Hi Filmmaking Lounge Fam!
It's Labor Day weekend here in the US, which has me thinking about how few films get work right.
Most movies treat a job as background. A character has an occupation the way they have an apartment, something to establish and then ignore, and by act two nobody's going into the office at all. Which is strange, because for most people work is the thing that eats the majority of their waking life, sets the terms of everything else, and shapes who they become whether they want it to or not.
But the films that do take it seriously tend to stay with you. NORMA RAE understands what it costs to be the one who speaks up. OFFICE SPACE nails the specific soul-erosion of work that means nothing. NOMADLAND sits inside the reality of aging out of an economy that has no plan for you. THE FULL MONTY is about men whose identities were built entirely on jobs that no longer exist. GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS is almost unbearable about what commission does to people.
Television gets in on it too. SEVERANCE takes the idea of leaving work at work and turns it into horror. And THE OFFICE, for all the absurdity, understood something true about the friendships you build with people you'd never have met otherwise, and about how a job you don't care about can still be the center of your social life for years.
What they all share is that the job isn't a setting. It's the pressure the story runs on.
So this weekend, I want to hear yours!
What's a film or series that gets working life right? The exhaustion, the small indignities, the politics of a break room, the pride in doing something well that nobody notices, the fear of losing it, the strange intimacy of the people you didn't choose but see every day.
And if you've worked a job the movies usually get wrong, tell us what they miss. I'd genuinely love to know which professions have never once been portrayed accurately, because I suspect the answer is most of them.
Drop them in the comments, and happy Labor Day to everyone spending it working, because a lot of you are.
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Aggretsuko. It takes place primarily in an office with all the politics you’d expect and Retsuko is all of us who work and deal with the bullshit of adulthood lol
And if I’m allowed to toot my own horn, a big part of Metal Garden is the titular business. I tapped into my real-life experiences working a small business.
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Waiting, Office Space and Succession all exhibited some true insight to the absurdities of the work place. I have worked in each environment portrayed in these pieces and part of their genius is nailing some of the subtle but so accurate situations.
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As someone who has spent two and a half decades teaching in the public school system, I would have to say that the most accurate TV show of what it's like in the classroom would have to be...kid you not...WELCOME BACK, KOTTER.
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If you have ever watched "Thirty Something" I would say that it depicted the life and times of an Advertising company pretty well. TV series like "Hill Street Blues" really captured what it felt like working in a precinct. I always find films and TV dealing with technology to be lacking. Especially when they try to deal with the current state of technology. The details are important. I thought the film "enemy of the State" with Will Smith and Gene Hackman did a very good job of showing how our secretive government agencies misuse technology.
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This really resonates with me, Ashley.
I’ve always believed that work in a story should be more than a character’s job title. Work can shape a person’s identity, relationships, choices, confidence, fears — and sometimes even the direction of their entire life.
That’s something I’ve experienced personally, and it’s also part of what makes Beyond the Five Senses such a deeply personal story for me. The different places and stages of the protagonist’s life are not simply locations or events; they are part of the transformation of the person he becomes.
What I find especially interesting about the films and series you mentioned is that they don’t simply show people working. They show what work does to people.
That, to me, is where the real story begins.
Great question, Ashley. It’s fascinating to think about how many professions — and the people who live them every day — are still waiting for their truly authentic story to be told.
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Kevin Smith absolutely nailed Clerks, everyone who's ever worked at a convenience/retail/video store knows it all too well, especially from a young person's perspective. And yes, I can laugh about it too.
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Hi, Ashley Renée Smith! The Faith-based Crime Drama series Vindication gets police life right. The cops get exhausted, their careers affect their families, the cops go above and beyond for people, etc.
I worked at Burger King in high school/after high school, and it was like a family. I'm not sure if movies/shows about fast food places show that. I can't think of any that do.
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I'll tell you a true story.. When I was at CENTCOM HQ back in ... oh I think 05, Ron Livingston came through on a USO tour. From what I heard expected everyone to talk to him about BAND OF BROTHERS... but what actually happened was everyone asked him about OFFICE SPACE... becase that was the reality of life at US CENTCOM HQ., and he was kind of suprised about that. So I'm guessing that OFFICE SPACE is pretty much reality on a whole lot of levels
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For me, it’s CAST AWAY.
I really like the role work plays in this film. Chuck’s job isn’t just information or background — it becomes part of his survival. The FedEx packages that never reached their destinations suddenly become resources that help him survive, both physically and emotionally. The most powerful example, of course, is Wilson.
There’s a beautiful irony in that: a man whose life revolved around delivering packages ends up being saved by packages that were never delivered.
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Greys anatomy
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Office Space (1999) is one of those films about work that feels painfully recognizable. I saw myself in some of its scenes, especially the way a job can slowly take over your identity.
Modern Times (1936), by Charlie Chaplin, is an absolute classic that still feels like it was made yesterday. The machinery may have changed, but the relationship between people and work hasn't changed as much as we like to think.
Harun Farocki’s documentary Workers Leaving the Factory (1995) also stayed with me. I love the idea that when the workers leave the factory, they become people again. For a moment, they are no longer workers—they are themselves.
But Severance (2022) is probably the series that best captures what work can do to a person. It reminded me of a job I had when I was 28, working in an office preparing orders. I remember walking into work and feeling like my mind went completely blank. Then, when I walked out, I felt like my personality came back. I was myself again.
That experience stayed with me. I even started imagining a story about a single man in his early 30s who gets ready for work one morning and looks in the bathroom mirror. He sees wrinkles, thinning hair, and suddenly hears a woman through the door telling him that he has to take the kids to school.
The strange part is that he is single and has no children.
A few months later, I quit that job.
I think the best stories about working life understand that work doesn't just take up our time—it can change who we are.
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Film: The Deer Hunter — the steel mill sequences capture the grit, danger, and physical toll of industrial labor.
TV: Landman — Taylor Sheridan nails the high‑risk reality of oil and gas field work.
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As someone who works in retail I have to say that the show Superstore overestimates people's time to socialize with one another. Of course you talk to each other when you're working as a team and completing tasks such as getting stock onto a shelf and you say hi to each other in the morning, but all the drama I see on those shows isn't very realistic. In real life, it's more professionalism and less drama.
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Ashley Renée Smith, I woud have to say The Flintstones. You could always feel Fred`s relief when he was done operating heavy brontosaurus machinery. And working for Mister Slate was no joy.
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One note. Between 2010 and 2017 or so I was a real working landman, mostly in house in Houston, but also some in South Texas. Now Taylor Sheridan does absolutely nail the dangers of working a rig, and he's done his research, especially about the whole "lost everything in the oil bust" part, but it's... not exactly completely accurate. On the good side, up until the TV show came out I kept having to explain to people what a Landman did. They had no idea. Now they have the wrong idea (more or less), but at least I don't have to explain it any more.
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Popping in to acknowledge "Sometimes I Think About Dying," a brutally honest film that far too few people have seen.
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Ashley, I think you nailed it with The Office, both the British and American versions. Sure, they got into some wacky hijinks and situations that probably would’ve got everyone fired, but they showed what people do during the mundane parts of a workday in ways that were highly relatable. The awkward conversations, little distractions, and relationships made those workplaces feel familiar, even when things got ridiculous. I think that’s a big part of why those series worked so well. I’m currently watching Slow Horses, and I’ve never worked as an MI5 agent, but all I can say is I really hope that’s not how they truly behave. lolol