Third Avenue: Only the Strong Survive
Classic Documentaries
•
59m
Directed by Jon Alpert • Documentary • 1980 • 60 minutes
This Emmy Award-winning documentary tells the stories of six "ordinary" people who live or work along New York City's Third Avenue, which runs for sixteen miles through Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, cutting through the complex social strata of the city to reveal wildly different economic and ethnic subcultures. Called "a triumph of its kind" by The Washington Post, this unsentimental portrait of the uncommon lives of common people is a subjective sociological study of survival in urban America. THIRD AVENUE: ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE is a DCTV and WNET/Thirteen production, co-produced by Jon Alpert and Keiko Tsuno. Associate Producers, Victor Sanchez, Karen Ranucci, Eddie Pabon, Maryann DeLeo, Kathii Chen.
"A classic work of direct, reportorial cinema that reaches deep beneath its surfaces to provide a keen analysis of systemic social disorders." —Richard Brody, The New Yorker
Up Next in Classic Documentaries
-
Trópico de Cancer / Tropic of Cancer
Directed by Eugenio Polgovsky • Documentary • 2004 • 52 minutes
Polgovsky’s stunning debut immerses the viewer in the impoverished lives of families in the arid desert region of San Luis Potosi in Mexico (situated on the global parallel known as Tropic of Cancer), who survive by selling plants a...
-
Lonely Boy (w/ Paul Anka)
Directed by Wolf Koening, Roman Kroiter • Documentary • 1962 • 26 minutes
The story of popular singer Paul Anka. He rose from obscurity to become the idol of millions of adolescent fans around the world. This film takes a candid look at both sides of the footlights as well as the promotion indus...
-
The First Year
Directed by Patricio Guzmán • Documentary • 2023 • 96 minutes
THE FIRST YEAR is a jubilant record of the 12 months following the election of Chile’s first socialist president, Salvador Allende. Director Patricio Guzmán travels the country, meeting workers who no longer have to answer to the capr...
