15 Great Movies About Immigrating to America

America is a nation of immigrants, so it’s natural that there are many films about the immigration experience, from comedy to tragedy, to movies that are both. Enjoy this list of films about people immigrating to America from other countries and planets.

1. An American Tail (1986)
2. Bread and Roses (2000)
3. Brooklyn (2015)
4. The Brutalist (2024)
5. Coneheads (1993)
6. Gangs of New York (2002)
7. ​The Godfather, Part II (1974)
8. ​The Immigrant (1917)
9. The Immigrant (2013)
10. Scarface (1983)
11. Stroszek (1977)
12. Take Out (2004)
13. The Visitor (2007)
14. West Side Story (1961); (2021)

An American Tail (1986)

After their village in Russia is destroyed by Cossack cats, the Mousekewitz family decides to immigrate to America, where there are “no cats” and “the streets are paved with cheese.” When they get there, they soon learn that’s not true, and while the country isn’t the paradise that they were promised, through common goals, mutual aid, and cooperation with other immigrants, they can achieve the American dream.

Bread and Roses (2000)

Well-known for stories about social issues in his native country, English director Ken Loach turned his lens to the other side of the pond with this film, which follows Maya (Pilar Padilla), an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who moves to California and gets a job on the janitorial staff of a Los Angeles high-rise. She meets Sam (Adrien Brody), an American man organizing a “Justice for Janitors” campaign for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to secure benefits and better wages. While Maya believes in his cause and wants to help herself and others, her status means that even making the smallest waves is dangerous.

Loach shows how immigrants (both legal and otherwise) are cynically exploited by companies whose businesses depend on hiring the most vulnerable, because, like Maya, they’re scared to speak up. So, these companies can pay the lowest possible wages, give them no benefits whatsoever, and thereby win contracts to provide services over companies that pay a fair and living wage, plus benefits, to primarily unionized American citizens.

Brooklyn (2015)

Based on a novel of the same name by Colm Tóibín, this drama follows Ellis (Saoirse Ronan), a young woman from the small Irish town of Enniscorthy who moves to the titular New York City borough in 1951. Unlike the characters in films on this list, Ellis leaves her hometown and country for ordinary reasons (a mundane job, uninteresting suitors, gossipy locals) and doesn’t encounter extreme hardships. Still, the ordinariness of it gives the story a quiet power.

The Brutalist (2024)

This epic about a Hungarian Bauhaus-trained architect, László Tóth (Adrian Brody in an Oscar-winning performance), who survives the Holocaust and emigrates to America, clocks in at 215 minutes. In that time, it covers that gamut of the immigrant experience, from assimilation to the slow, painful process of redefining one’s identity in a new land, as Toth navigates a new country while carrying trauma from the old world.

Coneheads (1993)

While this adaptation of the classic Saturday Night Live sketch, which centers on aliens from the fictional planet Remulak stranded in America, isn’t a traditional immigrant story, their experiences parallel those of many who come to this country, both legally and not. The Conehead (or Clorhone) Family must blend in and avoid the INS, while also worrying about maintaining their cultural traditions and about their daughter becoming “too American.”

Gangs of New York (2002)

Martin Scorsese’s first collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio was this period drama about the tensions between Irish Catholic immigrants in 19th-century New York City and the largely Protestant American-born residents who considered themselves “natives,” despite being only one or two generations removed from their roots. The film reflects the xenophobia toward the high influx of immigrants that is still seen today.

​The Godfather, Part II (1974)

In the second part of Francis Ford Coppola’s gangster saga, the story of young Vito Corleone (played by Robert DeNiro, who won his first Oscar for his performance) is drawn into crime after fleeing his native Sicily when the mob there slaughters his entire family, is juxtaposed with his son Michael’s (Al Pacino) attempts to legitimize the family’s businesses. The difficulties that face while trying to live a straight life show how difficult it is for immigrants to succeed by traditional means, even after a generation.

​The Immigrant (1917)

This short follows Charlie Chaplin’s iconic Little Tramp character as he travels on a steamship headed for America. After a series of wacky adventures on the boat, he arrives in the country, where he gets into further shenanigans. Despite the film's comedic tone, scenes like the one where the immigrants (including the Tramp) are greeted by the Statue of Liberty, only to be roped off by immigration officers, are poignant reminders of how tenuous the status of many immigrants is.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service banned the English-born Chaplin from returning to the U.S in 1952, and the scene in which the Tramp kicks an immigration officer was cited as evidence of Chaplin’s supposed “anti-Americanism.” In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. 

The Immigrant (2013)

This film, about a newly arrived Polish woman (Ewa, played by Marion Cotillard), who becomes entangled with a pimp (Bruno, played by Joaquim Phoenix) and his magician cousin Emil (Jeremy Renner), has a plotline straight out of a silent melodrama, but is one of the greatest films ever made about the immigrant experience and among the best films of the 20th century.

Scarface (1983)

A remake of Howard Hawks’ 1932 film (which was itself adapted from a novel by Armitage Trail) about an Italian immigrant who rises to become a powerful crime lord in Chicago, this movie follows Cuban refugee Tony Montana (Al Pacino), who eventually becomes a powerful drug lord. It is a story that probes ambition and greed, with a protagonist who embraces the naked capitalism and extreme excess of his adopted country, which may be why the film remains a long-lasting phenomenon. In the words of Tony Montana: “In America, first you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women.”

Stroszek (1977)

Celebrated director Werner Herzog made this surreal tragicomedy about an alcoholic accordion player, Bruno Stroszek (played by real-life street performer Bruno Schleinstein, credited as Bruno S. in his acting roles), who struggles to eke out a living upon his release from a German prison. After meeting a down-on-her-luck prostitute named Eva (Eva Mattes), they, along with Bruno’s elderly friend Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz), relocate to a small town in Wisconsin, where they purchase a 40-foot 1973 Fleetwood mobile home and attempt to get their own piece of the American Dream. Things do not go as planned. This truly bizarre film (which Roger Ebert called “one of the oddest films ever made” when he included it in his “Great Movies” series) illustrates that being an immigrant is to be a stranger in a strange land. Also, it has a dancing chicken.

Take Out (2004)

More than two decades before Sean Baker won four Oscars in one night for Anora, he co-directed (with Shih-Ching Tsou) this low-budget film (reportedly made for just $3,000) about an undocumented Chinese immigrant working as a food deliveryman in New York City.

Ming Ding (Charles Jang) still owes the Chinese gang he paid to smuggle him into America. When he’s late on payments, they give him one day to pay $800 in interest, or they’ll double his debt. After begging and borrowing from everyone he can, he’s still $300 short and must try to make the rest in tips, which is more than twice what he earns most days.

This premise, combined with its cinema verité approach, lets the audience experience life through Ming’s eyes, building tension with each interaction he has with customers, almost all of whom are disinterested or distracted and don’t realize how much they could change his life with just a few extra dollars. This acclaimed film holds a rare 100% rating on film aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.

The Visitor (2007)

When widowed Connecticut College professor Walter (Richard Jenkins, who was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for his performance) arrives at the New York City apartment he owns but rarely visits, he finds it occupied by two immigrants, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a Palestinian-Syrian, and Zainab (Danai Gurira) from Senegal, who thought that they had purchased it, but were really scammed by a conman.

Loneliness, combined with basic decency, causes him to invite the pair to stay until they can find another home. A friendship develops between Walter and the pair, and Tarek even teaches the former how to play the djembe. When Tarek is arrested due to a misunderstanding, Walter learns that he and his new friends are undocumented. In his privilege, he believes that if he tells the truth, his new friend will be set free and can easily gain citizenship. Although the protagonist of The Visitor isn’t an immigrant, by making him the central character, the film interrogates the ignorance and naivety of natural-born citizens about immigrants' experiences.

West Side Story (1961); (2021)

The 1957 musical is probably the quintessential immigrant film, which was remade twice, first by Robert Wise and again by Steven Spielberg. In both the song “America” captures the highs and lows of coming to a new country and being torn between it and where you came from.