Each heart-warming character comes alive on the screen!
Overview
In Brooklyn circa 1900, the Nolans manage to enjoy life on pennies despite great poverty and Papa's alcoholism. We come to know these people well through big and little troubles: Aunt Sissy's scandalous succession of "husbands"; the removal of the one tree visible from their tenement; and young Francie's desire to transfer to a better school...if irresponsible Papa can get his act together.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.3/10
IMDb: 8.0/10
Letterboxd: 3.95/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 94%
TMDB: 7.5/10
Director
Elia Kazan
Production
20th Century Fox
Cast
Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Lloyd Nolan, James Gleason, Ted Donaldson, Peggy Ann Garner, Ruth Nelson, John Alexander, B.S. Pully, Ferike Boros, Virginia Brissac, Lillian Bronson, Adeline De Walt Reynolds, Charles Halton, Harry Harvey Jr., J. Farrell MacDonald, Mae Marsh, Nicholas Ray, Erskine Sanford
Curator Review
Verdict
A warm, sorrowful coming-of-age drama that balances poverty, family chaos, and hard-won hope with unusually vivid character detail. Its emotional honesty, strong performances, and sense of place make it a rewarding classic, especially if you like old Hollywood films that feel intimate rather than grand.
Best for
classic film fans
coming-of-age dramas
family sagas
stories about poverty and resilience
viewers who like emotionally sincere black-and-white cinema
Skip if
you want a fast-paced plot
you dislike sentiment in classic studio dramas
you prefer modern naturalism over heightened old Hollywood style
you are looking for a purely uplifting story
Overview
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is one of those studio-era dramas that feels lived-in rather than polished. It finds real texture in ordinary hardship: cramped rooms, money worries, small humiliations, and the stubborn tenderness that keeps a family going. The film’s greatest strength is its point of view, letting Francie’s curiosity and sensitivity turn a difficult childhood into something observant and emotionally specific.
Worth noting
Elia Kazan’s debut already shows his gift for performance and domestic tension. The film can be sentimental, but it earns much of that feeling through detail and restraint, especially in the family dynamics and the portrait of an alcoholic father who is both damaging and lovable. Joan Blondell and James Dunn give the movie much of its bruised warmth.
Bottom line
What lingers most is the film’s faith in education, imagination, and endurance without pretending those things erase poverty. It is a modest film in scale but not in feeling, and that combination is why it still resonates.
Top Letterboxd reviews
wersku (4★) · 193 likes
"I want to know everything about everything in this world." Me too, Francie, me too... but there's just too much to learn and so little time.
The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago, the second best time is now. A timeless delicacy of the 1940s, about the human need to grow and the American dream, which Kazan directs with his own intimacy. I love how he creates such an ordinary, penniless everyday life for this family,… more
theriverjordan (4.5★) · 120 likes
Elia Kazan’s first feature film, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” sows the seeds of kindness and grace in the plot where a director’s career is meant to bloom.
Kazan’s roots were grounded in the fertile soil of New York theatre, where he was a founding member of the Actors Studio; the body that brought The Method to America. The Greek-Turkish immigrant was responsible for directing seminal theatrical works, including “Death of a Salesman” and “A Streetcar Named Desire” in their… more
Lara Pop (4★) · 99 likes
'Perhaps many people might have said that he was a failure. It is true that he had no gift for making money, but he had a gift for laughter and for making people love him. He had the gift of making you feel proud to walk down the street with him. He had nothing to give but himself, but this he gave generously, like a king.'
Essential themes brighten the world in a heartwarming tale of love, goodness, and positive… more
Josh Gillam (4★) · 60 likes
An impoverished but hopeful Irish-American family’s struggles in the early 20th Century are seen through the eyes of daughter Francie (Peggy Ann Garner), in Elia Kazan’s classic drama, based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Betty Smith, with Dorothy Maguire, Joan Blondell and James Dunn making up the ensemble cast.
The film is a really well observed look at the era, and is a warm portrait of an interesting, complicated group of people. Dunn, as the alcoholic yet loving father is… more
Rick Burin (5★) · 56 likes
There's a time to bring a certain scholarly objectivity to a review, to place a film in its historical context, to discuss its relative merits and to ruminate emphatically if dispassionately upon its place in the cinematic canon. And then there's a time to shout from the rooftops: “I just saw A Tree Grows in Brooklyn on the big screen!!!”
This is one of my 10 favourite movies, and one of the few great films to come from a great… more