Directed by Barbara Kopple, Cathy Caplan, Thomas Haneke, Lawrence Silk • 1990 • United States

Fourteen years after her watershed documentary HARLAN COUNTY, USA, cinema-verité pioneer Barbara Kopple returned to the subject of union organizing in this eye-opening look at class struggle and solidarity. When the workers at Hormel Foods in Austin, Minnesota, saw their wages and benefits drastically cut, they organized a strike that would stretch on for over a year of grueling negotiations, hardball tactics, and devastating setbacks. Winner of the Academy Award for best documentary, AMERICAN DREAM goes behind the scenes of a clash between corporate management and everyday people that speaks powerfully to the bitter realities of labor in the United States.