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Social Realism
see all genres ›Gritty looks at life as most folks live it. Not neatly plotted but often hand-to-mouth, coping with the vagaries of survival in harsh societal or natural environments.
Discover Social Realism Films
Genres / Drama / Social Realism
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Accattone
The first of Pier Paolo Pasolini's highly acclaimed films and the winner of numerous film festival prizes, ACCATTONE uses a talented cast to present a vivid picture of the Roman slums. Based on one of the filmmaker/poet's novels, this story of a pimp, his friends, his enemies and his girls is realism at its earthiness. It is...Start your free trial to watch
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Adela
Director Adolfo Alix Jr. crafts this neo-realistic drama concerning a former radio personality from Manila who now lives at the edge of the massive Bernardo dump site, yet manages to maintain a certain simple dignity despite the main disappointments in her life. Adela (Anita Linda) is a loving grandmother preparing to...Start your free trial to watch
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After Freedom
A unique portrait of immigrants feeling like outsiders struggling to survive in America. Michael, an Armenian-American in his 30’s, is feeling a growing obligation to take care of his aging father, Leon, who had left a good job in Soviet Armenia to raise his children in the land of freedom. Michael has risen to become an...Start your free trial to watch
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Alila
For the apartment dwellers of ALILA, every action creates a ripple unknowingly felt by all. Gorgeous libertine Gabi's (Yael Abecassis, KADOSH) loud, violent trysts with her physically dominant, emotionally unavailable lover Hezi (Amos Lavie) bring down the wrath of their disgusted neighbors. Mali (Hanna Laslo), Gabi's sole...Start your free trial to watch
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Along the Sungari River
In Manchuria, a village inn by a river is a regular stop for carters, so it's not surprising that the daughter of the innkeeper has a carter for a sweetheart. But all sweetness and tranquility is shattered by the invasion of the brutal Japanese in 1931. Quinnian and Sunnu end up as slaves in a coal mine,...Start your free trial to watch
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And the Earth Did Not Swallow Him
Brilliantly adapted from Tomás Rivera’s acclaimed novel Y NO SE LO TRAGO LA TIERRA, this is a haunting and powerful film about a young Mexican-American boy’s coming of age amid the poverty and adversity he and his family face as migrant farm workers in the 1950s. Twelve-year-old Marcos hides under a house,...Start your free trial to watch
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The Bet Collector
Amy, the family matriarch, makes ends meet by running a small convenience store out of her home. In a struggling economy, customers are scarce and without the help of her husband or pregnant daughter, she is forced to supplement the family income by collecting bets for an illegal numbers game. In this...Start your free trial to watch
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The Big Road
Six friends decide to head "north" and become involved in the construction of a highway crucial for the Chinese army. A hymn to the solidarity necessary for China to move ahead (and defeat the enemy), THE BIG ROAD shows its young protagonists only discovering who they are when they become part of a collective action. The...Start your free trial to watch
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The Black and White Milk Cow
A young schoolteacher unknowingly enters a tangled web of politics in Yang Jin’s unsentimental dissection of the Chinese countryside. When his father dies from AIDS following a botched blood transfer, Jinsheng must return to his home village to take care of his aging grandmother. Taking on the role of a...Start your free trial to watch
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The Brave One
A film full of warmth and sensitivity, THE BRAVE ONE is the story about the friendship of a boy and a bull. Gitano, or Gypsy, is the name the boy gives the bull whose life he saves during a storm. The animal follows him around like a puppy until the legal owners spirit the mature Gitano away to do battle with top matador...Start your free trial to watch
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Buffalo Boy
Set in the lowlands of southern Vietnam, this powerful coming of age tale is a richly textured and stunningly visual reflection of the rhythms of daily life and culture determined by water. The flooded landscape serves to tell the story of the relationship between a father and son, the cycles of life and the inescapable flow...Start your free trial to watch
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Campfire
The year is 1981. Rachel Gerlik, a forty-two year old widow and mother of two beautiful teenage daughters, Esti and Tami, wants to join the founding group of a new religious settlement in the West Bank. The problem is that the acceptance committee won't accept her unless she remarries and proves that she and her daughters can...Start your free trial to watch
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Carcasses
Jean-Paul Colmor is 74 years old. After an accident early in his life, he took a retreat in collecting cars, wrecks and junk for the last 40 years. Living among tons and tons of debris, he quietly works each day on his unimaginable property, furnishing and dealing car parts to mechanics and other iron aficionados. One day,...Start your free trial to watch
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Children of Invention
One of Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film," writer-director Tze Chun makes "a fine feature film debut" (New York Times) with one of the most-awarded and best-reviewed films of the year. CHILDREN OF INVENTION, winner of 16 festival awards, is by turns humorous and heartbreaking. After...Start your free trial to watch
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Craft
Bianca manages a precarious living as a talented but underemployed actress in Rio de Janeiro, performing for private events dressed as female movie icons. Troubled by the thought she has missed her chance at a “big break,” she perseveres with single-minded dedication to her craft until an audition leads to a rare opportunity,...Start your free trial to watch
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The Cry of the Children
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN is the most famous and best documented of all Thanhouser films. In its day it was recognized as one of the most important expressions of the pre-World War One reform movement, in particular child labor. Perhaps because the uncompromising content drew all the attention, the film was...Start your free trial to watch
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Daughters of the Dust
A film of spellbinding visual beauty and brilliant resonant performances, Julie Dash's DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST has become a landmark of independent film. With great lyricism, DAUGHTERS tells the story of a large African-American family as it prepares to move north in the early 1900s. Using this simple tale,...Start your free trial to watch