American Dreams in China

Caught by the Tides

2025★ 6.8

Years after her boyfriend left her for the big city and promised to bring her there after he’s settled down, a Chinese woman sets out on a journey to be reunited with him.

Buddha Mountain

2011★ 6.9

In Chengdu, China, a retired female opera singer named Master Chang takes in a trio of young tenants into her boarding home. The tenants include a rock singer and a college student who has run away from home.

Starving in Suburbia

2014★ 6.5

When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?

One Second

2020★ 7.3

A movie fan escapes from a labour camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and strikes up a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.

So Long, My Son

2019★ 7.7

Two married couples adjust to the vast social and economic changes taking place in China from the 1980s to the present.

Gigi & Nate

2022★ 7.7

A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.

Sky

2016★ 6.2

A woman embarks on a journey alone across the United States after fleeing from her violent husband.

Won't Back Down

2012★ 6.1

Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.

Lady Driver

2020★ 6.4

When a rebellious teen embarks on a solo summer journey to connect with her roots, she finds herself in a new world, geared up for the ride of her life, and discovers she had the drive in her all along.

One Week Friends

2022★ 6.0

A high school student suffers from a strange amnesia, causing her memories to only last a week. After she befriends a new student, his kindness and persistence make her gradually open up.

Reading Lolita in Tehran

2024★ 7.2

As Islamic morality squads stage arbitrary raids in Tehran and as fundamentalists seize hold of the universities, Azar Nafisi, an inspired teacher, secretly gathers six of her most committed female students to read forbidden western classics. Unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, they soon removed their veils, their stories intertwining with the novels they read: just like the heroines of Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James or Jane Austen, the women in Nafisi’s living room dare to dream, hope and love as we experience the complexity of the lives of individuals facing political, moral and personal siege.

The Girl in the Book

2015★ 5.8

The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.

Tigertail

2020★ 6.7

A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.

Step Up: Year of the Dance

2019★ 6.1

Two young people from different social classes put aside their differences and come together to form a dance group and win a championship in China.

TalhotBlond

2012★ 6.3

Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.

Black Dog

2024★ 7.2

On the edge of the Gobi desert in Northwest China, Lang returns to his hometown after being released from jail. While working for the local dog patrol team to clear the town of stray dogs before the Olympic Games, he strikes up an unlikely connection with a black dog. These two lonely souls embark on a journey together.

The Pumpkin Eater

1964★ 6.7

Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.

Come Sunday

2018★ 5.8

Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.

Fast Girls

2012★ 6.1

A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.

Normal

2003★ 6.7

A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.