Acclaimed Asian American & Pacific Islander MoviesLike this list

12 items

• The Joy Luck Club

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  One of the best-known, big-hit movies that depicts the dynamics of Asian American families, with a group of Chinese immigrant mothers who play mahjong and their Chinese American daughters and the unfolding of one family’s tragic, wartime story. A…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Enter the Dragon

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  The film that made a legend out of the San Francisco-born martial arts master Bruce Lee.

• Flower Drum Song

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  A classic musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein based on a novel by C.Y. Lee, the film tells the story of San Francisco Chinatown’s immigrant community, and changing family structures. The musical reflects the sexual — and sexist — values of the day,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Better Luck Tomorrow

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  Director Justin Lin’s independent debut, about a group of Asian American high school students who definitely aren’t the stereotypical “Model Minority.” The film was hailed as an honest look at how AAPI youth today fit (or don’t fit) the American…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Linsanity

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  It was a stroke of luck that the filmmaker Evan Leong was working on a documentary of budding basketball star Jeremy Lin from his college days and followed his progress into the NBA. When Lin joined the New York Knicks, he led the flailing team on…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Chan Is Missing

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  Director Wayne Wang’s second film (he would go on to direct Joy Luck Club) is a black and white mystery-comedy about a San Francisco Chinatown taxi driver and his nephew who are about to buy a license to operate their own cab. Unfortunately, their…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Mulan

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  This Disney animated movie seems a long shot to be an AAPI classic, but countless young Asian American girls grew into stronger women by admiring the historic story of Mulan, the girl who joined the army in her father’s place and became a legendary…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• All Saints

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  One of the few American films that address the story of Burmese immigrants, All Saints is based on the true story of refugees who settle in a small Tennessee town and help revive a Christian church.

• Tyrus

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  A moving, beautiful profile of Tyrus Wong, the Chinese American painter who worked for Disney in the studio’s glory days, painting the gorgeous background watercolors of classic movies like Bambi, for which he was lead artist, in a classical Chinese…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Abacus

  Small Enough to Jail

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  A documentary that grips viewers like a crime thriller — except there was no crime. In the midst of the financial crash of 2008, when the country’s biggest banks were deemed “too big to fail,” only one bank, the family-owned Abacus Federal Savings…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Picture bride

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  A drama cowritten and directed by Kayo Hatta, this tells the then-common story of a woman from Japan (played by Youki Kudoh) who is betrothed to a man in Hawaii who finds upon her arrival that the photo she was sent doesn’t look anything like her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Abacus

  Small Enough to Jail

  Add Abacus to your for later shelf