Documentaries on Labour, Capitalism, and Development

This curated Google Sheet provides a structured watchlist of over 50 non-fiction films, documentaries, and investigative shorts exploring critical themes in political economy, social stratification, and ecological crisis.

Each listing records the film title, director, release year, thematic keywords, regional focus, and direct streaming or trailer links (primarily YouTube and independent film platforms).

The catalogue is organised into six thematic collections:

• Labour, Caste, Migration & Agrarian Distress: Canonical works documenting untouchability, manual scavenging, mill and unfree labour, urban homelessness, and agrarian indebtedness (including Anand Patwardhan’s Jai Bhim Comrade and Hamara Shahar, Divya Bharathi’s Kakkoos, Deepa Bhatia’s Nero’s Guests, Shaunak Sen’s Cities of Sleep, and Yugantar Collective’s Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali).
• Land, Dispossession, Extraction & Environment: Grassroots resistance against displacement, mega-dams, and resource extractivism in Adivasi regions (including Akhra’s Resistance, Biju Toppo and Meghnath’s Development Flows from the Barrel of the Gun, Franny Armstrong’s Drowned Out, and Sanjay Kak’s In the Forest Hangs a Bridge and Red Ant Dream).
• Indian Farmers’ Protest (2020–21): Documentaries chronicling the historic year-long agitation on Delhi’s borders (Too Much Democracy, Farming the Revolution, Trolley Times: The Film, Kisan Satyagraha).
• Global Capitalism, Debt & Finance: International critiques of corporate power, structural adjustment, IMF/World Bank programmes, and global supply chains (The Corporation, Life and Debt, The True Cost, Poverty, Inc.).
• Climate Crisis: Documentaries investigating climate politics, extractivism, and planetary boundaries (This Changes Everything, The Age of Stupid, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch).
• Food Systems, Sovereignty & Agro-Ecology: Studies in seed sovereignty, local ecological knowledge, and commodity food chains (Seed Stories, Ilha das Flores).