Film
Battle for Brooklyn
A documentary about ordinary Brooklynites fighting a developer's plan to demolish their historic neighborhood for a megaproject. It's a ground-level view of gentrification, corruption, and resistance—how local voices get steamrolled by money and political power. For anyone interested in cities, justice, or why their rent keeps climbing.
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The Muppets Take Manhattan1984
Argentine workers seize their factory after economic collapse and run it democratically. Like Battle for Brooklyn, it's about ordinary people reclaiming power from systems designed to exclude them, told with fury and hope.
But The politics are explicit and uncompromising; there's no attempt to present 'both sides' as equally valid.
A Prayer Before Dawn2018
Follows one man's defiant attempt to build a boxing career in Thailand against staggering odds and systemic indifference. Same theme: grinding personal resistance against forces that don't care about your survival.
But Brutally grim throughout. There's very little light, and what hope exists is hard-won and fragile.
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth2012
Deconstructs how a St. Louis housing project became a symbol of urban failure—when the real story is about policy, racism, and deliberate abandonment. Vital corrective to easy narratives about cities falling apart.
But Densely analytical. It's not a character drama; it asks you to hold multiple threads of argument simultaneously.
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Something you would not have found on your own.
Come and See1985
Both are about individuals powerless before massive historical forces. Battle for Brooklyn shows resistance; Come and See shows what happens when resistance is impossible. Different poles of the same question.
Soviet film about a boy conscripted into warfare during Nazi invasion. Visceral and nightmarish—not a war film for distance, but for feeling helplessness and atrocity. It captures how ordinary people are consumed by forces they can't stop.
But Extraordinarily brutal and despairing. Some sequences are almost unwatchable; there's no catharsis or redemption.
More like this (8)
Dirty Money2018
Anthology series investigating fraud, corruption, and how the powerful evade accountability. Each episode is a case study in systems designed to protect the wealthy from consequences.
But Episodes vary wildly in quality and focus. Some are thrilling; others meander into the weeds of finance.
The Two Escobars2010
A documentary that braids together two stories—a footballer and a drug lord, both named Escobar—to examine corruption, power, and how nations get twisted by forces beyond citizens' control.
But Bounces between narratives in ways that can feel scattered if you're not paying close attention to the structural parallels.
Spotlight2015
Journalists methodically expose institutional abuse hidden behind power and reputation. It shares Battle for Brooklyn's interest in how systems protect themselves and how persistence matters.
But Procedurally deliberate to the point of slowness. Dramatically, very little happens; it's all talking and research.
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room2005
Traces how a company built on deception and arrogance brought down thousands of employees and retirees. About power, entitlement, and systems that reward crime until they suddenly don't.
But Occasionally relies on narration and interviews that oversimplify complex financial mechanics into moral tales.
The China Hustle2018
Exposes financial fraud targeting ordinary investors. Like Battle for Brooklyn, it's about people discovering the game is rigged and fighting back against machines bigger than themselves.
But Becomes somewhat tabloid in tone toward the end, trading investigation for indignation.
Taxi to the Dark Side2008
Traces a single death in U.S. custody to interrogate American power abroad. Methodical, devastating, and fundamentally about accountability and who pays the price.
But Heavy subject matter. It's about torture and state violence; there's no softening the reality.
The Mole Agent2020
Both are about documentation as resistance. Battle for Brooklyn records dissent; The Mole Agent is someone gathering evidence against institutional neglect. Both say: we're watching, we're testifying, we won't let you disappear this.
A Chilean documentary following an elderly man hired to infiltrate a nursing home to gather evidence of abuse. It's intimate and quietly urgent—one person trying to document injustice in a system designed to hide it.
But Very small in scale and deadpan in tone. Nothing happens quickly, and the emotional payoff is ambiguous.
Sans Soleil1983
Battle for Brooklyn documents a specific fight; Sans Soleil asks how we remember and resist forgetting in the face of systemic erasure. Both are about refusing to let power rewrite the story.
Experimental essay-film about memory, time, and political upheaval across Guinea-Bissau, Japan, and beyond. Oblique, hypnotic, deeply strange—it's about how power shapes consciousness and how personal memory resists.
But No conventional narrative. It's a visual-philosophical meditation with a famously disorienting structure and remote emotional register.
People
Directing
- Michael GalinskyDirector
- Suki HawleyDirector