"It's the Economy, Stupid!"

"It's the Economy, Stupid!"

"It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism."
-- Frederic Jameson/Slavoj Zizek/Mark Fisher

Is it even possible to understand and engage with political economy, the invisible force that seems to shape how we live and die, via film?

How to make sense of economic history and theory, or poverty, inequality, and class relations?

With dramas like THE CLEARSTREAM AFFAIR, a story of financial corruption exposed, and THE OUTSIDER, recounting the extraordinary tale of how one young trader lost $ 4.9 Billion for a French bank, to Michael Apted’s unique documentary 56 UP, a mirror of the British class system, and Ilan Ziv’s monumental six-part CAPITALISM series, filmed in 23 countries, OVID has assembled an unmatched collection of original, illuminating, and well-argued films that take on this daunting challenge.

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"It's the Economy, Stupid!"
  • Outgrow the System

    Directed by Cecilia Paulsson, Anders Nilsson • Documentary • 2023 • 58 minutes

    "Change the system, not the climate" is a common demand in the climate movement. But what kind of system do we actually want? In the midst of humanity's worst crisis, there are pioneers standing ready. Meet the new ec...

  • Futures Market

    Directed by Mercedes Alvarez • Documentary • 2011 • 110 minutes

    A film essay in tableaux, FUTURES MARKET traces the connections between memory, public space, and the real estate bubbles that led to the international financial crisis. Beginning with Greek lyric poet Simonides of Ceos' invention o...

  • El-Sisi: Egypt's New Pharaoh

    Directed by Claire Billet, Nadia Blétry • Documentary • With François Hollande, Maye Kabil, Ariane Lavrilleux, Ahmed Abdel Quddus • 2026 • 53 minutes

    To an outsider, Egypt looks like a dynamic country reinventing itself. Under president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, construction is booming, with dams, b...

  • 300 Trillion – The Debt Trap

    Directed by Rudolph Herzog • Documentary • 2022 • 80 minutes

    The worldwide mountain of debt is more than 300% of the world's annual economic output. Since the pandemic, debt expansion is out of control. Will the system collapse under its weight?

    The film explores the significance of our debt si...

  • Chicago Boys

    Directed by Carola Fuentes and Rafael Valdeavellano • Documentary • 2015 • 85 minutes

    In the middle of the Cold War, the University of Chicago gave scholarships to a group of Chilean students to study economics under the teachings of Milton Friedman. Twenty years later, during Pinochet's dictato...

  • Downeast

    Directed by Ashley Sabin and David Redmon • Documentary • 2012 • 81 minutes

    Downeast is an experiential story that unfolds over the course of a year-and-a-half in the small lobster village of Prospect Harbor, Maine. It observes the closing of the last remaining Sardine Cannery in the United Stat...

  • When Banana Ruled

    Directed by Mathilde Damoisel • Documentary • 2017 • 52 minutes

    Bananas are everywhere: Americans eat nearly 10 billion of them per year, consuming more pounds of bananas than apples and oranges combined.

    WHEN BANANA RULED tells the story of the men who made bananas the most ubiquitous fruit in...

  • How to Steal a Country

    Directed by Rehad Desai, co-directed by Mark Kaplan • Documentary • 2020 • 87 minutes

    [02/05/2025: Anyone see the NYT article today "What Is ‘State Capture’? A Warning for Americans." ? Here's a doc thriller about what went on in South Africa not so long ago!]

    HOW TO STEAL A COUNTRY opens like ...

  • Emergent City

    Movie

    Residents of Sunset Park, Brooklyn face rising rents, a legacy of environmental racism and the loss of the industrial jobs that once sustained their community. When a global developer purchases a massive industrial complex on the waterfront and lays plans for an “innovation district,” a battle er...

  • An Injury To One

    Directed by Travis Wilkerson • Documentary • 2003 • 53 minutes

    AN INJURY TO ONE provides a corrective-and absolutely compelling-glimpse of a particularly volatile moment in early 20th century American labor history: the rise and fall of Butte, Montana. Specifically, it chronicles the mysterious ...

  • Family Business

    Directed by Tom Cohen • Documentary • 1982 • 90 minutes

    Part of the acclaimed Middletown series.

    Howie Snyder is an archetype: a retired Marine colonel in his mid 40s, he is an American entrepreneur struggling to make his business succeed.

    Howie's Shakey's Pizza franchise in Muncie, Indiana em...

  • The Corporate Coup d'État

    Directed by Fred Peabody • Documentary • With Chris Hedges, Phillip Martin, Sarah Jaffe, Matt Taibbi, Lee Fang, John Ralston Saul • 2018 • 90 minutes

    This investigative documentary exposes how corporations and billionaires have taken control of the American political process, and in doing so hav...

  • System Error

    Directed by Florian Opitz • Documentary • 2017 • 96 minutes

    SYSTEM ERROR takes us from to the roots of the expectation of unlimited growth, particularly in the post-World War II years, to the financial crash of 2008 and beyond. Does the subsequent decade of simultaneous inequality, austerity, an...

  • As Goes Janesville

    Directed by Brad Lichtenstein • Documentary • 2012 • 87 minutes

    As Goes Janesville catapults viewers to the front lines of a national debate over the fate of the American economy and the survival of the middle class – a debate that turned into a pitched battle in the normally tranquil state of W...

  • Going Private

    Directed by Stina Werenfels • Drama • With Michael Neuenschwander, Susanne-Marie Wrage, Bettina Stucky • 2005 • 98 minutes

    H-P is an investment banker who lives with his wife and son in a luxurious lakeside villa. But things aren’t as perfect as they seem. H-P is involved in some dodgy deals and...

  • Germinal

    Directed by Claude Berri • Drama • With Renaud, Gérard Depardieu, Miou-Miou • 1993 • 160 minutes

    Winner of France’s prestigious César Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design, this epic film is based on the novel by Émile Zola.

    During the Second Napoleonic Empire (the mid-19th cen...

  • A Call to Action: The Freedom Budget of 1966

    Directed by Jenny Alexander • Documentary • With Martin Luther King • 2023 • 7 minutes

    “A Call to Action: The Freedom Budget of 1966” tells the story of a little-known grassroots push for guaranteed income during the civil rights movement. 

  • Time Thieves

    Directed by Cosima Dannoritzer • Documentary • 2018 • 85 minutes

    Who hasn’t come across the situation where an airline has us printing our own boarding passes and checking in our own luggage, saving the company a fortune in working hours? Who hasn’t spent hours assembling a piece of furniture, o...

  • The Outsider

    Directed by Christophe Barratier • Drama • With Arthur Dupont, François-Xavier Demaison, Sabrina Ouazani • 2018 • 117 minutes

    Before the subprime mortgage crisis began unfolding in 2008, causing chaos in world markets and misery among millions of homeowners, another financial apocalypse was alre...

  • In the Aisles (w/ Franz Rogowski & Sandra Huller)

    Directed by Thomas Stuber • Drama • With Franz Rogowski, Sandra Huller • 2018 • 125 minutes

    When the reclusive Christian (Franz Rogowski, TRANSIT) takes a job working the night shift at a big box store, his new manager, Bruno from the Beverage Department (Peter Kurth, BABYLON BERLIN), teaches hi...

  • Domestic Labor (six films)

    6 items

    Films on (paid) domestic labor, and the fraught relationships that follow.

  • The Dirty War on the National Health Service

    Directed by John Pilger • Documentary • 2019 • 106 minutes

    Britain's National Health Service, the NHS, was the world's first universal public health service. Designed to give millions of people "freedom from fear" following World War II, the NHS today is under threat of being sold off and conver...

  • Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train

    Directed by Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller • Documentary • With Matt Damon • 2010 • 78 minutes

    This acclaimed film looks at the amazing life of the renowned historian, activist and author. Following his early days as a shipyard labor organizer and bombardier in World War II, Howard Zinn became an a...

  • Miners Shot Down

    Directed by Rehad Desai • Documentary • 2014 • 86 minutes

    In August 2012, mine workers in one of South Africa's biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days into the strike, the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress it, killing 34 and injuring many more. Th...