Living on One DollarMovies like Living on One Dollar
- Key Features:
- Poverty, Social issues, Documentary, Financial hardship, Cultural immersion, Resilience, Generosity, Community, Global perspective, Personal transformation, Activism
- Tone:
- serious, earnest
- Target Audience:
- Socially conscious viewers, Documentary enthusiasts, Students
- Emotional Arc:
- Curiosity → Hardship → Empathy
Living on One Dollar

How do 1.1 billion people around the world live on less than one dollar a day? Four young friends set out to research and live this reality. Armed with only a video camera and a desire to understand, they spend just 56 dollars each for 56 days in rural Pena Blanca, Guatemala. They battle E.Coli, financial stress, and the realization that there are no easy answers. Yet, the generosity and strength of their neighbors, Rosa, Anthony and Chino gives them resilient hope. They return home transformed and embark on a mission to share their new found understanding with other students, inspiring and challenging their generation to make a difference.
Living on One Dollar
A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010.

Shifting from one pocket to another, from one man's drama to another, a lowly dollar bill, 'one buck' takes us on an odyssey through the heart of a forgotten town in Louisiana.

The amazing true story of a Uruguayan rugby team's plane that crashed in the middle of the Andes mountains, and their immense will to survive and pull through alive, forced to do anything and everything they could to stay alive on meager rations and through the freezing cold.

In the exact moment they hit rock bottom, four strangers are visited by a mysterious man who gifts them a week to see how the world would be without them.

A day in the life of Azucena, who is running out of time to keep herself and her family from being evicted; Rafael, a lawyer who sets out to reunite a mother with her daughter; and Teodora, a sick old woman who searches for her long-lost son before it is too late.

An astonishing journey revealing the awesome power of the natural world. Over the course of one single day, we track the sun from the highest mountains to the remotest islands to exotic jungles.

A group of Central-American teen-agers depart from the slums of Guatemala City escaping poverty and violence, towards the promised land of California.

Compulsive spenders Albert and Bruno are in debt up to their necks. While seeking help from community workers to get their lives back on track, they run into a group of young green activists. Lured by the free beer and snacks rather than by the ideals of eco-activists, Albert and Bruno find themselves joining the movement without much conviction.

Vincent is a famous successful entrepreneur. One day, a car breakdown on a mountain road temporarily interrupts his frantic lifestyle. Pierre, who lives apart from the modern world in the middle of sublime nature, comes to his aid and offers him his hospitality. The meeting between these two men, who are opposites will upset their respective beliefs and they will find themselves laughing. The question is...deep down, are they really each living the lives they want to live?

After five failed attempts to go to the United States, 18-year-old Ramón decides to look for a friend’s aunt in Germany, but never finds her. With no papers or money, and without knowing the language, he barely survives living on the street until he meets Ruth, an old retired nurse who doesn’t speak Spanish. Beyond language barriers and prejudices, they discover that solidarity and humanity make life bearable.

King is a young man, but he's already a veteran of life on the streets of Los Angeles. The de facto leader of a group of teenage runaways, King acts as a mentor to troubled kids such as gay hustler Little J and junkie Greg. When Heather, a beautiful girl from Chicago, starts hanging out with King and his crew, it changes the dynamic of the gang. However, it seems as though nothing will alter their dangerous lifestyle.

On the edge of a crumbling city, 11-year-old Alexander lives in a sequestered commune alongside other children, their mothers, and charismatic leader, Gregori. Gregori teaches the children how to raise livestock, grow vegetables, work as a community - and how to kill. With the birth of a new baby brother weighing on his mind, Alexander begins to question Gregori’s overpowering influence on the children and their training to become assassins. Threatened by his increasing unwillingness to fall in line, Gregori’s behavior turns erratic and adversarial toward the child he once considered a son. With the two set dangerously at odds and the commune’s way of life disintegrating, the residents fear a violent resolution is at hand.

If you ever find yourself traveling down Interstate 49 through Missouri, try not to blink—you may miss Rich Hill, population 1,396. Rich Hill is easy to overlook, but its inhabitants are as woven into the fabric of America as those living in any small town in the country. This movie intimately chronicles the turbulent lives of three boys living in said Midwestern town and the fragile family bonds that sustain them.

Best friends and roommates Dreux and Alyssa are about to have One of Them Days. When they discover Alyssa’s boyfriend has blown their rent money, the duo finds themselves going to extremes in a comical race against the clock to avoid eviction and keep their friendship intact.

Set in the competitive world of modern agriculture, ambitious Henry Whipple wants his rebellious son Dean to help expand his family’s farming empire. However, Dean has his sights set on becoming a professional race car driver. When a high-stakes investigation into their business is exposed, father and son are pushed into an unexpected situation that threatens the family's entire livelihood.

While visiting family in Mexico, a lonely boy befriends a mythical creature hiding on his grandfather's ranch and embarks on the adventure of a lifetime.

Somewhere in the Balkans, 1995. A team of aid workers must solve an apparently simple problem in an almost completely pacified territory that has been devastated by a cruel war, but some of the local inhabitants, the retreating combatants, the UN forces, many cows and an absurd bureaucracy will not cease to put obstacles in their way.

Some of the world's most innovative documentary filmmakers will explore the hidden side of everything.

Looking for a brighter future in metropolitan Manila, Oscar Ramirez and his family leave their miserable life in the rice terraces of Banaue, in the northern Philippines. In the sweltering capital, where all kind of perils lurk in every corner, Oscar catches a lucky break when he is offered a steady work for an armored truck company and the senior officer Ong takes him under his wing.

How might your life be better with less? The popular simple-living duo The Minimalists examines the many flavors of minimalism by taking the audience inside the lives of minimalists from various walks of life.

Quickie-mart employee Melissa and paraplegic Richie are very much in love. Supported only by Melissa’s small hourly wage, they are nevertheless thrilled to learn that Melissa is pregnant. Then their situation deteriorates, and their tenuous financial situation threatens to bring their happy life crashing down.

As a director and his crew shoot a controversial film about Christopher Columbus in Cochabamba, Bolivia, local people rise up against plans to privatize the water supply.

The story of a precocious six year-old and her ragtag group of friends whose summer break is filled with childhood wonder, possibility and a sense of adventure while the adults around them struggle with hard times.

On December 21, 2012 four strangers on a journey of faith are drawn to an ancient temple in the heart of Mexico. For the Mayans it is the last recorded day. For NASA scientists it is a cataclysmic polar shift. For the rest of us, it is Doomsday.

Simón, a Venezuelan freedom fighter exiled in Miami, copes not only with trauma, but also deep guilt over a choice he must make: stay in Miami and start a new life, or return home to the losing fight against a tyrannical regime.

Isa and Marie bond while working in a French sweatshop and soon begin sharing an apartment that Marie is watching for a hospitalized mother and daughter. Marie, hoping to avoid a life of struggle and poverty, takes up with Chriss, a nightclub owner whose most attractive asset is his money. Isa recognizes the ultimate futility of the relationship and tries to keep Marie away from him, but her interference puts their friendship at risk.

Have you ever wondered "What is the meaning of life? Why do we exist?" The answer to this vexing question is now within your reach! You'll find it in a small yet amazing booklet, which will explain, in easy to follow, simple terms your reason for being! The booklet, printed on the finest paper, contains illuminating, exquisite colour pictures, and could be yours for a mere $9.99.

A group of five American friends on the cusp of adulthood travel to Panama to relax and reconnect. They befriend a local woman in their hotel bar—and despite some ominous whispers—she goes against the specific instructions of her brother and brings the Americans on a daytrip into the pristine falls at the nearby jungle. What begins as an innocent outing to a picturesque waterfall quickly turns terrifying after she suddenly goes missing. As night closes in, the friends realize too late the truth behind the rumors—the legendary, blood-sucking Chupacabra is now stalking them.

A cinematic portrait of the homeless population who live permanently in the underground tunnels of New York City.

Based on the Depression-era bildungsroman memoir of writer A. E. Hotchner, the film follows the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis after his mother is committed to a sanatorium with tuberculosis. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return.

In vivid images, the documentary-like story of a drover and his family in the northern badlands of Brazil during the drought. A family in the search of new hope and destiny.

Poor, hungry peasant Macario longs for just one good meal on the Day of the Dead. After his wife cooks a turkey for him, he meets three apparitions, the Devil, God, and Death. Each asks him to share his turkey, but he refuses all except Death. In return, Death gives him a bottle of water which will heal any illness. Soon, Macario is more wealthy than the village doctor, which draws the attention of the feared Inquisition.

Pietramezzana, a remote village in the Lucan Dolomites, is likely to disappear. Its inhabitants, led by the volcanic Dominic do not give up and, believing that the opening of a factory may be the solution to all their troubles, they want to make sure that the project is successful ...

When a couple of lazy hunter-gatherers are banished from their primitive village, they set off on an epic journey through the ancient world.

Four friends become stranded in Eastern Europe and have to become hit men, prostitutes, corrupt cops, smugglers and more to make it home.

Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.

Open war against humanity rages. For five survivors – lost and on the run – the pursuit is relentless, the bullets are dwindling and the battle is everywhere. This is a 24-hour look into their lives.

Three friends in wheelchairs welcome a new patient at a children's hospital. Growing up together. All emotions pass the revue. Friendship and hope survive all.

In the Mexican-Guatemalan border, young teenage lovers, Sabina and Jovany, both Hondurans, accidentally meet again after some years without seeing each other. She plans to get to the United States and dreams about being a great singer; he commits all the required atrocities to be accepted by the gang: la Mara Salvatrucha. Sabina and Jovany crashed with the most adverse conditions at the border like white slavery, the Mexican and American migratory agents Burrona and Patrick, the brothel matron Doña Lita, Don Nico the Mexican Consul in Tecún Umán, the drug trafficking networks, the army and la Mara Salvatrucha.

A man wakes up one morning with an annoying ringing sound in his ears. A note on the fridge says: "Your friend Luigi has died. P.S. I took the car". The problem is that he does not even remember who this guy Luigi is. This is just the beginning of a tragicomic day during which he will be plunged into the folly of the world. One of those days that changes your life forever.

Filmed over nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, and shot on seventy-millimetre film, Samsara transports us to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes, and natural wonders.

After Antoine was fired from his job, he became a stay-at-home dad taking care of his four children, while his wife Isabelle restarts her career as a lawyer. For Antoine, the family's upcoming ski vacation is a godsend: he can finally take a break from parenthood and enjoy a luxury ski resort! But just as they are about to step on the train, Isabelle is called back to work for an emergency and Antoine has to deal, on his own, with his four mischievous kids going wild on the slopes and in the fancy hotel, as the trip turns into total chaos…

Convenience and video store clerks Dante and Randal are sharp-witted, potty-mouthed and bored out of their minds. So in between needling customers, the counter jockeys play hockey on the roof, visit a funeral home and deal with their love lives.

Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon re-entry over Central America. Soon after, new life forms began to appear and half of Mexico was quarantined as an infected zone. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain "the creatures," while a journalist agrees to escort a shaken tourist through the infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the U.S. border.

After a serious sport accident in a swimming pool, Ben, now an incomplete quadriplegic, arrives in a rehabilitation center. He meets with other handicapped persons (tetraplegics, paraplegics, traumatized crania), all victims of accidents, as well as a handicapped since his early childhood. They go through impotence, despair and resignation, with their daily struggle to learn how to move a finger or to hold a fork. Some of them slowly find a little mobility while others receive the verdict of the handicap for life. Despite everything, hope and friendship help them endure their difficulties.

The American Dream becomes a nightmare for a group of undocumented day laborers hired by a wealthy couple. What they expect to be their biggest payday turns into a terrifying fight for survival.

To save their cash-strapped orphanage, a guardian and his kids partner with a washed-up boat captain for a chance to win a lucrative fishing competition.

Austin, Texas, is an Eden for the young and unambitious, from the enthusiastically eccentric to the dangerously apathetic. Here, the nobly lazy can eschew responsibility in favor of nursing their esoteric obsessions. The locals include a backseat philosopher who passionately expounds on his dream theories to a seemingly comatose cabbie, a young woman who tries to hawk Madonna's Pap test to anyone who will listen and a kindly old anarchist looking for recruits.

A presentation of a case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society. This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical 'life ground' attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a 'Resource-Based Economy'.

Wealthy American housewife Mary Morgan takes her bullied son George out of school for home education,including a trip to Southern Africa. Whilst in Mozambique George is bitten by a mosquito which crawls through a hole in his net and dies of malaria. After his funeral at home Mary feels a compulsion to return to Africa where she meets English woman Martha O'Connell,whose 24 year old son Ben, a teacher with voluntary service overseas,has also died of malaria. Ben gave his net to one of his pupils,believing adults cannot catch malaria. The two women are shocked to see the high death rate caused by the disease and,whilst Martha stays in Africa as a voluntary helper,Mary petitions the American government to change things. Martha turns up at Mary's house unannounced and,helped by Mary's ex-diplomat father,they address a senate committee on health spending,persuading them to do more to combat malaria. They meet with some success though a coda states that much more can be done.

A near-penniless drifter's journey to Alaska in search of work is interrupted when she loses her dog while attempting to shoplift food for it.

A rich businessman makes a bet he can survive on the streets of a rough Los Angeles neighborhood for 30 days completely penniless. During his stay he discovers another side of life and falls in love with a homeless woman.

Marc Châtaigne, an intern at the Ministry of Standards, is sent to French Guiana to implement European construction standards at Guyaneige: the first Amazonian ski slope, intended to boost tourism in French Guiana. There, he meets Tarzan, an attractive intern at the National Forestry Office, with whom he’ll get lost on a journey through the jungle that will take him far, far away…

This documentary follows three women — a fire chief, a judge, and a street missionary — as they battle West Virginia's devastating opioid epidemic.

The four friends Lukas, Julius, Gino and Sanchez are trying to survive the everyday life in Neukölln, Berlin between drugs, gangs, rap, violence and boredom. Until they are one day making a serious decision with serious consequences because of a dead certain plan.

A documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States who's main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.

Climate is changing. Instead of showing all the worst that can happen, this documentary focuses on the people suggesting solutions and their actions.

On the eve of Earth Day, a precocious seven-year-old learns about the wonders of the planet from his parents—and a mysterious exhibit at the aptly named Museum of Everything.

Five strangers face the unthinkable when they wake up and find themselves trapped. With no idea how they got there they frantically try to figure out how to escape. The disoriented group quickly realise the truth about their situation when they discover another room containing enough water to survive for 30 days… and a razor sharp surgical knife. The intention becomes quite clear. Whoever put them in this place wants to see just how long it will take before the hunger makes them commit unspeakable acts and cross a very deadly line.

When a man is offered a million dollars to play a game in which hunters try to kill him, he thinks he has found the perfect loophole: they can only attack when he’s alone. His only problem is that none of his friends or family believe the game is real. Forced to seek companionship in unexpected places, he navigates the bizarre challenge with humor, paranoia, and a surprising search for connection.

With one coin to make a wish at the piazza fountain, a peasant girl encounters two competing street performers who'd prefer the coin find its way into their tip jars. The little girl, Tippy, is caught in the middle as a musical duel ensues between the one-man-bands.

The Hamburg friends Walter, Ricco and Floyd take each day as it comes between the estates of tower blocks and fast food restaurants. All three are in their early twenties and are dreaming of another life when Floyd suddenly takes a job on a freighter going to Singapore.

Tragedy strikes when a woman named Joyce's son falls through the ice on a frozen lake and is trapped underwater for over 15 minutes. After being rushed to the hospital, the 14-year-old boy continues to fight for his life as Joyce, her husband and their pastor stay by his bedside and pray for a miracle.

In 1975, Ryszard Kapuściński, a veteran Polish journalist, embarked on a seemingly suicidal road trip into the heart of the Angola's civil war. There, he witnessed once again the dirty reality of war and discovered a sense of helplessness previously unknown to him. Angola changed him forever: it was a reporter who left Poland, but it was a writer who returned…

Corporate billionaire Edward Cole and working class mechanic Carter Chambers are worlds apart. At a crossroads in their lives, they share a hospital room and discover they have two things in common: a desire to spend the time they have left doing everything they ever wanted to do and an unrealized need to come to terms with who they are. Together they embark on the road trip of a lifetime, becoming friends along the way and learning to live life to the fullest, with insight and humor.

The enthralling, against-all-odds story that transfixed the world in 2018: the daring rescue of twelve boys and their coach from deep inside a flooded cave in Northern Thailand.

Determined to help her son, who has cerebral palsy, Bárbara takes her family to India for an experimental treatment.

Ten minutes a day can change the course of your day. Ten minutes doing something completely new can change the course of a life. This is what Bianca will discover in the midst of an existential crisis. New meetings, the discovery of special bonds and listening to those who have always loved us. Sometimes it doesn't take much to start over and this film teaches us this, through a warm and passionate story of rebirth.

Through interviews filmed over four years, Noam Chomsky unpacks the principles that have brought us to the crossroads of historically unprecedented inequality – tracing a half-century of policies designed to favor the most wealthy at the expense of the majority – while also looking back on his own life of activism and political participation. He provides penetrating insight into what may well be the lasting legacy of our time – the death of the middle class, and swan song of functioning democracy.

An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.

Pierre is 25 when he returns from Wyoming to his fiancée and take over the family farm. Twenty years later, the farm expanded and so did the family. It's the time of happy days, at least at the beginning. The debts accumulate and Pierre is exhausted at work. Despite the love of his wife and children, he is slowly falling...

Filling the giant screen with stunning time-lapse vistas of Antarctica, and detailing year-round life at McMurdo and Scott Base, Anthony Powell’s documentary is a potent hymn to the icy continent and the heavens above.

Two brothers living a hard life of manual labor in rural Mexico have a simple dream: saving enough money to build their mother her dream house. But fate has other plans. A friendly game of soccer leads to first Rudo, then to Cursi being taken on by the nation’s top talent scout. Suddenly, they find themselves living the high life of star athletes: fame, fortune, fast cars and beautiful women.

The drama is centered on four friends and business partners who in one evening are forced to find a way to save their company and themselves. The impossible decision they face is agreeing on who will be the one to sacrifice their freedom to save the others from personal and financial demise. It is a race against time that will put their friendship and sanity to the test. Who will take the fall?

In a town in the Northwest of the province of Buenos Aires, a group of neighbors is organized to recover the economy of the area, but when the corralito is implemented in the country and they suffer a fraud, their hopes disappear. Now, they will unite to recover the lost money and give the blow of their lives to their greatest enemy.

Ben Tyler has been diagnosed with cancer. With a grim chance of survival in the best case scenario even if he immediately begins treatment, he instead decides to take a motorcycle trip from Toronto through the Canadian prairies to British Columbia.

Mirko and Manolo are best friends and live in the suburbs of Rome. They both live in poor conditions with their single parents, are still in school and struggle with occasional odd jobs to make ends meet. Together they share dreams of women, of sex and money, of a better life to come. Then, after killing a man in a hit-and-run one night, they get involved with the local mafia and their lives change dramatically.

Two cosmonauts, two friends, try to do their best in their everyday training life to make their common dream a reality. But this story is not only about the dream.

When Santi and his parents learn that he has an eye disease, his father encourages him to make a list of places and things he wants to see and do before he loses his sight completely.

Sayra, a Honduran teen, hungers for a better life. Her chance for one comes when she is reunited with her long-estranged father, who intends to emigrate to Mexico and then enter the United States. Sayra's life collides with a pair of Mexican gangmembers who have boarded the same American-bound train.

A young American couple travel to the arctic mountains of Norway. After pulling over during a snowstorm, they wake up trapped in their SUV, buried underneath layers of snow and ice.

Carl Fredricksen spent his entire life dreaming of exploring the globe and experiencing life to its fullest. But at age 78, life seems to have passed him by, until a twist of fate (and a persistent 8-year old Wilderness Explorer named Russell) gives him a new lease on life.

The training trip of 4 "special" boys, one narcoleptic, one internet-dependent, one suffering from Tourette's Syndrome and one obsessed with hygiene towards self-affirmation and acceptance of one's differences.

Nola grew up living on a van with her father, Clint; two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past and her new destination.

Tells the "riches to rags" story of the Nobles, three upper-class twenty-somethings that appear to have no limits to their checkbooks, and no direction in their lives. Until one day, their father tries to teach them a lesson by staging a financial scandal that forces the whole family to escape to an old house in the poor side of town, and leads the "kids" to do what they haven't done before: get jobs.

In a run-down South American town, four men are paid to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin into the jungle through to the oil field. Friendships are tested and rivalries develop as they embark upon the perilous journey.

On the run with a bag full of cash after a robbing his former crime boss—and a potentially fatal wound—Freddy slips onto a bus headed into a rainy night in Georgia. With his life slipping through his fingers, Freddy is left with very few choices to survive.

After a nuclear attack, an unlikely group of survivors, including a geologist, a crook and his moll, and a prospector, find temporary shelter in the remote-valley home of a survivalist and his beautiful daughter, but soon have to deal with the spread of radioactivity - and its effects on animal life, including humans.

A collection of stories about and images of our world, offering an immersion to the core of what it means to be human. Through these stories full of love and happiness, as well as hatred and violence, it brings us face to face with the Other, making us reflect on our lives. From stories of everyday experiences to accounts of the most unbelievable lives, these poignant encounters share a rare sincerity and underline who we are – our darker side, but also what is most noble in us, and what is universal. Our Earth is shown at its most sublime through never-before-seen aerial images accompanied by soaring music, resulting in an ode to the beauty of the world, providing a moment to draw breath and for introspection. This film is a politically engaged work which allows us to embrace the human condition and to reflect on the meaning of our existence.

The film tells the story of two good friends who live together, Andrew, an agoraphobic travel agent who works from his home, and Dave, a loser who works in an office where he is treated with contempt. Just when it seems things can't get any worse for the two, the entire world outside of their house disappears and is replaced with an endless white void.

A reporter Lanie Kerrigan interviews a psychic homeless man for a fluff piece about a football game's score. Instead he tells her that her life has no meaning and is going to end in just a few days, which sparks her to action, trying to change the pattern of her life...

Filippo is a star on the Italian TV. He works for a documentary series about wild animals and nature. He is sent to Tenerife (Spain) to shot an issue about the local stork. It is the 13th of August. After he did his job is time to leave, but the ferry couldn't operate. He has to spend the night in the island. The day after is again the 13th of August, and Filippo live again the same day for different times. Something has to change to exit the paranoid and unrealistic situation.

Mario and Ana, in voluntary exile from Buenos Aires, live in a remote Argentine valley with their 12-year-old son Ernesto. Mario runs a school and a wool cooperative; Ana, a doctor, heads a clinic with Nelda, a progressive nun. Into this idealistic family comes Hans, a jaded Spanish geological engineer -- surveying the land for the local patron, to see if it can be dammed for hydro-electric power, which would drive the peasants from the land into the cities.

A bright young yeti finds something he thought didn't exist—a human. News of this “smallfoot” throws the simple yeti community into an uproar over what else might be out there in the big world beyond their snowy village.

In a Mexican border town plagued by neglect, corruption, and violence, a frustrated teacher tries an unorthodox new method to break through his students’ apathy and unlock their curiosity, their potential... and perhaps even their genius.

Two boys, still grieving the death of their mother, find themselves the unwitting benefactors of a bag of bank robbery loot in the week before the United Kingdom switches its official currency to the Euro. What's a kid to do?

A portrait of the myth of maternity around the story of Pepa and her daughter, who are evicted from their home and forced to wander for a place to live with no support network.

Valentino and Salvo, unemployed and in search of fortune and recommendation, leave Palermo for Valentino’s home town, Monteforte, where they will try to survive the Italian crisis by opening some sort of hospice.

