Harlan County USA

United States

1976

103 Min

Color

1.78:1

English

Currently 4.2/5 Stars.
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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. —The Criterion Collection

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The Macho King The Illmatic One

11Feb12

A Eye opening doc,what's captured in this film sould be seen by any person remotely interested in documentaries or any 1 who doesn't know what real labor and hardship is.it really immerses you in there life and culture,there struggle becomes your struggle.

rita amal baghdadi

2Jan12

one of the best documentaries. ever.

Poughkeepsie

29Dec11

The documentary succeeds in making the viewer feel immersed in the picket line. These aren't just Kentuckians. These are true blood Americans. A documentary that will make you feel both defeated and victorious.

Subterranean Cinema

27Jul11

The documentary parts are very interesting, however the only thing "haunting" about the soundtrack music is that the viewer is "haunted" by the incessant playing of yet another weepy hillbilly trailer trash ballad every few minutes, to the point that it almost becomes parodic. After about the 15th time that the drama was interrupted by some drawling cracker wailing thru her nose, I started rooting for the scabs.