Blue Collar is the American Dream converted into a nightmare, or a drama about a man consumed by a society of consumerism. Who would want to voluntarily submit themselves to this torture? [Full review in Spanish]

| Jan 25, 2024

Schrader keeps our interests rooted at all times with this trio of characters, and through them pushes important conversational topics around labor exploitation and the perpetual dehumanization of the workforce under capitalism.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Feb 12, 2023

A clenched, provocative drama, brilliantly acted.

| Original Score: A | Dec 1, 2022

...a solid drama that benefits substantially from the compelling efforts of its stars...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 2, 2022

There's an authenticity of observation that still stands out, even amidst the famously "gritty" 1970s American film landscape, plus an integrity to the performances...

| Sep 13, 2021

This isn't a fun film...but it's remarkable and volatile, and fueled with three really great performances and Schrader at his best.

| Sep 10, 2021

The pacing can feel a bit lax, but the movie's eclecticism is remarkable.

| Aug 21, 2021

Blue Collar is one of the best studies of the essential flaw of the revolutionary character in the context of the oppressed.

| Aug 21, 2021

Blue Collar offers up the bitter, outrageous, and ultimately despairing vision of anti-union efforts that the subject deserves.

| Aug 21, 2021

Schrader depicts the exchange of labor for money as a kind of original sin, and not even those who honor its code-to the letter and in spirit-are innocent.

| Aug 21, 2021

The movie is affecting as a social portrait as well as a psychological drama.

| Aug 21, 2021

This works both as unrelenting drama and as black comedy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 21, 2021

Paul Schrader's directorial debut is an unexpectedly gritty working-class melodrama set in Detroit.

| Aug 21, 2021

"Blue Collar" is a gritty, hard-driving movie and one that, for all its flaws, is not easily forgotten.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 21, 2021

It doesn't have the ring of box office success, but it makes a valid and kind of roughly eloquent statement about brotherhood and the working man.

| Aug 21, 2021

In "Blue Collar," Paul Schrader has fashioned a powerful film from the anger of the powerless.

| Aug 21, 2021

This is a strong debut for Schrader, who, with the help of photographer Bobby Byrne, has made a rigorous visual statement about the dispiriting qualities of life in heavily industrialized urban areas.

| Aug 21, 2021

Blue Collar... commits that most unpardonable of sins when one sets out to make a timely honest film about the little guy: Just when we expect a knockout blow, the filmmakers pull their punches...

| Aug 21, 2021

The lead actors, all three of them, are marvelous, working both with and off each other in performances of great integrity.

| Aug 21, 2021

Schrader apparently sees the world as populated by battered and brooding souls. He draws their portrait so well in pictures like "Taxi Driver" and, now, "Blue Collar," that you reluctantly have to admit that he may be right.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 21, 2021