The Automat

Lisa Hurwitz's 2021 documentary tells the hundred-year story of the restaurant chain Horn and Hardart. The automat was a system where food was taken from glass compartments opened with coins, and it became a place where generations in New York and Philadelphia ate at shared tables. The documentary's interest is not food but public space. Who sat in an automat did not matter; the prices were low, there was no service and the tables were shared. In a segregated America that was unusual, and the film documents it. Mel Brooks is both one of the narrators and an insistent champion of the project, and even wrote a song for it. Carl Reiner, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Colin Powell also speak. The chain's collapse in the face of fast food is covered in the final section. Who it's for: those interested in American urban history and documentaries about everyday life. Who it's not for: viewers expecting critical analysis; the documentary rests largely on nostalgia.