01
Welcome
Why this pick
A restrained but tense drama about an Iraqi refugee in Calais and the local man who risks everything to help him; it shares Dirty Pretty Things’ humane anger and escalating danger.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE2002 1h 37m GBR
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Dirty Pretty Things
CrimeDramaThriller
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved Dirty Pretty Things, try these.
01
02
Mediterranea
Why this pick
Following two West African migrants navigating hostile work and housing conditions in Italy, it has a similarly immediate, observational texture and a deep investment in survival under pressure.
03
In This World
Why this pick
Its near-documentary journey with Afghan refugees has the same grounded urgency and attention to the practical, dangerous realities usually kept out of sight in urban dramas.
04
Illegal
Why this pick
A tightly controlled Belgian thriller about an undocumented mother facing detention, it preserves the claustrophobic suspense and personal dignity that make Dirty Pretty Things so affecting.
05
A Better Life
Why this pick
A father’s attempt to protect his son while surviving as an undocumented worker gives this a comparable emotional immediacy, moral stakes and focus on labouring lives beneath the city’s surface.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
Okwe is an illegal Nigerian immigrant to the United Kingdom who drives a Hackney carriage during the day and works at the front desk of a hotel at night. The hotel is staffed with many immigrants, both legal and illegal. Okwe keeps himself awake by chewing khat, a herbal stimulant. A doctor in his home country, he was forced to flee after being falsely accused of murdering his wife. In London, he is pressed into giving medical treatment to other poor immigrants, including fellow cab drivers with venereal diseases. Okwe's friend Guo Yi, an employee at a hospital mortuary, provides him with antibiotics under the table.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Chiwetel Ejiofor
Okwe
Audrey Tautou
Senay
Paul Bhattacharjee
Mohammed
Darrell D'Silva
Immigration Officer
Benedict Wong
Guo Yi
Sophie Okonedo
Juliette
Adrian Scarborough
Zlatko Burić
Ivan