TIFF Review: “Union Town”

Union Town (Barbara Kopple, 2026) 4 out of 5 stars

The great documentarian Barbara Kopple began her cinematic career with the 1976 Harlan County U.S.A., which took home the Oscar that year in its category. The movie gave audiences an on-the-ground look at a work strike among hard-scrabble Kentucky coal miners and was a model of observational filmmaking. Now, in Union Town, Kopple returns to labor issues, setting her latest opus among the underpaid and exploited New York employees of UPS, Amazon, and the many delivery-service apps that most people use without a second’s thought of who is on the other end. This is “unseen labor,” as Kopple informs us, and her job is to make sure we see it.

We begin in 2023 as UPS workers prepare to walk out ahead of contract negotiations. They are represented by the Teamsters and have plenty of things they’d like to negotiate. It’s the part-timers who perhaps need a raise more than the others, though no one ever gets exactly what they want in these moments. The best one can hope for is an improvement that makes both sides unhappy.

From UPS, we jump to Amazon and then on to DoorDash and related apps. Kopple explores the many ways in which our current gig economy forces folks to accept inhuman labor conditions, even as corporate CEOs earn more and more money. Greed runs rampant among the executive class, loath to give up any of their unearned gains.

It’s fascinating to explore these different sectors of the service industry, though at times it can be hard to remember who is who. One thing is certain, however, which is that very little of what transpires on screen will soon matter, since there is a huge revolution—a transference of wealth and stealing of jobs—underway now, courtesy of AI. That’s how Kopple ends things, UPS CEO Carol Tomé laughing that robot workers can’t complain. I think that’s rather a sad state of affairs, Carol.

What stays with me the most after watching Union Town are the images of immigrant DoorDash delivery guys struggling to complete their tasks in impossible conditions, held accountable for failure but rarely reaping the rewards of success. Some get injured along the way, while others die. And they can be fired by an auto-generated email with little recourse. Remember that next time you decide that a trip to the deli is too much for you. And please, tip them well, and without hesitation.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Chris Reed is the editor of Film Festival Today. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.