I Was a Stranger

2024 [ARABIC]

Drama

1
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 75% · 20 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 82% · 50 ratings
IMDb Rating 9.1/10 10 10172 10.2K

Top cast

Omar Sy as Marwan
Jay Abdo as Papa Homsi
Jason Beghe as Dr. Croft
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
953.31 MB
1280*694
Multiple languages 2.0
PG-13
Subtitles us  es  fr  
23.976 fps
1 hr 43 min
Seeds ...
1.91 GB
1920*1040
Multiple languages 5.1
PG-13
Subtitles us  es  fr  
23.976 fps
1 hr 43 min
Seeds ...

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by RobinB-119 8 / 10

Different Points of View

A couple asked us as we left the theater, what we thought. Both my husband & I in unison answered "It wasn't what I expected." That being said it was a very thought provoking, dark but enlightening, educational movie.The movie shows a journey from the point of view & life of each character. It shows both the bad & the good in all. As Americans, we expect happy endings. This movie leaves you wondering if each character's journey was worth the risk.The entire movie is subtitled, but not difficult to read or completely necessary. The movie is portrayed well enough that you understand the story.
Reviewed by maximolucosi 10 / 10

I was a Stranger Too

I Was a Stranger isn't the kind of film you simply watch-it's the kind you enter. Within minutes, you forget you're sitting on a couch or in a theater, because the story doesn't feel staged. It feels lived-in. The camera, the pacing, the quiet details in each scene all pull you so close that you stop observing the characters and start sharing the weight they carry.What impressed me most is the editing and structure. The cuts are sharp, purposeful, and emotionally timed. You'll meet a character in the middle of their struggle-no long introductions, no hand-holding-then, just when you think you've understood them, the film slides into their backstory and reframes everything. It's a powerful rhythm: encounter, empathy, revelation. One moment you're indifferent to a stranger on screen, and ten minutes later you're rooting for them like you've known them for years, feeling their fear and hope in your own chest.And that's the magic here: the movie doesn't beg for your sympathy. It earns it. It turns "that person" into someone, then into us. The struggles aren't packaged as talking points-they're presented as human reality, with all the contradictions and vulnerability that come with it.More than anything, I Was a Stranger feels important because it refuses to reduce people to sides. Left or right, whatever labels the world wants to use, this story cuts straight through them. It's not propaganda. It's not a debate. It's a reminder that beneath every headline is a human being trying to survive, belong, and be seen.By the end, you don't just understand the title-you feel it. And you realize: in one way or another, we've all been a stranger too.
Reviewed by michaeljhrobinson 10 / 10

The Stranger's Case is a Masterpiece

In my duties as Director of the Jury for the Regina International Film Festival, I write notes on the films in competition. This is an expansion on my juror notes. The 15 member jury of established and talented film makers and artists were unanimous in stating this is an extraordinary film, and several used the word 'masterpiece'.I would like a statue of Captain Stavros Salomon to be raised on the south coast of Lesvos, facing south east, towards Izmir and beyond to Syria. Although only a fictional character from the mind of Brandt Andersen, Constantine Markoulakis's performance of him reaches through the fabric of reality to become the stuff that mythology is made from. I have never seen a better or more moving performance of heroism and selflessness in my life. It is a benchmark performance, like Buster Keaton in The General, Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, or Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice. And yet, it is only marginally noteworthy in an ensemble where every single performance should be eligible for an Oscar.As of this writing, the film is sweeping every award in every category in every Festival it is entered in. And yet, there is no buzz about it, virtually no press on it, and no social media on it. The director, instead of hitting the circuit to drum up some news, went to Jordan to coordinate aid drops into Gaza. He is a true, real life, activist, who just happens to be the best new film maker to arrive since Spielberg. If this film disappears unnoticed and undistributed, it would be as if The Beatles released Hey Jude, and no radio station ever played it.I hope this film enters the canon and takes its place on the greatest films of all time lists. I hope documentaries are made about its making. I hope every actor in it becomes a star. I hope it is studied in every film school, for each department, from hair and make up to set dec to sound mix, can be compared to the best in any film ever made. I hope the writer and director Brandt Andersen is recognized as one of the great auteurs of all time. I hope every student of film or acting watches this film repeatedly, to examine to the tiniest detail why it is so good, and how it could be so good on a budget though not stated, probably was equivalent to the catering budget on the average Hollywood flick.Finally, the film evokes an empathic response that is so strong, it will change peoples lives, which is exactly the stated intention of the film maker. I believe it could probably be used scientifically, to accurately predict psychopathy, in anyone unmoved. It will certainly out those who agree that refugees are all criminals, terrorists, and cowards deserting the task of rebuilding their countries, that agreement exposing nothing less than their 'mountainous inhumanity'.
Read more IMDb reviews

No comments yet

Be the first to leave a comment