A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) is the kind of quiet family drama you can watch online on iFILM — and the film that launched Elia Kazan's directing career. It unfolds in a Brooklyn tenement around 1900, where the Irish-American Nolans get by on next to nothing.

Young Francie Nolan reads everything she can lay hands on and dreams of a better school, even as the rent money runs short. Her father Johnny is a singing waiter with a warm heart and a weakness for the bottle; her mother Katie scrubs floors to keep the family fed; her aunt Sissy collects "husbands" the way other people collect grudges. Peggy Ann Garner carries the picture as Francie, with James Dunn as her doomed, charming father and Dorothy McGuire as the mother holding everything together.

Adapted from Betty Smith's 1943 bestseller, the film keeps the poverty plain and the tenderness hard-won. James Dunn took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and Garner received a special juvenile Academy Award for her performance. It's a story about growing up too soon without letting go of your idealism. Stream A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) online on iFILM.