Movies: Haskell Wexler

Maya is a quick-witted young woman who comes over the Mexican border without papers and makes her way to the LA home of her older sister Rosa. Rosa gets Maya a job as a janitor: a non-union janitorial service has the contract, the foul-mouthed superv...

A biography of Woody Guthrie, one of America's greatest folk singers. He left his dust-devastated Texas home in the 1930s to find work, discovering the suffering and strength of America's working class....

This film portrays activity in Grand Central Market in Los Angeles, California. Highlighted are vendors that represent the melting pot that is America, selling their wares to people of all ages and all walks of life. The film was directed by William ...

Haskell Wexler revisits the themes of his previous work "Medium Cool" on the occasion of the Occupy demonstrations in Chicago in 2012....

Marshal Kirk Reed is escorting five female prisoners---killers all--- from one part of Texas to another part of Texas where a new prison has been built. Along the way he has to deal with dissension among the troops, attacks by the Comanches, a buddin...

A 1998 editorial in Time magazine made the claim that the city of Los Angeles "might just have the most inept public-transport system on the planet earth. . . . The neglected bus system, which still handles 91% of all transit riders,is now roughly as...

Middle-aged suburban husband Richard abruptly tells his wife, Maria, that he wants a divorce. As Richard takes up with a younger woman, Maria enjoys a night on the town with her friends and meets a younger man. As the couple and those around them con...

An American spy hides in an apartment. But the woman who lives there is herself the mistress of a German Officer....

Two gamblers must leave New York City after one loses a lot of money. Doing what all gamblers in trouble would do, they hurry to the gambling capital Las Vegas to turn their luck around....

A rich man's wife finds she has a bad prenuptial agreement with an even worse husband. Over drinks with a stranger, she fantasizes about doing her husband in to void the prenup — but much to her surprise, the stranger decides to turn her imagination ...

The filmmakers spoke to ex-political prisoners who had been tortured by the military government who were at that point supported by the US government....

"Black" is a stunning fire-and-silk stallion celebrated the world over. But to his young American owner, Alec Ramsay, he's much more. So, when the amazing animal is stolen, Alec will stop at nothing to get him back. Alec finally unravels the mystery ...

A documentary about the Weathermen, founded as a militant faction of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), who fought to overthrow the U.S. government during the 1960s and 1970s. The film consists of interviews with members of the group after ...

Venturing into some of the roughest slums of St. Louis, Jesuit priest Rev. Charles Dismas Clark dedicates himself to helping young ex-convicts who are struggling to rejoin a society that fears and rejects them. An especially wrenching case for the Re...

In 1968 California, a Marine officer's wife falls in love with a former high school classmate who suffered a paralyzing combat injury in the war....

This short explores the early planning innovations and the subsequent mistakes that resulted in developing urban sprawl, suburbia, and gentrification in modern day US cities as well as the effects it had on its populace and industry....

The other party is in disarray. Five men vie for the party nomination for president. No one has a majority as the first ballot closes and the front-runners begin to decide how badly they want the job....

This interview was conducted shortly after the late President Dr. Salvador Allende won the Chilean elections of 1970. Dr. Salvador Allende was the first democratically elected socialist president in Latin America. Three years later, Allende was kille...

The discovery of a corpse and the ensuing probe by an idealistic journalist threatens to unravel a bumbling local politician's campaign for governor of Colorado....

Richard Pryor's stand-up act includes his frank discussion about his freebasing addiction, as well as the infamous night on June 9, 1980 that he caught on fire....