became-political-casualties.html
https://www.npr.org/2004/06/19/
1965775/a-conversation-with-documentarian-barbara-kopple
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/03/
tv/for-young-viewers-learning-with-a-difference-one-step-at-a-time.html
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/film/
050299documentary-roundtable.html - May 2, 1999
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/film/
041798wildman-film-review.html - April 17, 1998
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/17/
movies/film-review-
it-s-almost-like-a-woody-allen-movie-but-wait-it-s-real-life.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/24/
movies/film-american-dream-charts-labor-s-loss.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/24/
movies/
in-film-a-career-of-trying-to-balance-the-inequities-of-life.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/06/
movies/review-film-festival-a-tragedy-at-a-plant-
as-lived-by-strikers.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
American_Dream_(film) - 1990
https://www.criterion.com/films/
31114-american-dream
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/08/
arts/tv-keeping-on-a-drama-of-life-in-a-mill-town.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1977/02/06/
archives/
documentaries-from-mining-coal-to-pumping-iron.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/10/15/
archives/
a-woman-film-maker-in-the-coal-fields.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/10/15/
archives/film-festival-harlan-county.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Harlan_County,_USA
- 1973
https://www.criterion.com/films/
777-harlan-county-usa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Winter_Soldier_(film) - 1972
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