As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.
Comedy of a North Woods clam-digger who journeys to Detroit to earn money for outboard motor by working on auto assembly line.
A story based on the life of a struggling Long Island single mom who became one of the country's most successful entrepreneurs.
The workers in a small plough factory take over the firm, but when a large order falls through, the old management come back to help out.
When a western Pennsylvania auto plant is acquired by a Japanese company, brokering auto worker Hunt Stevenson faces the tricky challenge of mediating the assimilation of two clashing corporate cultures. At one end is the Japanese plant manager and the sycophant who is angling for his position. At the other, a number of disgruntled long-time union members struggle with the new exigencies of Japanese quality control.
A ruthless corporate raider is forced to return to his small town roots where he suddenly inherits his father's nearly bankrupt pencil factory, which is the heart and soul of the depressed community. With the foreclosure deadline looming, he must decide to either let it close, or join the community's fight to save it.
A group of paint worker can’t take their salary from the fabricator and they go on strike.
Hilarity ensues when a falsely accused fugitive from justice hides at the house of his childhood friend, which she has recently rented to a high-principled law teacher.
In a small, poor town, a young worker falls in love with an actress from a traveling theater troupe and tries to keep her close, dreaming and working hard to rebuild a new town while the troupe increasingly faces decline and the end of its run.
A hot-shot lawyer is hired by a Hong Kong chemical plant to dispose of opposition to their polluting ways. But when he falls for a beautiful woman out to stop the plant, he is torn in a conflict of interest and asks his trusty friends Samo and Biao to help out at least until they discover the true purpose of the plant.
Sal (Tony Danza) has been the foreman at North Shore Fish, a frozen fish factory, for years. He and Flo (Mercedes Ruehl), the "batter" person on the assembly line, not only were high school sweethearts, but are currently carrying on an affair.
A pretty factory girl falls for an ex con. He's still in love with his ex wife. Love triangle soon becomes even larger.
Pod decides to change jobs after losing his finger at a sardine packing plant. His new job as a security guard comes with an unexpected perk in the form of a lanky maid who carries a mysterious white book.
In an industrializing Italian town, a married woman, rendered mentally unstable after a traffic accident, drifts into an affair with a friend of her husband.
A group of oil drillers of the Factory B, focused on success rather than praise, strive to find the oil despite the decision on the suspension of the drilling works.
A bumbling tramp desires to build a home with a young woman, yet is thwarted time and time again by his lack of experience and habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time..
Trevor, an insomniac lathe operator, experiences unusual occurrences at work and home. A strange man follows him everywhere, but no one else seems to notice him.
A deaf man and his girlfriend resort to desperate measures in order to fund a kidney transplant for his sister. Things go horribly wrong, and the situation spirals rapidly into a cycle of violence and revenge.
Wallingford is a con-man whose specialty is taking money from suckers. His partners are Schnozzle, a pickpocket and car thief; and Blackie, who has played the game for years.
Two beautiful and different girls, Alice and Lisette are 17 years old, when forcibly removed from their Alsatian family to cooperate in the war effort in Germany. After spending six months in a indoctrination camp, they are both sent to a munitions factory where they are tasked to perform inhuman works. An explosion erupts, they are suspected of sabotage and threatened with being sent to a boot camp. Alice and Lisette believe they saved when transferred to a maternity where they continue living the hell of war.