On a Tokyo dump’s shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who “drives” an imaginary trolley, a homeless father and son designing a dream house, a young woman brutalized at home, drunks, schemers, and saints of small kindnesses. Kurosawa crafts a ragged mosaic of hardship, fantasy, and flickers of grace that keep people moving forward.

The Super

1991

English

5.7

♡ 12

Rod Daniel Director

Daniel Hagen as Construction Worker

LaTanya Richardson Jackson as Judge Smith

Joe Pesci as Louie Kritski

Anibal O. Lleras as Neighbour

Louie Kritski is a heartless landlord who has been so negligent in keeping up his ghetto apartment that he is threatened with jail time. The judge gives him another option -- he must live in his rat-infested hell hole until he brings it up to liveable standards.

None But the Lonely Heart

1944

English

6.4

♡ 2

54%

mother son relationship

Romance

slum

unrequited love

Clifford Odets Director

Barry Fitzgerald as Henry Twite

William Challee as Knocker Jones

Dan Duryea as Lew Tate

Forrester Harvey as Shooting Galley Proprietor

When an itinerant reluctantly returns home to help his sickly mother run her shop, they're both tempted to turn to crime to help make ends meet.

Insiang

1976

Tagalog

7.5

♡ 10

100%

Lino Brocka Director

George Atutubo as

Joe Jardi as Bebot's friend

Eddie Pagayon as Bebot's friend

Danilo Posadas as Dado's friend

A story about the life of a young girl living with her mother in the slums of Manila, which becomes unbearable when her mother's young boyfriend moves in with them.

Lower City

2005

Portuguese

6.5

♡ 8

60%

Sérgio Machado Director

Fernando Fulco as Delegate

Alice Braga as Karinna

Maria Menezes as Luzinete

Wagner Moura as Naldinho

Best friends Deco and Naldinho co-own a cargo boat in Brazil's Salvador da Bahia. They give a ride to a sultry prostitute named Karinna, and soon both men fall prey to her considerable sexual charms, pushing the bounds of their friendship to the limit.

Miracle in Milan

1951

Italian

7.6

♡ 2

92%

89%

angel

based on novel or book

Vittorio De Sica Director

Arturo Bragaglia as Alfredo

Emma Gramatica as La vecchia Lolotta

Guglielmo Barnabò as Mobbi

Paolo Stoppa as Rappi

Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.

In Vanda's Room

2000

Portuguese

7.0

♡ 7

100%

Pedro Costa Director

Paulo Jorge Gonçalves as Self

Pedro Lanban as Self

Fernando Paixão as Self

Paulo Nunes as Self

An unflinching, fragmentary look at a handful of self-destructive, marginalized people, but taking as main focus the heroin-addicted Vanda Duarte.

The Lower Depths

1936

French

7.5

♡ 4

Jean Renoir Director

Maurice Baquet as Alochka - le fou accordéoniste

Vladimir Sokoloff as Kostylev

Junie Astor as Natacha

Jean Gabin as Pepel Wasska

Inhabitants of a flophouse struggle to survive under the harsh treatment imposed by the landlord, Kostyleva. One resident, young thief Wasska Pepel, ends his affair with the landlord's wife, Vassilissa, and takes up with her sister, Natacha. Pepel also befriends the baron, a former nobleman fallen on hard times, but Pepel's attempts at happiness are complicated when he's accused of murder by a spiteful Vassilissa.

Respeto

2017

Tagalog

7.3

♡ 5

80%

Treb Monteras II Director

Chai Fonacier as Betchai

Kate Alejandrino as Candy

Dido de la Paz as Doc

Nor Domingo as Fuentes

Hendrix dreams of hip-hop greatness, but he’s spiraling down a rabbit-hole of crime and poverty until he meets Doc, an old poet still haunted by his martial law past. Can they turn each other’s lives around before they’re swallowed by their circumstance?

The Prince and the Pauper

1937

English

7.2

♡ 9

71%

61%

Adventure

based on novel or book

William Dieterle Director

Barton MacLane as John Canty

Forrester Harvey as Meaty Man

Errol Flynn as Miles Hendon

Ian Wolfe as Proprietor

Two boys – the prince Edward and the pauper Tom – are born on the same day. Years later, when young teenage Tom sneaks into the palace garden, he meets the prince. They change clothes with one another before the guards discover them and throw out the prince thinking he's the urchin. No one believes them when they try to tell the truth about which is which. Soon after, the old king dies and the prince will inherit the throne.

Manila in the Claws of Light

1975

Tagalog

7.8

♡ 12

Lino Brocka Director

Bembol Roco as Julio Madiaga

Joe Gruta as Lalaki

Orlando Nadres as May-ari ng Discotheque

Tommy Abuel as Pol

Julio, a young fisherman from a provincial village, descends into social alienation as he arrives in Manila to search for his loved one.

Man's Castle

1933

English

7.1

♡ 8

Frank Borzage Director

Spencer Tracy as Bill

Etta McDaniel as Dressing Room Maid

Walter Connolly as Ira

Loretta Young as Trina

Bill takes Trina into his depression camp cabin. Later, just as he finds showgirl LaRue who will support him, Trina becomes pregnant.

Once Were Warriors

1994

English

7.9

♡ 38

93%

Lee Tamahori Director

George Henare as Bennett

Cliff Curtis as Bully

Temuera Morrison as Jake Heke

Ian Mune as Judge

A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband.

The Young and the Damned

1950

Spanish

8.2

♡ 14

91%

Luis Buñuel Director

Estela Inda as La madre de Pedro

Charles Rooner as Pederasta elegante

Alfonso Mejía as Pedro

José Loza as Un asilado

A group of juvenile delinquents live a violent life in the infamous slums of Mexico City; among them Pedro, whose morality is gradually corrupted and destroyed by the others.

City of Men

2007

Portuguese

7.2

♡ 8

74%

parent child relationship

slum

street gang

Paulo Morelli Director

Douglas Silva as Acerola

Michel de Souza as Fininho

Darlan Cunha as Laranjinha

Jonathan Haagensen as Madrugadão

Best buddies Acerola and Laranjinha, about to turn 18, discover things about their missing fathers' pasts which will shatter their solid friendship, in the middle of a war between rival drug gangs from Rio's favelas.

Mahogany

1975

English

6.2

♡ 3

29%

Berry Gordy Director

Billy Dee Williams as Brian Walker

Robert Townsend as Extra

Beah Richards as Florence

Diana Ross as Tracy Chambers

An aspiring designer from the slums of Chicago puts herself through fashion school in the hopes of becoming one of the world's top designers. Her ambition leads her to Rome spurring a choice between the man she loves or her newfound success.

District 9

2009

English

7.9

♡ 301

90%

Neill Blomkamp Director

Nick Boraine as Craig Weldon

William Allen Young as Dirk Michaels

Sylvaine Strike as Dr Katrina McKenzie

Brandon Auret as MNU Mercenary

Thirty years ago, aliens arrive on Earth. Not to conquer or give aid, but to find refuge from their dying planet. Separated from humans in a South African area called District 9, the aliens are managed by Multi-National United, which is unconcerned with the aliens' welfare but will do anything to master their advanced technology. When a company field agent contracts a mysterious virus that begins to alter his DNA, there is only one place he can hide: District 9.

Gully Boy

2019

Hindi

7.9

♡ 52

96%

mumbai (bombay), india

Zoya Akhtar Director

Siddhant Chaturvedi as MC Sher

Vijay Varma as Moeen Arif

Ranveer Singh as Murad Ahmed / Gully Boy

Alia Bhatt as Safeena Firdausi

A coming-of-age story based on the lives of street rappers in Mumbai.

Elite Squad

2007

Portuguese

8.0

♡ 49

51%

José Padilha Director

Wagner Moura as Capitão Nascimento

Thelmo Fernandes as Sargento Alves

Juliano Cazarré as Soldado Tatu

Rod Carvalho as Tenente Barcellos

In 1997, before the visit of the pope to Rio de Janeiro, Captain Nascimento from BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion) is assigned to eliminate the risks of the drug dealers in a dangerous slum nearby where the pope intends to be lodged.