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Movies that feel like Harlan County U.S.A. (1976)

If you loved Harlan County U.S.A., the closest films we have are Grey Gardens (1976), Marjoe (1972) and Salesman (1969). 11 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on HBO Max Amazon Channel, Criterion Channel and HBO Max and others, checked against today's data.

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastover's refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.

πŸ… 100% Rotten Tomatoesβ˜… 8.2 IMDb β†—TMDB β†—dir. Barbara Kopple

When is Harlan County U.S.A. streaming? β†’

If Harlan County U.S.A. hit the spot, these will too

Grey Gardens poster
Grey Gardens
1976 Β· dir. Muffie Meyer
πŸ… 95%β˜… 7.5documentary

The same documentary instincts

Edie Bouvier Beale and her mother, Edith, two aging, eccentric relatives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, are the sole inhabitants of a Long Island estate. The women reveal themselves to be misfits with outsized, engaging personalities. Much of the conversation is centered on their pasts, as mother and daughter now rarely leave home.

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Marjoe poster
Marjoe
1972 Β· dir. Howard Smith
πŸ… 100%β˜… 7.4documentary

Both are documentary through and through

Part documentary, part expose, this film follows one-time child evangelist Marjoe Gortner on the "church tent" Revivalist circuit, commenting on the showmanship of Evangelism and "the religion business", prior to the start of "televangelism". Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.

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Salesman poster
Salesman
1969 Β· dir. David Maysles
πŸ… 100%β˜… 7.7documentary

Cut from the same documentary cloth

This documentary from Albert and David Maysles follows the bitter rivalry of four door-to-door salesmen working for the Mid-American Bible Company: Paul "The Badger" Brennan, Charles "The Gipper" McDevitt, James "The Rabbit" Baker and Raymond "The Bull" Martos. Times are tough for this hard-living quartet, who spend their days traveling through small-town America, trying their best to peddle gold-leaf Bibles to an apathetic crowd of lower-middle-class housewives and elderly couples.

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F for Fake poster
F for Fake
1973 Β· dir. Orson Welles
πŸ… 88%β˜… 7.7documentary

Documentary approached the same way

Documents the lives of infamous fakers Elmyr de Hory and Clifford Irving. De Hory, who later committed suicide to avoid more prison time, made his name by selling forged works of art by painters like Picasso and Matisse. Irving was infamous for writing a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes. Welles moves between documentary and fiction as he examines the fundamental elements of fraud and the people who commit fraud at the expense of others.

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Streetwise poster
Streetwise
1984 Β· dir. Martin Bell
πŸ… 92%β˜… 8.2documentary

The same documentary instincts

This documentary about teenagers living on the streets in Seattle began as a magazine article. The film follows nine teenagers who discuss how they live by panhandling, prostitution, and petty theft.

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Burden of Dreams poster
Burden of Dreams
1982 Β· dir. Les Blank
πŸ… 92%β˜… 7.9documentary

The same documentary instincts

The Amazon rain forest, 1979. The crew of Fitzcarraldo (1982), a film directed by German director Werner Herzog, soon finds itself with problems related to casting, tribal struggles and accidents, among many other setbacks; but nothing compared to dragging a huge steamboat up a mountain, while Herzog embraces the path of a certain madness to make his vision come true.

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Gates of Heaven poster
Gates of Heaven
1978 Β· dir. Errol Morris
πŸ… 90%β˜… 7.3documentary

The same documentary instincts

A documentary about a pet cemetery in California, and the people who have pets buried there.

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Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse poster
πŸ… 100%β˜… 8.1documentary

Documentary approached the same way

A chronicle of the production problems β€” including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more β€” which plagued the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola.

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The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On poster
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On
1987 Β· dir. Kazuo Hara
πŸ… 100%β˜… 8.2documentary

Both are documentary through and through

Kenzo Okuzaki, a 62-year-old veteran of the New Guinea campaign in World War II, sets out to conduct interviews with survivors and relatives to find the truth behind atrocities committed by Japanese military, in particular the unexplained killing of two Japanese privates in his unit.

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Sans Soleil poster
Sans Soleil
1983 Β· dir. Chris Marker
πŸ… 88%β˜… 7.7documentary

Both are documentary through and through

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

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Vernon, Florida poster
Vernon, Florida
1981 Β· dir. Errol Morris
πŸ… 100%β˜… 7documentary

Both are documentary through and through

Early Errol Morris documentary intersplices random chatter he captured on film of the genuinely eccentric residents of Vernon, Florida. A few examples? The preacher giving a sermon on the definition of the word "Therefore," and the obsessive turkey hunter who speaks reverentially of the "gobblers" he likes to track down and kill.

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Cane Toads: An Unnatural History poster
Cane Toads: An Unnatural History
1988 Β· dir. Mark Lewis
πŸ… 88%β˜… 7.6documentary

The same documentary instincts

A documentary detailing the spread of Hawaiian sugar-cane toads through Australia in a botched effort to introduce them as counter pests.

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