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(1987)Directed by John Sayles132 min · PG-13Drama, History

“It takes more than guns to kill a man.”

Nobody in Matewan trusts anyone before the strike even starts. Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper), a union organizer, steps off a train in a West Virginia coal town in 1920 to find the miners split between local men, Italian immigrants and Black workers brought in by the company. John Sayles frames him against the narrow valley, rough company houses and the fixed line of the mountain.