How Green Was My Valley

A boy growing up in a Welsh mining town watches his family come apart. Wages fall at the pit, the sons fall out with their father over a strike, and one by one they emigrate. The film is narrated by the same person years later, about to leave the valley himself, so every scene is a memory from the outset. That choice deliberately softens things and makes the conditions in the mine look more bearable than they were. John Ford directed. It won the Academy Award for best picture, and that it beat Citizen Kane that year is still argued about. Who it's for: those who like classic Hollywood family sagas. Who it's not for: viewers wanting a hard account of class struggle; the film puts the conflict in a sentimental frame.