East Is EastMovies like East Is East
- Key Features:
- Cultural conflict, Family drama, Intergenerational conflict, British, Arranged marriage, Identity crisis, Cultural identity, Cultural assimilation, Patriarchal society, Comedy-drama, 1970s, England
- Tone:
- humorous, serious, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Drama enthusiasts, Cultural film buffs, Families, British cinema fans
- Emotional Arc:
- Frustration → Conflict → Acceptance
East Is East

In 1971 Salford fish-and-chip shop owner George Khan expects his family to follow his strict Pakistani Muslim ways. But his children, with an English mother and having been born and brought up in Britain, increasingly see themselves as British and start to reject their father's rules on dress, food, religion, and living in general.
East Is East
After years abroad in Italy, Shadi returns to his native Nazareth. But this is no spectacular homecoming. He's back somewhat begrudgingly to honour his "wajib" (or duty) to hand out invitations to his sister's wedding with his father. The simmering tension between the two — who are often stuck in a car, more often than not in traffic — builds, exposing the sometimes-comic chasms that exist between men who live in different worlds but share an unshakable bond.

A shy simple traditional girl leaves her family in India for her new husband in London, where she meets a shameless flirt and a complicated party girl.

Years after his father disowns his adopted brother for marrying a woman of lower social standing, a young man goes on a mission to reunite his family.

Sweety has to contend with her over-enthusiastic family that wants her to get married but the ultimate truth is that her love might not find acceptance in her family and society.

A young man upsets his Punjabi family when he falls in love with an Irish schoolteacher.

The children of two wealthy businessman fall in love with someone from a poor background, much to their parents' disapprovals.

A Hindu man and a Muslim woman fall in love in a small village and move to Mumbai, where they have two children. However, growing religious tensions and erupting riots threaten to tear the family apart.

A deliciously romantic coming together of Gulrez “Gullu” Qadir a Hyderabadi shoe-sales girl disillusioned with love because of her encounters with dowry-seeking men; and Tariq “Taru” Haidar a Lucknawi cook who can charm anybody with the aroma and flavours of his biryani and kebabs.

After moving from Calcutta to New York, members of the Ganguli family maintain a delicate balancing act between honoring the traditions of their native India and blending into American culture. Although parents Ashoke and Ashima are proud of the sacrifices they make to give their children opportunities, their son Gogol strives to forge his own identity without forgetting his heritage.

Mita and Raj Batra, an affluent couple from Delhi’s Chandni Chowk, are grappling with getting their daughter admission into an English medium school. But there is one big problem. Their zubaan is Hindi, and the elitist snobs won’t let the Hindi speaking hoi-polloi fit in.

A man and woman from feuding families each pretend to fall in love, as part of a revenge plot. Chaos ensues when their fake romance becomes a reality.

Jess Bhamra, the daughter of a strict Indian couple in London, is not permitted to play organized soccer, even though she is 18. When Jess is playing for fun one day, her impressive skills are seen by Jules Paxton, who then convinces Jess to play for her semi-pro team. Jess uses elaborate excuses to hide her matches from her family while also dealing with her romantic feelings for her coach, Joe.

Zahira, 18, is close to her family until her parents ask her to follow Pakistani tradition to choose a husband. Torn between family customs and her western lifestyle, the young woman turns for help to her brother and confidant Amir.

Daphne is a young woman negotiating the tricky business of modern life. Caught in the daily rush of her restaurant job and a nightlife kaleidoscope of new faces, she is witty, funny, the life of the party. Too busy to realise that deep down she is not happy. When she saves the life of a shopkeeper stabbed in a failed robbery, the impenetrable armour she wears to protect herself begins to crack, and Daphne is forced to confront the inevitability of a much-needed change in her life.

Two childhood friends now in their thirties must decide whether to follow their heads or their hearts once the man decides to follow his parents' advice and enter into an arranged marriage in Pakistan.

Bauji resists his daughter's request to let her marry the man she loves as the neighbours incessantly shame him. However, his opinion changes after he meets him and he decides to change his viewpoint.

After traveling to London to check on their missing children in the wake of the 2005 terror attacks on the city, two strangers come to discover their respective children had been living together at the time of the attacks

On a trip to India, Jasmeet's father forcefully marries her off to Arjun. However, when they return to London, Jasmeet announces her intention of marrying her boyfriend, Charlie Brown.

An American girl, Daphne, heads to Europe in search of the father she's never met. But instead of finding a British version of her bohemian mother, she learns the love of her mom's life is an uptight politician. The only problem now is that her long-lost dad is engaged to a fiercely territorial social climber with a daughter who makes Daphne's life miserable.

A story about a troubled boy growing up in England, set in 1983. He comes across a few skinheads on his way home from school, after a fight. They become his new best friends, even like family. Based on experiences of director Shane Meadows.

A young Englishman marries a glamorous American. When he brings her home to meet the parents, she arrives like a blast from the future - blowing their entrenched British stuffiness out the window.

When two cash-strapped UK-based Indians become male escorts amid an economic downturn, money flows right in but everything else in their lives starts falling apart.

In 1970s England, three blue-collar friends spend their days joking, drinking, fighting and chasing girls. Freddie wants to leave their working-class world but cool, charismatic Bruce and lovable loser Snork are happy with life the way it is. When Freddie gets a new job as a door-to-door salesman and bumps into his old school sweetheart Julie, the gang are forced to make choices that will change their lives for ever.

A 22 year-old Bangladeshi-Italian Muslim boy meets a beautiful, exciting Italian girl who makes him re-analyze his beliefs and culture.

Years of working in the food industry have made Juana, a working-class Latina, a chef of speed and skill. Searching for financial stability, she stumbles into a high-energy, male-dominated Japanese cuisine kitchen. The new atmosphere re-ignites her passions for food and life and makes her hungry to get mixed up in the flavors of this new world.

By his dying father's last wish Joe is sent to the Wild West to become a real guy. The dreamy young man despises guns and fights likes poems and prefers bicycles to horses. Now his three teachers footpads all of them shall teach him otherwise. This doesn't work until Joe has to defend himself against gunman Morton who's jealous of Joe's love to rancher Ohlsen's beautiful daughter.

When his daughter decides to further her studies in London, a hardworking Haryanvi businessman does everything in power to make her dreams come true.

A young French Canadian, one of five boys in a conservative family in the 1960s and 1970s, struggles to reconcile his emerging identity with his father's values.

As the romantic monsoon rains loom, the extended Verma family reunites from around the globe for a last-minute arranged marriage in New Delhi. This film traces five intersecting stories, each navigating different aspects of love as they cross boundaries of class, continent and morality.

Mukhtar Yusuf Ağa’s unregistered village in eastern Anatolia has been championed through letters to government officials, and his lost son İbrahim, rescued and registered by Father Hana, is finally returning at age 30 with his American love Jessica; the question is whether Tinne can become their true homeland.

Wataru Hirayama's outwardly liberal views on marriage are severely tested when his daughter declares that she is in love with a coworker and is adamant to live life her own way, instead of agreeing to an arranged marriage. Outwitted by his female relatives, Hirayama stubbornly refuses to admit defeat.

A 50-year-old single father faces disapproval from his family and his ex-wife when he falls in love with a 26-year-old woman.

Avinash, a dejected soul stuck in a dead-end job shares a strange relationship with his father. He holds him responsible for crushing his dreams. However, he is left pondering upon this longstanding hatred when he hears of his father’s untimely demise.

A young woman, Janice, is living with her restrictive and conservative parents, who lead a dull working-class life and consider their daughter to be “misbehaving” whenever she’s trying to find her own way in life.

Seventeen-year-old Pakistani American teenager Hala struggles to balance desire with her family, cultural, and religious obligations. As she comes into her own, she grapples with a secret that threatens to unravel her family.

After surviving a suicide attempt in which his family and fellow villagers believe he drowned, a debt-ridden man decides to start his life afresh in another village. He pretends to be mute and starts working for a rich man where he falls in love with his mute daughter.

Pressured by their immigrant parents to find spouses, two Indian-Americans pretend to date in order to survive a summer of weddings – but find themselves falling for each other as they struggle to balance who they are with who their parents want them to be.

A young man tries to revive his parents' wilting marriage by traveling to the 1970s when their romance was budding to help make it bloom: something more complex than he expects.

Alim is a gay man living in London to escape the domineering eye of his conservative Muslim mother, Nuru, back in Canada. Alim keeps his homosexuality secret from his mother, so when she comes for a surprise visit, he and his boyfriend, Giles, must put on a straight facade to hide the truth.

During a year, a very content couple approaching retirement are visited by friends and family less happy with their lives.

Gym-freak brat Rocky falls in love with Rani, who comes from a well-educated Bengali family. Being from polar opposite worlds, the two decide to switch their families to adjust to each other's cultures and backgrounds and to know if their marriage will survive. Rocky and Rani are trapped in a world where they are united by love but divided by families and the ultimate question is will they fit in?

Roshan, an NRI, arrives in Old Delhi with his ailing grandmother and starts to rediscover himself before getting caught in a religious dispute that shakes the once peaceful neighborhood.

A cook from Chandni Chowk gets mistaken for the reincarnation of an ancient peasant warrior by the residents of an oppressed Chinese village.

Two youngsters declare to their parents that they want to get married. Not sometime in the future but as soon as possible.

Nineteen-year-old Ari confronts both his sexuality and his Greek family. Ari despises his once-beloved parents, former radical activists, for having entombed themselves in insular tradition. Ari is obsessed with gay sex, although he does make an unenthusiastic attempt to satisfy the sister of one of his best friends. While all of this is going on, he's facing problems with his traditional Greek parents, who have no clue about his sexual activities.

Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator.

Young Nigel Slater has big culinary aspirations, even though all his mother knows how to make is toast. When his mother dies, relations grow strained between Nigel and his father, especially when he remarries a woman who wins his heart with a lemon meringue pie. Nigel enters culinary school, starts working in a pub, and finds himself competing with his stepmother - both in the kitchen and for his father's attention.

Maurice is an aging veteran actor who becomes taken with Jessie, the grandniece of his closest friend. When Maurice tries to soften the petulant and provincial young girl with the benefit of his wisdom and London culture, their give-and-take surprises both Maurice and Jessie as they discover what they don't know about themselves.

Parghat Singh 'Gattu' Kahlon is a middle aged shopkeeper who secretly practices bowling at night in order to keep his dream of playing for England alive. Even though his family members despise him for giving up his dreams only due to his father's wish, they find a ray of hope and convince him to play for England while they plan to hide the truth from his father.

A young mute girl from Pakistan loses herself in India with no way to head back. A devoted man with a magnanimous spirit undertakes the task to get her back to her motherland and unite her with her family.

The movie portrays the story of an Italian family emigrated in Germany in the 1970s. Romano (Gigi Savoia), the father, decides to open a pizzeria which, by mutual decision with the wife Rosa (Antonella Attili), will call Solino, leaving his sons Gigi and Giancarlo to work there. A hostile relationship comes to life between the father and his sons, which will end up in the escape of the boys from family.

Pawlak and Kargul - neighbors, frenemies, and grandfathers to Ania- both receive invitation to America from Pawlak's brother- John. All three of them travel to Chicago, where they discover John has passed away, and they arrived just in time for his funeral. But first- they need to find his illegitimate daughter. Set in late 70's story of two, charming, Polish villagers' adventures in Chicago is a third installment of Pawlak and Kargul adventures.

Raj is a rich, carefree, happy-go-lucky second generation NRI. Simran is the daughter of Chaudhary Baldev Singh, who in spite of being an NRI is very strict about adherence to Indian values. Simran has left for India to be married to her childhood fiancé. Raj leaves for India with a mission at his hands, to claim his lady love under the noses of her whole family. Thus begins a saga.

Amongst the communal riots that erupt in the city, Tara shelters a wayward Sakina from a crazed mob and a bond that blossoms into love is created. The two eventually get married and have a son. The happy family, now living in Amritsar, gets the shock of their lives when Sakina learns that her father (Amrish Puri), whom she previously believed died in the riots back in Amritsar, is still alive after seeing his picture in a tattered, old newspaper. Upon contacting him, Sakina's father, now the mayor of Lahore in Pakistan, arranges for his daughter to arrive in Lahore to see him. Sakina leaves for Lahore minus Tara and her son, and upon reaching the city, learns of her father's plans for her - plans that include forcing Sakina to forget about her family and start life anew in Pakistan. Then begins an extraordinary journey which will lead Tara to cross the border into Pakistan to find his love Sakina

A successful Indian scientist returns home to his village to take his nanny back to America with him, and in the process rediscovers his roots.

A taxi driver is caught between a dysfunctional relationship between a woman and her father as he drives them to Kolkata.

A stranger in the city asks questions no one has asked before. Known only by his initials, the man's innocent questions and childlike curiosity take him on a journey of love, laughter and letting go.

Raja, a taxi driver, falls in love with Aarti, a rich girl, and marries her against her parents' wishes. Later, her stepmother tries to create a rift betweenthe couple.

When a series of martial misunderstandings spirals into an international incident, a Chinese martial arts student struggling to relate to his new Japanese wife is forced to take on seven of Japan's most powerful martial arts masters, each an expert in a different discipline, ranging from karate to samurai to ninjitsu.

Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond looks after the British outpost near the Khybar pass. Protected by the kilted Third Foot and Mouth regiment, you would think they were safe, but the Khazi of Kalabar has other ideas—he wants all the British dead. But his troops fear the 'skirted-devils, who are rumoured not to wear any underwear.

In the United States for the first time, an Indian housewife with a limited command of English turns Manhattan into her personal language school.

In 1972, disenchanted about the dreary conventions of English life, 25-year-old Julia heads for Morocco with her daughters, six-year-old Lucy and precocious eight-year-old Bea.

Just north of London live Wendy, Andy, and their twenty-something twins, Natalie and Nicola. Wendy clerks in a shop, Andy is a cook who forever puts off home remodeling projects, Natalie is a plumber and Nicola is jobless. This film is about how they interact and play out family, conflict and love.

A Russian teenager living in London dies during childbirth but leaves clues in her diary that could tie her child to a rape involving a violent Russian mob family.

A wealthy businessman's traditional family celebrate their togetherness when his three sons get married, but slowly find themselves growing apart after a misunderstanding.

Set during a long, hot summer on the Thamesmead Estate in Southeast London, where three teenagers edge towards adulthood.

A grandmother has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.

"Innocent face, D-cup breasts and perfect intercourse skills! Son, this is not your girlfriend anymore but your mother!" Ki-ho brings Yuki from Japan to marry her. However, he starts cheating on her with his ex-girlfriend in Korea. Min-cheol comforted Yuki and thought of her as his daughter-in-law, but one day he realizes he is looking at her as a woman. In the end, Yuki and Min-cheol have intercourse without Ki-ho knowing...

Clara and Felice struggle to raise their three children in 1970s Rome. The eldest, Andrew, is transgender and yearns for another life where he gets to live as the boy he knows himself to be. Clara instinctively strives to protect her son by escaping into their imaginations to defuse family tensions.

Years after her Indian family was forced to flee their home in Uganda, twentysomething Mina finds herself helping to run a motel in the faraway land of Mississippi. It's there that a passionate romance with the charming Black carpet cleaner Demetrius challenges the prejudices of their conservative families and exposes the rifts between the region's Indian and African American communities.

A young father and his two children struggle to find harmony after his wife leaves them for another man.

Two divorced fathers Mathias and Antoine, decide to raise their children together in London. Their lives consist of Sophie the pretty florist secretly in love with Antoine, Yvonne who runs the 'bistrot français' and has a very maternal outlook on life and Mac Enzie, the boss of Antoine's agency who is completley in love with Yvonne despite the big age difference.

A small-time thug comes across a young girl who claims him to be her father, following which he realizes he has a lookalike who's being hunted by goons.

A teenager transitions from female to male, and his family must come to terms with that fact.

Shirin is struggling to become an ideal Persian daughter, politically correct bisexual and hip young Brooklynite but fails miserably in her attempt at all identities.

After his father is killed in an altercation with drunken thugs, Salah's world is plunged into darkness. Forced into running the family kebab shop alone, Salah struggles to manage the increasingly rowdy night life and when a fight with an angry customer goes fatally wrong, he finds himself with a dead body on his hands. With no faith in the authorities Salah disposes of the body in the one place he knows best… the kebabs.

Boy, an 11-year-old child and devout Michael Jackson fan who lives on the east coast of New Zealand in 1984, gets a chance to know his absentee criminal father, who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years ago.

A young man returns to Kashmir after his father's disappearance to confront his uncle - the man he suspects to have a role in his father's fate.

A member of the English upper class dies, leaving his estate and his business to an American, whom he thinks is his son who was lost as a baby and then found again. An Englishman who thinks he is an Indian comes to believe that he is actually the heir. He comes to hate the American who is his boss, his friend, and the man who has stolen the woman after whom he lusts.

A young Pakistani Briton manages a rundown laundrette with his lover while dealing with tension in his family, the local Pakistani community, and a persistent mob of skinheads.

A disillusioned, angry university graduate comes to terms with his grudge against middle-class life and values.

A young Arab-American girl struggles with her sexual obsession, a bigoted Army reservist, and her strict father during the Gulf War.

Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.

Torn straight from the headlines, Michael Winterbottom's compelling and prescient 'In This World' follows young Afghan Jamal and his older cousin Enayat as they embark on a hazardous overland trip from their refugee camp at Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Entering Turkey on foot through a snowy, Kurdish-controlled pass, the pair again take their lives into their hands and face suffocation when they are locked in a freight container on a ship bound for Italy. From there they plan to travel on to Paris, the Sangatte refuge centre and ultimately asylum in London.

The Parkers, reclusive people who cling to ancient customs, find their secret lives threatened when a torrential downpour and the death of the family matriarch forces daughters Iris and Rose to assume special responsibilities.

After dedicating their whole life in upbringing their children, elderly couple Raj Malhotra and Pooja gets homeless. Instead of caring, their children treat them as a burden.

Set in Edwardian England where upper lips are always stiff and men from the Colonies are not entirely to be trusted, Fisk Senior has little time or affection for his son, but when the pair visit an eccentric Indian, they start a strange journey that eventually allows the old man to find his heart.

Emma has left Russia to live with her husband in Italy. Now a member of a powerful industrial family, she is the respected mother of three, but feels unfulfilled. One day, Antonio, a talented chef and her son's friend, makes her senses kindle.

In 1970s India, Sardar Khan vows to take revenge on the man who killed his father decades earlier.

A family drive in the countryside turns into a battle of wills between a young boy and his father and aunt.

Ryota Nonomiya is a successful businessman driven by money. He learns that his biological son was switched with another child after birth. He must make a life-changing decision and choose his true son or the boy he raised as his own.

Told through the eyes of sticky-fingered eight-year-old boy Big Ears, Echoes of the Rainbow takes place in a close-knit grassroots community in 1960s Hong Kong. Big Ears' mother and father run the neighborhood shoe store, and his older brother Desmond is every family's dream son - an outstanding athlete with grades worthy of Hong Kong's best school.

Queen Victoria strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young Indian clerk named Abdul Karim.

A young Peruvian bear travels to London in search of a home. Finding himself lost and alone at Paddington Station, he meets the kindly Brown family, who offer him a temporary haven.

Sixteen year-old Nisha lives a double life. At home with her family she is the perfect Pakistani daughter, but when out with her friends, she is a normal Norwegian teenager. When her father catches her in bed with her boyfriend, Nisha's two worlds brutally collide. To set an example, Nisha's parents decide to kidnap her and place her with relatives in Pakistan. Here, in a country she has never been to before, Nisha is forced to adapt to her parents' culture.

On the outskirts of Birmingham and the margins of society the Billingham family perform extreme rituals and break social taboos as they muddle through a life decided by factors beyond their control. At times shocking and laced with an unsettling humor, three episodes unfold as a powerful evocation of the experience of growing up in a Black Country council flat.

A comedy centered around three people who each have a lookalike of a lookalike, all with the same name.

A man's affair with his friend's much-younger daughter throws two neighboring families into turmoil.

