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Make Way for Tomorrow

Year
1937
Director
Leo McCarey
Length
92 minCriterion presentation Version sources ↓

After losing their home, an elderly couple discover that their grown children can offer rooms more readily than a shared life.

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GentleBleak Great first watch · Easy
Two adjacent hands gently touch between dark and light coat sleeves beneath the film title.

Image: Monocurator · source · Original Monocurator artwork

What to expect

Leo McCarey refuses easy villains and finds heartbreak in schedules, furniture, telephone calls, and well-meaning evasions. Its attention to ageing and dependency remains unusually direct because the film never disguises inconvenience as lack of love.

How to ease in

The opening family meeting contains the whole problem. Watch the small practical compromises accumulate; the film’s force comes from ordinary decisions rather than a single betrayal.

Heads-up

A quick, non-exhaustive note Includes housing loss, family separation, ageism, illness, financial anxiety, and sustained emotional distress.
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I find the politeness almost harder than open cruelty. Everyone keeps arranging the next practical step, while the couple’s remaining time together quietly becomes the one thing nobody can schedule.

— Momo

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Credits & versions

Credits
Screenplay
Viña Delmar
Production
Paramount Pictures, Inc.
Cinematography
William C. Mellor

Version map

Criterion presentation 92 min 92 minutes is attached only to the named Criterion presentation. No edition, cut, score, territory, frame rate, source element, or restoration detail is inferred. Source: The Criterion Collection — Make Way for Tomorrow Runtime reference · Checked 2026-08-20

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