27 Must-See Movies about Immigrants & Refugees
Check out this list of inspiring and insightful movies about immigrants and refugees, curated by the experts at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. From feature-length Oscar winners and documentaries to short films and children’s movies, there is a great watch waiting for anyone interested in the immigrant experience!
Movies about Immigrants & Refugees: Oscar Winners & Nominees
1. Minari
2. Persepolis
3. Encanto
4. For Sama
5. FLEE
More Movies about Immigrants & Refugees
The Donut King
An immigrant story with a (glazed) twist, The Donut King follows the journey of Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy, who fled escaped the brutal Khmer Rouge and arrived in California in the 1970s and, through a mixture of diligence and luck, built a multi-million dollar donut empire up and down the West Coast.
A documentary on immigration, assimilation, prejudice, and who gets access to the American Dream—and what happens when you achieve it—The Donut King is also about how the American Dream gets handed down and evolves from one generation to the next: the film includes the current generation of Cambodian donut shop owners and the ways they have been inspired by and diverged from their parents and grandparents before them.
The Visitor
The Visitor is one of the most unique movies about immigrants, offering a glimpse into the U.S. immigration detention system and the people it affects. When his college sends him to Manhattan to attend a conference, Walter is surprised to find a young undocumented couple has taken up residence in his apartment. Victims of a real estate scam, Tarek, a Syrian man, and Zainab, his Senegalese girlfriend, have nowhere else to go. In the first of a series of tests of the heart, Walter reluctantly allows the couple to stay with him. When Tarek is arrested as an undocumented immigrant and held for deportation, they grapple with the issues of the treatment of immigrants and the legal process post 9/11.
The Midnight Traveler
Limbo
Limbo is a 2020 British comedy-drama film that centers on four asylum seekers who are staying on a remote island in Scotland, and taking cultural awareness classes, while awaiting the processing of their refugee claims.
Human Flow
Human Flow, an epic documentary film journey led by the internationally renowned artist Ai Weiwei, elucidates both the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Captured over the course of an eventful year in 23 countries, the film follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretches across the globe in countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, France, Greece, Germany, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, and Turkey.
This movie about refugees is a witness to its subjects and their desperate search for safety, shelter and justice: from teeming refugee camps to perilous ocean crossings to barbed-wire borders; from dislocation and disillusionment to courage, endurance and adaptation; from the haunting lure of lives left behind to the unknown potential of the future.
West Side Story
West Side Story is the award-winning musical adaptation of the classic romantic tragedy “Romeo and Juliet.” The feuding families become two warring New York City gangs–the white Jets led by Riff and the Puerto Rican Sharks, led by Bernardo. Their hatred escalates to a point where neither can coexist with any form of understanding. Themes of migration and belonging permeate the movie, with the song “America” embodying the triumph of the spirit over the obstacles often faced by immigrants.
The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner is based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Khaled Hosseini. It tells the story of Amir, a well-to-do boy from Kabul, who is tormented by the guilt of abandoning his friend Hassan. The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of the monarchy in Afghanistan through the Soviet military intervention, the mass exodus of Afghan refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the Taliban regime.
Saint Judy
Saint Judy tells the story of Los Angeles immigration attorney Judy Wood, who advocated for United States asylum law to include women as a protected class. Wood’s victory is believed by immigration advocates to have saved the lives of tens of thousands of female immigrants from around the world. The film starts from her move with her son from New Mexico to Los Angeles, her work in an immigration law office, then in her own law office. The film highlights the case of an Asefa Ashwari, a teacher from Afghanistan facing deportation and her historic win in the 9th Circuit.
Sin Nombre
Sayra, a Honduran teen, hungers for a better life. Her chance for one comes when she is reunited with her long-estranged father, who intends to emigrate to Mexico and then enter the United States. Their journey crosses paths with Casper, a young man struggling to reconcile his membership of a gang and his personal life. The film is an ode to those who put their lives on the line for weeks or months to come to the United States, searching for what we so easily describe as the American Dream.
The Good Lie
Four Sudanese children orphaned after their village is massacred in the Second Sudanese Civil War make an arduous, dangerous trek through the plains, enduring hardship, death, and sacrifice all the way until they reach safety in a refugee camp in Kenya. Given the chance to resettle in the U.S., they arrive in Kansas City, Missouri, where their encounter with an employment agency counselor, played by Reese Witherspoon, forever changes all of their lives.
Amreeka
Amreeka is a drama centered on the trials and tribulations of a proud Palestinian Christian single mother named Muna and her teenage son in small town Indiana. Although tested to her limits, Muna’s good humor prevails, and it is her remarkable resilience that provides a small glimmer of hope in the film’s surprisingly abrupt and open-ended conclusion.
Monsieur Lazhar
Monsieur Lazhar tells the story of an Algerian refugee in Montreal who steps in as a substitute at an elementary school after the tragic death of a teacher. The school doesn’t know he’s still coping with his own tragedy. Neither do the children they hire him to teach. And teach them he does — not so much about reading and arithmetic, but about the more important things they’ll need to become good human beings. This movie about immigrants is in French, but can easily be watched with subtitles.
The Namesake
The Immigrant
The Breadwinner
The Joy Luck CLub
Avalon
Tiger Tail
Under The Same Moon
Short Movies about Immigrants & Refugees
Finished These Movies about Immigrants?
Compassion.
It’s what we’re all about.
For 80 years, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) has been a champion for refugees and migrants from around the globe. We compassionately serve the most vulnerable as they rebuild their lives in America.
At a time of unprecedented crisis, these newcomers need our help more than ever. Learn more about our work and how you can make a difference today.
WATCH: A Refugee Family's Journey
LIRS carries out a wide range of programs to provide holistic, trauma-informed, and age-appropriate care to the vulnerable individuals we serve. Simply put, we reunite migrant families, resettle refugees and rekindle the American Dream.