An evolving filmography about power

_{Updated: October 29, 2022. First created: November, 14, 2021.}

I have been fortunate enough to teach university classes on politics and film. I am certain few students in these classes could guess how stressful it was to assemble a list of films for each semester. The films I showed in class or assigned as homework have to touch on political issues, but they also have to be quality films. I did not want a political issue to be the subtext of a film, as too much subtext would require a pre-screening lecture on why the film is being shown. But I also worried that some political films could be too pedantic, which risks students getting the point of the film early and then growing bored of watching to the end.

I was reminded of this stress when a forum post about cinema appeared on capitalaspower.com. It was asking for films that would speak about power in society, and the post was inspired by the list of novels recommended by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler. Nitzan and Bichler are two political economists whose research has been very influential in my study of the Hollywood film business. Moreover, they have championed inter-disciplinary approaches to the study of capitalism. Good cinema, like good literature, can look at power in society without being limited by disciplinary barriers or one-sided perspectives.

Below is a list of films that, in one way or another, look at power in society. I’m recommending them in the style of the course I taught. They can be recommended without a lot of preamble on why they speak about power.

Title	Director	Year	Runtime
Ace in the Hole	Billy Wilder	1951	111
Ali, Fear Eats the Soul	Rainer Werner Fassbinder	1974	93
Army of Shadows	Jean-Pierre Melville	1969	145
Badlands	Terrence Malick	1973	93
Bamboozled	Spike Lee	2000	135
Barton Fink	Joel Coen	1991	117
Battle of Algiers, The	Gillo Pontecorvo	1966	120
Beau Travail	Claire Denis	1999	90
Belle de Jour	Luis Buñuel	1967	101
Black Girl	Ousmane Sembène	1966	55
Black Narcissus	Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger	1947	101
Blue Velvet	David Lynch	1986	120
Caché	Michael Haneke	2005	118
Canoa: A Shameful Memory	Felipe Cazals	1976	115
Carlos	Olivier Assayas	2010	338
Chinatown	Roman Polanski	1974	131
Come and See	Elem Klimov	1985	142
Daisies	Věra Chytilová	1966	76
Death Race 2000	Paul Bertel	1975	82
Do The Right Thing	Spike Lee	1989	120
Dogtooth	Yorgos Lanthimos	2009	97
Dry White Season, A	Euzhan Palcy	1989	107
Eating Raoul	Paul Bertel	1982	83
Executioner, The	Luis García Berlanga	1963	90
Firemen’s Ball, The	Miloš Forman	1967	73
Four Lions	Chris Morris	2010	97
Friends of Eddie Coyle, The	Peter Yates	1973	102
Germany, Year Zero	Roberto Rossellini	1948	78
Godfather Part II, The	Francis Ford Coppola	1974	200
Godfather, The	Francis Ford Coppola	1972	177
Heaven’s Gate	Michael Cimino	1980	219
High and Low	Akira Kurosawa	1963	143
Hunger	Steve McQueen	2008	96
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion	Elio Petri	1970	115
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles	Chantal Akerman	1975	201
La Haine	Mathieu Kassovitz	1995	98
Last Emperor, The	Bernardo Bertolucci	1987	163
Leopard, The	Luchino Visconti	1963	185
Magnificent Ambersons, The	Orson Welles	1942	88
Man Push Cart	Ramin Bahrani	2005	87
McCabe & Mrs. Miller	Robert Altman	1971	121
Medium Cool	Haskell Wexler	1969	110
Memories of Murder	Bong Joon-ho	2003	131
Modern Times	Charlie Chaplin	1936	87
My Beautiful Laundrette	Stephen Frears	1985	97
Naked	Mike Leigh	1993	131
New World, The	Terrence Malick	2005	150
Night of the Hunter, The	Charles Laughton	1955	92
Night of the Living Dead	George A. Romero	1968	96
No Country for Old Men	Joel Coen and Ethan Coen	2007	122
Parallax View, The	Alan J. Pakula	1974	102
Parasite	Bong Joon-ho	2019	132
Player, The	Robert Altman	1992	124
R.M.N.	Cristian Mungiu	2022	125
Repo Man	Alex Cox	1984	92
Rome, Open City	Roberto Rossellini	1945	105
Smooth Talk	Joyce Chopra	1985	91
Sullivan’s Travels	Preston Sturges	1941	94
Sátántangó	Bela Tarr	1994	439
There Will Be Blood	Paul Thomas Anderson	2007	158
Thin Red Line, The	Terrence Malick	1998	170
This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection	Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese	2019	120
Touch of Sin	Jia Zhangke	2013	130
Touki Bouki	Djibril Diop Mambéty	1973	95
Tree of Life, The	Terrence Malick	2011	139
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me	David Lynch	1992	134
Two Days, One Night	Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne	2014	95
Wages of Fear, The	Henri-Georges Clouzot	1953	148
White Ribbon, The	Michael Haneke	2009	144
Wind That Shakes the Barley, The	Ken Loach	2006	126
Working Girls	Lizzie Borden	1986	93
Z	Costa-Gavras	1969	127
Zéro de conduite	Jean Vigo	1933	44