Street Angel

Street Angel (1928) is a Frank Borzage melodrama you can watch online on iFILM. Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell star — Fox's most reliable screen couple, here for their third collaboration.

The story is set in Naples. Angela steals medicine money for her dying mother, gets arrested, and breaks out of the courtroom. She lands with a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter who gradually makes her something more than a subject. Borzage treats the romance with unusual restraint — no swelling orchestras, just two people holding each other up in a world that has no room for them.

Gaynor took home the inaugural Best Actress Academy Award partly on the strength of this role — the Academy folded three of her 1927–28 performances into a single prize. Street Angel holds up on its own terms. Stream it online on iFILM.