I Was a Stranger (2026) Angel/Drama RT: 103 minutes Rated PG-13 (strong violent content/bloody images, thematic material, a racial slur) Director: Brandt Andersen Screenplay: Brandt Andersen Music: Nick Chuba Cinematography: Jonathan Sela Release date: January 9, 2026 (US) Cast: Yasmine Al Massri, Yahya Mahayni, Omar Sy, Ziad Bakri, Constantine Markoulakis, Jason Beghe, Ayman Samman, Massa Daoud.
Rating: **
With the current political climate as it pertains to immigration, it’s obvious that the new Angel Studios release I Was a Stranger is intended be divisive. All I felt was indifference.
Angel is clearly hoping to repeat the success of their 2023 surprise hit Sound of Freedom with this heavy-handed drama about the struggle of those trying to leave war-torn hellholes to start a new life in America. I won’t deny I Was a Stranger has a handful of effective moments, but the overall effect is underwhelming. It just doesn’t hit like it should.
Written and directed by Brandt Andersen (making his feature film debut), I Was a Stranger is an expansion of his 2020 short film Refugee. He weaves together five different storylines, each one building on the one that came before it. If anybody’s the main character, it’s Amira (Al Massari, Quantico), a Syrian woman working in a Chicago hospital. A reminder on her phone transports her back to her home country eight years earlier. She’s celebrating her birthday with her family when a bomb destroys their home, leaving only Amira and her 12YO daughter Rasha (Daoud, Bully High) alive. They make the brave decision to flee their country and the civil war reducing it to rubble.
Amira crosses paths with a few people during her danger-fraught journey. People like conflicted soldier Mustafa (Mahayni, The Man Who Sold His Skin), smuggler Marwan (Sy, The Intouchables), poet/family man Fathi (Bakri, The Translator) and Greek boat captain Stavros (Markoulakis, Siege on Liperti Street). And herein lies the main problem with I Was a Stranger. The shifts in narrative, which happen roughly every 20-25 minutes, impede the emotional momentum. You barely have enough time to get invested in one story before another begins. The effect is noticeably jarring. By the time Andersen ties them all together at the end, it feels more like relief it’s finally over than catharsis.
I Was a Stranger has been sitting on shelf since it premiered (under the title The Stranger’s Case) at the Berlin Film Festival two years ago. Angel picked it up for distribution last year. Okay, so they didn’t actually make the film. No matter, they still include a plea to “pay it forward” during the end credits roll. Again I ask, how much of the money collected ends up in somebody’s pocket? Save it, I’m old enough to be this cynical.
It’s not that I Was a Stranger is a bad movie. It just didn’t do anything for me. It’s not entirely uninteresting or without emotional content. It kept me somewhat engaged and a couple of scenes made me feel something. In one, a little girl is forced to leave behind her beloved puppy when her family emigrates. I felt bad for the kid and the cute little dog. In another, a young boy is coldly executed for anti-government graffiti. Unfortunately, moments like these are few and far in between.
There’s nothing wrong with the performances in I Was a Stranger. Some of them are actually pretty good. Sy does solid work as a code-switching smuggler; cold and ruthless when it comes to business but warm and loving with his sickly young son at home. It’s believable because he doesn’t slip completely into bad guy tropes. Massari does great work as the mother going through hell protecting her daughter while trying to make a better life for her. It’s a struggle many will understand. Jason Beghe (Chicago PD) shows up as a doctor at the hospital. He isn’t given anything to do and that’s disappointing given the gravitas he brings to his character in his long-running TV series.
I Was a Stranger is reminiscent of Crash with its intersecting stories and characters. I don’t mind movies like that at all when they do it right. The 2005 Best Picture winner did; this one doesn’t. For all its ambition, it feels half-baked not to mention slightly convoluted. I’ll give it points for sincerity though. It was definitely that. It’s too bad it doesn’t cross across like it should. It’s just another case of a film undone by its own sense of self-importance.
