America America

America America is a 1963 Elia Kazan film loosely based on the life of the director's uncle, who struggles and sacrifices to leave the Greek and Armenian subjugation by the Turks in Anatolia to immigrate to America. It is very long at 2 3/4 hours, but is an inspiring film.

Trailer:

It's on Martin Scorsese's list of films you need to see to know anything about film. Slant Magazine concludes, "America America is a revealing work about the American dream because it doesn't envision it as a noble enterprise, but rather a painful and seemingly never-ending process." Senses of Cinema calls it an "epic, physical, elemental, almost monomaniacal film". Time Out calls it "one of the peaks of Kazan's career". Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 67% and a higher audience rating of 89%.