The Florida Project(2017)
dir. Sean Baker
A kid's summer in a motel outside Disney World.
Where to watch: Free with ads on The Roku Channel and Plex; rent $2.99 on Amazon and Fandango At Home, $3.99 on Apple TV (JustWatch US, Oct 2026)Letterboxd ↗
Six-year-old Moonee spends her summer in a purple motel outside Disney World, where her mother and a lot of other families live because they can't afford anything else. The kids run wild, the manager, played by Willem Dafoe, keeps an eye out, and the adults are always one bad week from the street. It's shot from a child's height, in bright colors.
Why it’s here
The film shows hidden homelessness through a kid's eyes, in the shadow of a theme park. What's punk is that it doesn't ask for pity and it doesn't clean up the mother. What's pedagogical is how clearly it shows what poverty looks like when it's called a motel. Pairs with Evicted and Poverty, by America.
Where This Film Lives
Read Alongside
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