Which 1976 documentary about a Kentucky coal miners' strike won the Academy Award?

The 1976 documentary about a Kentucky coal miners’ strike that won the Academy Award was Harlan County, USA.

Directed and produced by Barbara Kopple, the film follows the Brookside Strike, a labor dispute that began in 1973 at the Eastover Coal Company’s Brookside mine and preparation plant in Harlan County, southeastern Kentucky. Around 180 miners and their wives fought for safer working conditions, better benefits, and recognition of the United Mine Workers of America.

Kopple’s camera stays close to the workers and their families as the strike develops, capturing picket-line confrontations, community meetings, church gatherings, and the emotional costs of prolonged industrial conflict. The film is especially remembered for its unvarnished access and for showing how labor disputes affect entire families rather than only employees.

Harlan County, USA won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 49th Academy Awards. Its soundtrack includes performances associated with Appalachian labor and protest traditions, including music by Hazel Dickens and Merle Travis. The film was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry in 1990. The Wobblies and American Dream are labor-related documentaries, but neither is the film described here.