| Director | Michael Moore |
|---|---|
| Box office | $4.5 million |
In the film, Moore visits a number of countries and examines aspects of their social policies that he suggests the United States could adopt. He visits Italy, France, Finland, Slovenia, Germany, Portugal, Norway, Tunisia, and Iceland; respectively, the subjects covered are worker benefits, school lunches, early education, college education, worker inclusion, decriminalized drugs, low recidivism, women's health care, and women's inclusion and leadership role in society. These countries and supporting facts are listed on the film's website.
The countries and topics in order of appearance: * In Italy: labor rights and workers' well-being – paid holiday, paid honeymoon, thirteenth salary, two-hour lunch breaks, paid parental leave, speaking with the executives of Lardini and Claudio Domenicali, the CEO of Ducati * In France: school meals and sex education * In Finland: education policy (almost no homework, no standardized testing), speaking with Krista Kiuru, the Finnish Minister of Education. Moore notes that music and poetry have been eliminated in the American K-12 education system. * In Slovenia: debt-free/tuition-free higher education, speaking with , University of Ljubljana's rector, and Borut Pahor, the President of Slovenia. The University of Ljubljana teaches at least 100 courses in English. * In Germany: labor rights, co-determination and work–life balance, visiting pencil manufacturer Faber-Castell, and the value of honest, frank national history education, particularly as it relates to Nazi Germany * In Portugal: May Day, drug policy of Portugal, universal health care, and the abolition of the death penalty * In Norway: humane prison system, visiting the minimum-security Bastøy Prison and maximum-security Halden Prison, and Norway's response to the 2011 Utøya attacks * In Tunisia: women's rights, including reproductive health, access to abortion and their role in the Tunisian Revolution and the drafting of the Tunisian Constitution of 2014. Rached Ghannouchi disapproves of compulsory hijab, saying, "The state should not tell women how to dress, or interfere in their lives." * In Iceland: women in power, speaking with Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the world's first democratically elected female president; the Best Party with Jón Gnarr being elected Mayor of Reykjavík; the 2008–11 Icelandic financial crisis and the criminal investigation and prosecution of bankers, with special prosecutor * The fall of the Berlin Wall
Moore points out at the end that many of these ideas actually originated in the U.S., such as the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, abolition of the death penalty, the struggle for the eight-hour day and the May Day holiday, the Equal Rights Movement for women, and prosecution of financial fraud during the savings and loan crisis.