There’s always been the rich and the poor; that was one of the reasons why Robin Hood was a folk hero, and that’s one of the reasons for many revolutions (especially the French one). Those injustices have been getting bigger and bigger in the last few years of extreme capitalism. Movies always try to tell the stories of their times, and this subject has been no different. Here are the best anti-capitalism movies, ranked.
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8 The Laundromat (2019)
Netflix
Steven Soderbergh’s film was inspired by the book Secrecy World, and tackled the Panama Papers scandal in an anthology satire that showed all the different characters affected by the machinations of the Mossack Fonseca company. As with most movies by the director, the film is unique: he treats Mossack and Fonseca as if they were late night hosts making jokes about all the non-criminal, but murky stuff they committed, and the ending with an incredible Meryl Streep performance doesn’t leave you indifferent. The Laundromat wanted to show how all the real people are affected by these greedy characters who save companies millions of dollars, that should be paid in taxes to help those in need.
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About the movie, director Steven Soderbergh told Forbes: “I described it to someone once as the ultimate mansplaining movie. Where finally, in the end, they have to dispense with the mansplaining, and Meryl takes over.”
7 Hustlers (2019)
STX Entertainment
Hustlers tells the story of Ramona (Jennifer Lopez) and her crew of strip club worker friends, who decide to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients by stealing from them. Based on a true story, this Lorene Scafaria film makes a group of women bring the vengeance that Wall Street bros deserve for their greed and egotism (these are the men that watched Wall Street or The Wolf of Wall Street and saw it as a marvelous career path). Ramona and her crew steal from them, in a film that’s about anti-capitalism, but also about sisterhood, cheating an unfair system, and doing anything to survive and have a better life. Jennifer Lopez is magnetic as Ramona and should’ve won all the awards for the role, and the whole cast is great. From Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians) to Lili Reinhardt (Riverdale), Cardi B, and Keke Palmer (in one of her best performances ever).
6 Wall-E (2008)
Walt Disney Studios
Having Wall-E on this list might be a surprise at first, but the more you think about it, the more sense it makes. The story of this cute little robot and his work cleaning up Earth is a big critique of consumerism, and how corporations will do anything to earn more profit, even if it means killing the planet. The humans in the story are also a sad image, as all they do is keep consuming: eating, buying, and watching a screen. The film is many things at once: a love story, a silent movie for the first half an hour, and a grim future for Earth if we let the big companies decide what’s best for us (it will always be spending more). This critique is what makes it one of Pixar’s best films ever.
5 American Psycho (2000)
Lionsgate Films
Adapted from the Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same name, American Psycho is a scary story about Patrick Bateman, a wealthy Wall Street man, who is really a psychopath and could be a violent serial killer. The film might be talking about Wall Street in the ’80s, but unfortunately, all the dark parts of what capitalism does to people, and how empathy is lost and is everyone-for-themselves, still hold true today. Mary Harron’s adaptation is bold and even gets to use some of the long monologues of the novel, making Bateman’s awfulness and craziness as scary as it is in the book. The film is one of Christian Bale’s best, proving he could be a leading man, and has impressive supporting performances by Willem Defoe (The Lighthouse), Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club), and Reese Witherspoon (Legally Blonde).
4 Sorry to Bother You (2018)
Significant Entertainment
Sorry to Bother You uses a surreal, surprising, satiric, entertaining story to tell its anti-capitalist message. The film’s protagonist is Cassius “Cash” Green (the name sounds like cash is green), played by LaKeith Stanfield, a Black man who starts working at a telemarketing firm. When he’s failing, one of his older Black colleagues (Danny Glover) recommends to start using his “white voice” (David Cross), and he becomes a success story in this company with more nefarious plans than it looks like at first sight.
Boots Riley’s first film shows a worrying future where employees are housed and given food, so they don’t have to worry about anything but work, which, when you think about it, sounds a lot like the conditions slaves had. That’s one of the many points the director has in this film. The movie had a what-the-hell-just-happened third act, and incredible performances by Stanfield, Tessa Thompson (Thor: Ragnarok), Steven Yeun (Minari), David Cross (Arrested Development), and Patton Oswalt (Ratatouille).
3 Office Space (1999)
20th Century Fox
Beavis and Butt-Head and Silicon Valley’s Mike Judge wrote and directed this satire about what it’s like working in an office cubicle back in 1999, before The Office TV show showed us all the ways office life could be a place full of jokes. Office Space tells the story of Peter (Ron Livingston), who, after being hypnotized, stops caring about his mundane nine-to-five job, and becomes much happier. The film with one of the worst bosses ever was underappreciated when it was released, but earned a cult following through the video market and now looks more prescient than ever. Judge was a sketch guy before the film, and it shows, as many of the film’s most laugh-out-loud moments are small vignettes about Peter and his two co-workers and friends, Michael Bolton (David Herman), and Samir (Ajay Naidu). None of those scenes is better or funnier than when they get revenge on their printer, scored to Geto Boys’ “Still”.
2 Parasite (2019)
CJ Entertainment
Parasite was one of 2019’s greatest surprises at the movies. South Korean director Bong Joon-ho had already shown some anti-capitalism ideas in his film Snowpiercer, but he took it much further on this one. The film starts as a fun comedy and changes tones in the middle, becoming a thriller that tells the story of the Kim family, an almost-poor Seoul family who hustles their way into working for the wealthy Park family. Everything changes when they discover a strange family secret. Class consciousness is at the center of Parasite, the first non-English language movie to win the Best Picture Academy Award.
1 Modern Times (1936)
United Artists
Almost 90 years after being made, Modern Times is still the best movie about anti-capitalism. Charles Chaplin plays his famous character, Little Tramp, and plays a worker in a factory, where the boss is trying to improve workers’ efficiency while not paying them more for their job (sounds familiar?). It’s incredible how much Chaplin was able to say about capitalism without uttering a word and making us laugh, as his character goes mad trying to follow the quicker and quicker assembly line.
The actor knew that the best way to say truths is by making people laugh, and this film was the perfect example, as he was able to show his views about capitalism while making people enjoy themselves. Chaplin himself had said: “Unemployment is the vital question . . . Machinery should benefit mankind. It should not spell tragedy and throw it out of work.” Unfortunately, that lesson still hasn’t been learned by some of the bigger CEOs, as they keep following profit over human empathy, creating more and more anti-capitalist movies with every decade.
