International audience This paper intends to question the evolution of professional norms as far as the socializing and self-structuring role of work is concerned. We feel it is an important question since both management and new communication technologies are supposed to have damaged work situations. one may believe that the positive roles of work have therefore disappeared from recent French movies, which is not the case.our methodology is quite original. We watched thoroughly every movie listed in the filmography, read pitches on public web sites, press files, many critics' articles. We paid attention to the technical aspects of movies : production, scenario, acting, stage design, costumes. We focused on the most popular French movies, in which everyday work situations are rarely featured. on the other hand, committed movies frequently involve work, but it is shown as a painful, constrained, even as deadly activity/environment that should be exposed and disputed. When something funny takes place at work, laugh always seems tainted, cynical. Violent death, murder or suicide, is uncommonly present in anti-capitalist committed movies. Death is an "abiding feature" as if it were the only way to escape management reification. In the most popular French movies, work situations are either discreet and implicit, or extravagant. Work places are a mere background.Work places and daily routines are hardly exploited in scenarios whereas jobs are better treated since they lend extra substance to characters. one should also mention traditional themes tackled by sociology such as the way professional implication/involvement generates symbolic gratification, the difficulties met by those who decide to favour both a successful career and a happy family life, line work alienation or social conflicts. Some popular movies do express positive values and norms about work. But they do it in a negative way by showing the effects of unemployment, the deserving hero's wild quest to get a job and be considered as a human being again. Happiness at work processes from professionalism and the sense of services but also from social integration : building ties with its colleagues, feeling that one is part of a team.The norms about work as conveyed in French feature films: does work still provide social integration and happiness or just death ?