Best Refugee Movies & TV Shows

In a war-torn Middle Eastern city where music has been banned by Islamic extremists, Karim, a brilliant musician, struggles to rebuild his destroyed piano while trying to escape to Europe.

Inspired in part by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s “Americans and the Holocaust” exhibition and supported by its historical resources, this documentary series examines the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany in the context of global antisemitism and racism, the eugenics movement in the United States, and race laws in the American south.

While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.

The origins of the world’s greatest hero–from Krypton refugee Kal-el’s arrival on Earth through his tumultuous teen years to Clark Kent’s final steps toward embracing his destiny as the Man of Steel.

Zain, a 12-year-old boy scrambling to survive on the streets of Beirut, sues his parents for having brought him into such an unjust world, where being a refugee with no documents means that your rights can easily be denied.

In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.

After getting a green card in exchange for assassinating a Cuban government official, Tony Montana stakes a claim on the drug trade in Miami. Viciously murdering anyone who stands in his way, Tony eventually becomes the biggest drug lord in the state, controlling nearly all the cocaine that comes through Miami. But increased pressure from the police, wars with Colombian drug cartels and his own drug-fueled paranoia serve to fuel the flames of his eventual downfall.

A group of refugees fleeing Chinese Communist rule via train are beset by a gang of terrifying outlaws.

First American film about the conflict between Jewish nationalists and the British in the creation of the state of Israel.

An African refugee's quiet existence in a sleepy mountain town in the south of France is upended by the arrival of a charismatic Catholic priest, whom she recognizes as the warlord who slaughtered her family.

This film sheds light on the role of the Catholic Church and the people of Assisi in rescuing Italian Jews from the Nazis in 1943.

The truth is way stranger than fiction,” muses one interviewee in this unbelievable true account of an incredible war time saga. As the Second World War was coming to a close, the US Office of Strategic Services trained and parachuted two Jewish refugees and a German deserter deep into Nazi occupied Austria. Through vivid first-person accounts, re-enactments, archival footage and learned commentary, the film reveals how their efforts disrupted a vital supply route between Germany and the Italian front to bring about the surrender of Innsbruck to Allied Forces. Their unbelievable adventure has a finale that beats any Hollywood movie hands down — but a story so powerful that it became the basis for Quentin Tarantino’s mega hit.

Twentysomething Miep Gies didn't hesitate when her boss Otto Frank came to her and asked her to hide his family from the Nazis during World War II. For the next two years, Miep, her husband Jan, and the other helpers watched over the eight souls in hiding in the Secret Annex. And it was Miep who found Anne’s Diary and kept it safe so Otto, the only one of the eight who survived, could later share it with the world as one of the most powerful accounts of the Holocaust.

A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.

In occupied France, Maurice and Joseph, two young Jewish brothers left to their own devices demonstrate an incredible amount of cleverness, courage, and ingenuity to escape the enemy invasion and to try to reunite their family once again.

Recounted mostly through animation to protect his identity, Amin looks back over his past as a child refugee from Afghanistan as he grapples with a secret he’s kept hidden for 20 years.

A barren soundstage is stylishly utilized to create a minimalist small-town setting in which a mysterious woman named Grace hides from the criminals who pursue her. The town is two-faced and offers to harbor Grace as long as she can make it worth their effort, so Grace works hard under the employ of various townspeople to win their favor. Tensions flare, however, and Grace's status as a helpless outsider provokes vicious contempt and abuse from the citizens of Dogville.

In a mystical and dark city filled with humans, fairies and other creatures, a police detective investigates a series of gruesome murders leveled against the fairy population. During his investigation, the detective becomes the prime suspect and must find the real killer to clear his name.

What happens when you return from a family holiday to France and open the boot to find a Syrian refugee where your luggage was supposed to be? That’s the situation facing new couple Peter and Katy when they get back to Dorking from their first family holiday with Katy’s young son John, who has spent the journey from Calais winding up his would-be stepdad. Their unexpected passenger is a bloke called Sami who hopes to claim asylum in Britain.

A film about the first benefit rock concert when major musicians performed to raise relief funds for the poor of Bangladesh. The Concert for Bangladesh was a pair of benefit concerts organised by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. The shows were held at 2:30 and 8:00 pm on Sunday, 1 August 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to raise international awareness of, and fund relief for refugees from East Pakistan, following the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide.

Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.

Dr. Bashir Hamed, a Syrian doctor with battle-tested skills in emergency medicine, makes the difficult decision to flee his country and build a new life in Canada with his younger sister Amira. Bash works to navigate a new environment after earning a coveted residency in the Emergency Department of one of the best hospitals in Toronto, York Memorial.

In this humanistic comedy, set against the backdrop of economic crises and bad news, an extravagant international cast of characters meet, fight, and fall in love, while hiding from the end of the world and other calamities on the tiny Greek island of Khronos.

A docudrama depicting a hypothetical nuclear attack on Britain. After backing the film's development, the BBC refused to air it, publicly stating "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting." It debuted in theaters in 1966 and went on to great acclaim, but remained unseen on British television until 1985.

A look at how climate change affects our environment and what society can do to prevent the demise of endangered species, ecosystems, and native communities across the planet.

In 2027, in a chaotic world in which humans can no longer procreate, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea, where her child's birth may help scientists save the future of humankind.

Strikes in Port Talbot spark a revolution – and a family of fugitives go on the run. Facing impossible choices, what would you do?

Mankind is suffering the biggest exodus in history. Three billion people from the future have traveled to the present to escape from an imminent global disaster. All the refugees must obey to rules: they must not talk about the future and they must not contact their families. The arrival of the refugees take everyone by surprise, including the Cruz family. The series centers on their story, the story of Samuel, Emma, and little Ani. The shift in their existence after the arrival of the mysterious refugee, Alex, who has an incredible mission that will change their lives, and in order to accomplish his mission, he will not hesitate to do whatever there is to be done--including breaking the rules.

November 11, 1918. The world emerges from the most horrific conflict ever known. While leaders of the victorious countries design a new world order, traumatized societies struggle to find their footing. In the aftermath of war the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires fall apart, currencies fluctuate wildly, and vast numbers of refugees flee misery. Before long, age-old hatreds, fears, and resentments resurface and drive the world to the brink of a new apocalypse.

During WWII, the valet to the British Ambassador to Ankara sells British secrets to the Germans while trying to romance a refugee Polish countess.

As Britain is rocked by unstable political, economic and technological advances, members of the Lyons family converge on one crucial night in 2019. Over the next 15 years, the twists and turns of their everyday lives are explored as we find out if this ordinary family could change the world.

Based on the experiences of Agu, a child fighting in the civil war of an unnamed, fictional West African country. Follows Agu's journey as he's forced to join a group of soldiers. While he fears his commander and many of the men around him, his fledgling childhood has been brutally shattered by the war raging through his country, and he is at first torn between conflicting revulsion and fascination.

As a Korean-American man raised in the Louisiana bayou works hard to make a life for his family, he must confront the ghosts of his past as he discovers that he could be deported from the only country he has ever called home.

An ex-mercenary turned smuggler. A Mende fisherman. Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed countrywide.

From war-torn Syria to the 2016 Rio Olympics, two young sisters embark on a risky voyage, putting their hearts and their swimming skills to heroic use.

The story of the pioneering project to rehabilitate child survivors of the Holocaust on the shores of Lake Windermere.

An American soldier romances a beautiful Parisian during the final days of World War II.

While subjected to the horrors of WWII Germany, young Liesel finds solace by stealing books and sharing them with others. Under the stairs in her home, a Jewish refugee is being sheltered by her adoptive parents.

In the nine months prior to World War II, 10.000 innocent children left behind their families, their homes, their childhood, and took the journey... to Britain to escape the Nazi Holocaust.

Traces over three generations an immigrant family's trials, tribulations, tragedies, and triumphs. Maria and Jose, the first generation, come to Los Angeles, meet, marry, face deportation all in the 1930s. They establish their family in East L.A., and their children Chucho, Paco, Memo, Irene, Toni, and Jimmy deal with youth culture and the L.A. police in the '50s. As the second generation become adults in the '60s, the focus shifts to Jimmy, his marriage to Isabel (a Salvadorian refugee), their son, and Jimmy's journey to becoming a responsible parent.

Two westerners, a priest and a teacher find themselves in the middle of the Rwandan genocide and face a moral dilemna. Do they place themselves in danger and protect the refugees, or escape the country with their lives? Based on a true story.

During WWII, a teenage boy discovering himself becomes love-stricken by Malèna, a sensual woman living in a small, narrow-minded Italian town.

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.

A young refugee of the Sudanese Civil War who wins a lottery for relocation to the United States with three other lost boys. Encountering the modern world for the first time, they develop an unlikely friendship with a brash American woman assigned to help them, but the young man struggles to adjust to this new life and his feelings of guilt about the brother he left behind.

Pakistan-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani and grad student Emily Gardner fall in love but struggle as their cultures clash. When Emily contracts a mysterious illness, Kumail finds himself forced to face her feisty parents, his family's expectations, and his true feelings.

Maria Altmann, an octogenarian Jewish refugee, takes on the Austrian government to recover a world famous painting of her aunt plundered by the Nazis during World War II, she believes rightfully belongs to her family. She did so not just to regain what was rightfully hers, but also to obtain some measure of justice for the death, destruction, and massive art theft perpetrated by the Nazis.

A documentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has lasted for more than 50 years. Contains some interviews with the children in this conflict.

In Texas, Mo straddles the line between two cultures, three languages and a pending asylum request while hustling to support his Palestinian family.

A striking political activist and refugee from Paraguay escapes to Paris and falls in love with a rich law student changing their lives forever. The beauty of their love is challenged by a fervent devotion to fighting for a cause.

Seeking US citizenship, a Viennese refugee arranges a marriage of convenience with a struggling writer.