How Green Was My Valley (1941)

John Ford's heartbreaking portrait of the 19th century Welsh mining community where Huw Morgan, now an old man, decides to leave the valley forever, narrating in retrospect, the story of his family in this Victorian-era Welsh valley that went from a former paradise to a ravaged coal mining region. Based on the novel by Richard Llewellyn, it spans several years in the life of the proud Morgan family, stalwarts of the village, for whom conditions change from relative abundance to absolute poverty and decay.