Movie · 1971 · Drama, History, Western · 3h 11m · PG · SV
Curator score: 9.3/10 (16.5K ratings)
a new land... a new hope... a new dream
Overview
Karl and Kristina Nilsson work on a farm in a cold and desolate area of 19th century rural Sweden. Growing privations, combined with increasing social and religious persecution, motivate the Nilssons and many of their neighbors to strike out for the United States. Following a treacherous ocean crossing and an equally grueling land passage, the emigrants find themselves in seemingly idyllic Minnesota.
Ratings
Curator score: 9.3/10
IMDb: 8.0/10
Letterboxd: 4.22/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 94%
TMDB: 7.4/10
Director
Jan Troell
Production
SF Studios
Cast
Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Eddie Axberg, Sven-Olof Bern, Aina Alfredsson, Allan Edwall, Monica Zetterlund, Pierre Lindstedt, Hans Alfredson, Ulla Smidje, Eva-Lena Zetterlund, Gustaf Färingborg, Åke Fridell, Agneta Prytz, Halvar Björk, Arnold Alfredsson, Bror Englund, Tom C. Fouts, Peter Høimark, Erik Johansson
Curator Review
Verdict
A patient, immersive historical epic that treats migration as hardship, faith, and endurance rather than adventure. Its scale comes from lived-in detail and emotional accumulation, making it especially rewarding for viewers who like serious period drama and humanist filmmaking.
Best for
historical drama fans
viewers interested in immigration stories
slow-burn epic lovers
fans of naturalistic, character-driven cinema
people drawn to 19th-century frontier history
Skip if
you want fast pacing or constant plot turns
you prefer action-heavy westerns
you dislike long runtimes and contemplative storytelling
you want a romanticized immigrant journey
Overview
Jan Troell turns a national migration story into something intimate, severe, and deeply human. The film is less interested in heroic frontier myth than in the physical cost of leaving home, with hunger, grief, faith, and stubborn hope all given equal weight.
Worth noting
What makes it stand out is the texture: weather, labor, cramped interiors, and the rhythms of peasant life feel observed rather than staged. Troell’s camera has a documentary patience, but the film never loses its emotional pull, especially as the journey grows harsher and the promise of America becomes more complicated.
Bottom line
This is an epic in the truest sense, but not a flashy one. It rewards viewers who like historical cinema that builds power through detail, moral seriousness, and the slow accumulation of lived experience.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Sean Baker · 322 likes
First time watch for me. Truly engaging epic saga that takes its time and focuses on the minutia. Eye-opening look at the class inequalities that led to immigration in mid-nineteenth century Sweden. Director Jan Troell's directing (sometimes employing docu style) seems far ahead its time. And he writes, directs, edits and shoots... incredibly impressive.
From imdb trivia: The first movie to be nominated for Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards, and not win either award.… more
theriverjordan (4.5★) · 142 likes
Jan Troell’s “The Emigrants” is a journey to the New World carried by the winds of necessity, rather than promise.
Troell’s three-hour epic is the first of two films following a group of late 19th century agrarian Swedes as they depart their impoverished native land for a new life in Minnesota.
But while they are borne across the ocean on a precariously small vessel - Troell never lets his subjects, or the viewer, free from the excessive and burdensome baggage… more
Sam (5★) · 122 likes
i love the swedish title of this, UTVANDRARNA, it's such a daunting and massive word to look at and pronounce. as was the process of getting myself ready to watch this for the first time; huge but tiny, epic but glacially so. 200 minutes of intimacy, pain, desire, hope, illusion, history.
a largely lost film in the context of future american cinematic cultural landscapes, but the 'highbrow rich' of the early 70s ('sophisticated' academy voters) enjoyed patting themselves on their… more
Edgar Cochran ✝️🍋 (5★) · 87 likes
*Twitch Redeem by Seventh_Persona.*
On my search of 100/100s.
The largest Swedish superproduction at the time, the one that showed off the Academy Award's insecurity and lack of organization by nominating this film for different categories in two separate years, the titan that Kubrick admired: the first half of Troell's nearly unsurpassable historical titan is a highly ultra-realistic and extremely sincere masterpiece about contrasts; the "American" "dream" finding its way into worldwide heads idealizing "the neighbor's pasture as greener", religious… more
Justin Peterson (4.5★) · 85 likes
Criterion Collection Spine #796(Foreign language film)
A methodically epic and detailed depiction of the American pioneer experience.
"Nobody around here has gone before us. No one ever has. No one. I'll have to be the first then. And you're able to answer for it? Someone has to answer for it."
Finally watching The Emigrants was deeply personal for me, since based on what I know of my ancestry, they took a similar path from Scandinavia to Minnesota and North… more