How Green Was My Valley

(John Ford, US 1941, 119 min., 35mm)

This nostalgic, profoundly touching—but also unashamedly political—drama traces the lives of the Morgan clan, a hardworking Welsh proletarian family determined to stay together as they overcome hardship and tragedy in a period of rapid social changes. Maureen O’Hara, Donald Crisp, Walter Pidgeon, and young Roddy McDowell star in the film that beat Citizen Kane for the Academy Award for Outstanding Motion Picture, and remains celebrated as one of the most beloved and visually stunning films directed by the great John Ford.