Brooklyn is a 2015 romantic period drama film directed by John Crowley and written by Nick Hornby, based on the 2009 novel by Colm Tóibín.

[6] In 1951, in Enniscorthy, a small town in southeast Ireland, Eilis Lacey lives with her mother and older sister, Rose.

Rose arranges with Father Flood, an Irish priest in Brooklyn, for Eilis to immigrate to New York City for a better life.

In New York, Eilis lives in a Brooklyn boarding house run by Mrs Kehoe that caters to young immigrant Irish women.

He shows her a plot of land on Long Island and says he and his brothers intend to build five houses on it, selling three and keeping one for their parents and one for him and Eilis, if she wants.

On the ocean crossing back to New York, Eilis offers guidance to a young Irish woman making her own first trip to America.

Colm Tóibín, the author of the novel upon which the film is based, has a cameo as the man in line in front of Eilis the first time she goes through immigration in New York.

Eilis makes her journey from Ireland to America in the 1950s, along with approximately 50,000 other immigrants (around a quarter of whom moved to New York) as a part of the second minor wave of migration.

There were also smaller surges of immigrants from many other countries at this time, expanding the trend of modern-day America becoming a vast land of many different cultures.

Shortly after, a bidding war ensued which included, among others, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Focus Features, Lionsgate, Roadside Attractions, CBS Films and The Weinstein Company.

Ultimately, Fox Searchlight acquired distribution rights for the world excluding the U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand for $9 million, which was one of the biggest deals to ever come out of Sundance at the time.

[4][17][18] Brooklyn was selected to be shown as part of the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival,[19] where it was screened on 13 September.

The website's consensus reads: "Brooklyn buttresses outstanding performances from Saoirse Ronan and Emory Cohen with a rich period drama that tugs at the heartstrings as deftly as it satisfies the mind.

In his review for the organization, Philip Kemp, describing ambiance and tone of the film, stated: "In some ways Brooklyn feels like a movie that's not just about, but also from, a more innocent age.

"[25] Donald Clarke of The Irish Times gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, noting that "Brooklyn is a most unconventional conventional romance."

"[27] A. O. Scott of The New York Times described the film as "an old photograph without a frame, an implied flashback" and wrote, "Brooklyn endows its characters with desires and aspirations, but not with foresight, and it examines the past with open-minded curiosity rather than with sentimentality or easy judgment."

Scott also praised Ronan's performance, commenting that she "uses everything — her posture, her eyebrows, her breath, her teeth, her pores — to convey a process of change that is both seismic and subtle.

Saoirse Ronan's performance was particularly praised, and, in addition to her Oscar nod, she garnered BAFTA,[37] Critics' Choice,[38] Golden Globe,[39] and SAG[40] nominations for Best Actress.