Best movies like Chun Tae-il: A Flame That Lives On

Jimmy Muir comes from a typical gritty, northern town where there are only two options: working down the pit or in a factory. But Jimmy has other ideas - he dreams of becoming a professional footballer. Confronted by a bitter and unsupportive father, hard drinking friends and a lifetime of bad habits...has Jimmy the will to achieve his ultimate goal?

In South Yorkshire, a small group of railway maintenance men discover that because of privatization, their lives will never be the same. When the trusty British Rail sign is replaced by one reading East Midland Infrastructure, it is clear that there will be the inevitable winners and losers as downsizing and efficiency become the new buzzwords.

Charlie returns to his old town where he meets his ex-girlfriend again and tries to get her back.

This film follows the remarkable and inspirational true story of Paul Potts, a shy, bullied shop assistant by day and an amateur opera singer by night.

In his quest to become the world's greatest air-drummer, a small-town dreamer must overcome obstacles and ridicule to save the day.

When workers at the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota are asked to take a substantial pay cut in a highly profitable year, the local labor union decides to go on strike and fight for a wage they believe is fair. But as the work stoppage drags on and the strikers face losing everything, friends become enemies, families are divided and the very future of this typical mid American town is threatened.

The absorbingly cinematic Ascension explores the pursuit of the “Chinese Dream.” Driven by mesmerizing—and sometimes humorous—imagery, this observational documentary presents a contemporary vision of China that prioritizes productivity and innovation above all.

A woman (Cybill Shepherd) financially supports the natural parents in hope of adopting their newborn, but she discovers she is the victim of a scam.

In near-future New York, ten years after the “social-democratic war of liberation,” diverse groups of women organize a feminist uprising as equality remains unfulfilled.

Maya is a quick-witted young woman who comes over the Mexican border without papers and makes her way to the LA home of her older sister Rosa. Rosa gets Maya a job as a janitor: a non-union janitorial service has the contract, the foul-mouthed supervisor can fire workers on a whim, and the service-workers' union has assigned organizer Sam Shapiro to bring its "justice for janitors" campaign to the building. Sam finds Maya a willing listener, she's also attracted to him. Rosa resists, she has an ailing husband to consider. The workers try for public support; management intimidates workers to divide and conquer. Rosa and Maya as well as workers and management may be set to collide.

This was going to be the first year that Marshal Middle School was not going to have a dance team. All that changes when the new Biology teacher, Ms. Bartlett, agrees to be the coach. Now the girls need to prove that they are ready to compete and are able to win; not only to themselves, but to their parents and coach. Using the chant "si, se puede" or "yes, I can" the Dance team builds their confidence to perform.

Come Back, Africa chronicles the life of Zachariah, a black South African living under the rule of the harsh apartheid government in 1959.

Nora Helmer lives a quiet life with her husband, Torvald, in a small Norwegian town. While he works diligently at a bank, she looks after their children. But Torvald doesn't know that several years ago, when he was very ill and she was desperate for money, Nora forged a loan document and has been secretly working to pay the money back ever since. The arrival of her friend Kristine prompts Nora to re-evaluate her life and confront Torvald.

A middle aged carpenter, who requires state welfare after injuring himself, is joined by a single mother in a similar scenario.

A young working girl must support her family on only five dollars a week. The strain of trying to feed, house and clothe her mother, her father and three sisters finally gets to be too much, and she winds up selling her body for a pair of shoes.

Living alone since her beloved mum died, 12-year-old Georgie fills the flat they shared with her own special magic. But when her absent father Jason turns up out of the blue, she’s forced to confront reality.

Jimmy Albright is a young athlete with a passion for boxing. His mentor, Harry Sloan, an aging trainer and former boxer, sees Jimmy's potential, not only as a boxer but as a young man. With Harry's guidance, Jimmy trains and fights his way to the top of his division. All things appear to be on track, except for one small twist: Jimmy's parents, Don and Doreen, don't know he's a boxer...

In a conservative small town, a young man's wish to coach high school basketball are tweaked by a school board decision that makes him the new coach of the girls' team.

In response to a sudden dismissal of staff, workers at a big retail store begin a protest against their employer's oppressive labor policies.

Iris is broke after her divorce and takes a job working as a housekeeper for a wealthy woman named Paula. When Paula and her husband separate, an unlikely friendship blossoms between the women.

After his father is killed in an altercation with drunken thugs, Salah's world is plunged into darkness. Forced into running the family kebab shop alone, Salah struggles to manage the increasingly rowdy night life and when a fight with an angry customer goes fatally wrong, he finds himself with a dead body on his hands. With no faith in the authorities Salah disposes of the body in the one place he knows best… the kebabs.

A young boy, his family, and the migrant workers they hire to work their cotton farm struggle against difficult odds to raise and sell the crop. Meanwhile, the boy dreams of living in better conditions. However, with this particularly tough farming season, the boy learns that his challenges guide him in discovering who he really is.

Precocious as a child, Myung-ju discovers sex at an early age. She dreams of a fresh start after she meets Seon-ho. Seon-ho pretends to be an aspiring filmmaker who uses Myung-ju to make a porno film. But when her mother finds them acting naked, Myung-ju run away from home. Dong-woo cannot overcome his inferiority complex over the size of his penis. He is constantly overshadowed by his lover and this only makes his impotence worse. But things change when he meets Myung-ju and regains his confidence. He then dumps his lover and moves in with Myung-ju. But their happiness is short lived when he finds out that Myung-ju is not the pure innocent girl as he thought...

A look at the lives of migratory farm workers, focusing on one family.

A biography of the civil-rights activist and labor organizer Cesar Chavez. Chronicling the birth of a modern American labour movement, Cesar Chavez tells the story of the famed civil rights leader and labour organiser torn between his duties as a husband and father and his commitment to securing a living wage for farm workers. Passionate but soft-spoken, Chavez embraced non-violence as he battled greed and prejudice in his struggle to bring dignity to working people.

In the early 1900s, the legendary Joe Hill emigrates with his brother to the United States. But after a short time, he loses touch with his brother. Joe gets a few jobs but is struck by all the injustice and tragedy going on. He becomes active in the forbidden union IWW, a union for workers without trades. It is forbidden to demonstrate and to speak in public but Joe gets around that by singing his manifests with the Salvation Army. He manages to get more and more people to go on strike with him but he also makes powerful enemies doing that. Finally he gets connected with a murder and during the trial he fires his lawyer and takes upon himself to become his own defender.

Amir is an illegal Pakistani immigrant smuggled into England in the 1960's to work, to send money to his family and perhaps even bring them over with him. A skilled laborer, he is forced to do unskilled work like shoveling sheep dung and processing wool. He lives in a boarding house with nearly a dozen other men, under the supervision of Hussein Shah. He befriends a young student, Sakib, who dreams of being a writer. Their existence is punctuated by secret movies, a visiting prostitute, fear of detection and deportation, and the gangster-like smuggler who comes by for his take every week. The household is shaken up by the arrival of a white girl, Shah's girlfriend, and the sense of femininity and family she brings.

Aurora Teagarden’s post-college days when she finds herself back home in Lawrenceton. While her mother, Aida, struggles to keep her newfound real estate business, Aurora supports herself by working as a teacher’s assistant in a crime fiction class, and waitresses at the local diner at night, where she shares her love of researching true crime with her friend Sally and police officer Arthur. When Sally’s fiancé doesn’t show up at their wedding rehearsal, Maid of Honor Aurora gets Arthur to help her search for him. When they discover a body, everyone assumes it is Sally’s tardy groom, but when it turns out to be someone else, Sally’s fiancé becomes the main suspect.

Looks at the work of Brazilian photojournalist Sebastiao Salgado (b.1944). In his monumental photo-essay, Workers, Salgado’s dominant theme is the displacement of manual labor by technological advances. He documents the effects of this new industrial revolution on laborers in Eastern Europe, Cuba, Gdansk, Brazil, India, Sicily, and Bangladesh. Includes archival footage of Salgado’s life and commentary by artists, photographers, critics, and writers such as Jorge Armado, Robert Delpire, Jimmy Fox, and Arthur Miller.

Glace Bay, Nova Scotia Canada, 1901. Willie MacLean is a 10-year-old boy with a love for horses and liking to school to cape the difficult times his family has. Willie's stern, but benevolent father is a coal miner in a local mine along with his older brother John. But when Willie's father is injured and John is killed in an accident at the mine, Willie is forced to step into his brother's shoes to support his older sister Nelle, and two younger sisters until their father recovers. Willie soon finds work at the mine lonely (aka: the pit) and unfriendly in which he forms a bond with a pit pony horse in order to make it though each day.

A caring housekeeper and a protective gardener support three elderly Jewish sisters who are left to keep what remains of a most unique vow. Three wayward young women are on a destructive path of pain and sorrow. The six lives are merged when a merciful judge grants the young women a lifeline of hope, but cultural and moral differences create an expected resistance as the young women fight against the sisters' rules of decency and respect. All are forced to confront the realities of their decisions when the power of redemption attempts to cross the barriers of ethnic tensions. Considered one of the best drama movies of 2022, The Lady Makers does not disappoint. This independent produced, feature film has guts.

Angie is a working class woman. After being fired, she decides to set up a recruitment agency of her own, running it from her kitchen with her friend, Rose. Taking advantage of the desperation of immigrants, Angie builds a successful business extremely quickly.

In 1910, women working in the silk industry in Bursa, protest against the working conditions. They go on strike.

Yeong-hun gave up medical school to follow his dream of becoming a movie director but he finds himself as a lowly assistant director with no real responsibilites. He meets student Seong-hie and falls in love, but he lies to her, saying that he is the film's director, hoping that she will be impressed and return his feelings of love.

In post-industrial Ohio, a Chinese billionaire opens a new factory in the husk of an abandoned General Motors plant, hiring two thousand blue-collar Americans. Early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America.