The Immigrant is a 2013 American period drama film directed by James Gray from a screenplay he co-wrote with Richard Menello, starring Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix, and Jeremy Renner.

In 1921, Polish Catholic sisters Ewa (Marion Cotillard) and Magda (Angela Sarafyan) arrive at Ellis Island, New York City as immigrants looking for a better life after escaping their ravaged home in post–Great War Poland.

Ewa is almost deported, but Bruno (Joaquin Phoenix), who is Jewish and claims to be from the Travelers' Aid Society, notices her and her fluency in English, bribes an officer to let her go, and takes her to his house.

Knowing Ewa has to make money to get Magda released, Bruno induces her to dance at the Bandits' Roost theater and prostitutes her.

Ewa looks for her expatriate relatives living in New York, but her uncle by marriage turns her in to the authorities; he says he had heard she had got in trouble for engaging in illicit behavior on the ship from Europe, and he wishes to distance himself from sheltering a prostitute.

Bruno hides Ewa from the police, who then give him a severe beating and steal a large bundle of money he had been carrying.

With it, Bruno pays his contact on Ellis Island to release Ewa's sister and gives them both tickets to California.

Ewa and Magda leave, while a repentant Bruno stays in New York, intending to confess to the police about Emil's killing.

Director James Gray said The Immigrant is "80% based on the recollections from my grandparents, who came to the United States in 1923", and he described it as "my most personal and autobiographical film to date".

[8][9] When Gray was trying to think of a movie for Cotillard, he was talking to his brother, who found journals from their grandfather who ran a saloon in the Lower East Side in New York in the 1920s, after he came from Kiev, and there were all these low lives frequenting the place.

[19] Principal photography on the film began on January 27, 2012 in New York City, under the working title "Low Life".

The National Park Service reluctantly agreed to let them shoot there for two days, starting at 5:30 pm when the last ferry goes from Ellis Island until sunrise.

[30] Gray said in a 2017 interview with The Telegraph that Weinstein bought the film without his approval from the equity people who raised the money for him in the United States.

[29] Gray did not want Weinstein to buy The Immigrant and told the equity people that selling him the film was a terrible idea, but he had no say over the matter.

Cotillard said she wrote Weinstein telling him that even if he despised Gray, that he at least respected the people who have a deep admiration for the director and at least do not damage the film.

Weinstein's cut had a runtime of 88 minutes, was "completely incoherent" according to Gray and had a voice-over all over it, with the ending being a combination of Titanic (1997) and Sound of Music (1965), with soaring music playing to Cotillard's character in old-age makeup walking over a mountain with her sister, saying: "When I was younger, this is what my life was, but now my sister and I are living great.

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 86% based on 111 reviews, with an average score of 7.45/10; the general consensus states: "Beautiful visuals, James Gray's confident direction, and a powerful performance from Marion Cotillard combine to make The Immigrant a richly rewarding period drama.

[46] Peter Debruge of Variety wrote that "Gray clearly sees something in Cotillard that no other helmer — not even her husband, Guillaume Canet — has brought out in her before.

"[1] Michael Phillips of Chicago Tribune described the film as "Gray's most satisfying to date, an ode to melodrama of another day, done with style and surprising restraint.

... What makes The Immigrant a great film is the way in which Gray uses actors and his mastery of the unspoken to create a tremendously lived-in, felt-through world.

"[25] Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine gave the film 3 and a half out of 4 stars, saying that "The Immigrant feels closer in spirit to Roberto Rossellini's collaborations with Ingrid Bergman" and calling it "Gray's Voyage to Italy".

[49] Lee Marshall of Screen International in his unfavorable review wrote that "though Gray offers a well-crafted package, especially on the visual front, there's surprisingly little contemporary resonance in this immigration melodrama".

[3] Although the film was doing well in arthouses,[51] it never had a wide release and finished its theatrical run after seven weeks playing in 61 theaters on July 3, 2014, grossing a total of $2,025,328 in the United States and $3,927,556 in other territories.