Here is a guide to some of the best movies about workers (their struggles, victories and enterprising endeavors) that are streaming or available for purchase in the United States right now. (Note: Streaming services sometimes remove titles without notice.)

‘Norma Rae’ (1979)

Where to watch: Showing on Saturday and Sunday at Nitehawk Cinema Williamsburg, nitehawkcinema.com; also available on DVD and Blu-ray.

At times, a film needs just one crystallizing image.

Near the end of “Norma Rae,” the title character played by Sally Field grabs a piece of cardboard and scrawls “union” on it in capital letters. Then she climbs on a table at the cotton mill — where she and so many others have sweated for too little pay in dehumanizing conditions — and silently holds up her sign as the police rush in to arrest her. The machines are deafeningly loud, pounding out the relentless rhythm of exploitation. Her defiance is louder.

Directed by Martin Ritt, “Norma Rae” tells the gritty, moving story of Crystal Lee Sutton, a North Carolina cotton-mill worker turned labor activist who actually did climb on a mill table holding a hastily scribbled union sign. It isn’t a great film, but its one transporting image of labor triumphant is a worthy legacy. It’s also an unusual one because, despite its own proud union history, Hollywood has never really been much interested in working people except as paying customers. Movie bosses like authoritarian fictions and aspirational fantasies.