The Eleven Films About Refugees You Need To See
They're less depressing than the real thing.
America America (1963)
Elia Kazan, who chronicled twentieth-century social issues in gritty films like On the Waterfront and East of Eden, explored his own roots in this epic about immigration. Greek newcomer Stathis Giallelis won a Golden Globe for his twitchy, feverish starring performance in a role based on Kazan’s uncle, who fled from Anatolia to New York in the 1890s to escape Ottoman oppression.
It’s quite confronting for a Hollywood film of the day, especially in the harrowing early scenes, which depict the buildup to the Armenian and Greek genocides. On his long quest, Giallelis’ character faces homelessness, starvation, brutal wage slavery and constant humiliation at the hands of Turkish authorities, before worming his way into middle-class society (and some desperate romance).
Aside from its social interest, America America is worth it for its typically Kazanian mixture of realism and ravishing melodrama, and its gorgeous cinematography by Haskell Wexler, future Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen collaborator.