Migration representation in movies from 1940 to 2024: The spectacle of human mobility and the North-bound bias

Abstract How does cinema shape our understanding of migration? Although movement across borders has been a central theme in cinema for decades, research on its representation remains fragmented, often focusing on specific national contexts or cinematographic genres. To address this gap, this study introduces an original global dataset of 410 documentaries, films, and television series about migration released between 1940 and 2024. The analysis of the dataset reveals striking disparities: stories set in the Global North far outnumber those from the Global South, a pattern I describe as “North-bound bias” of migration-related movies. The dataset also shows a growing focus on irregular migration and forced displacement, compared to other forms of migration: Through this “spectacle of human mobility,” migration is portrayed as irregular, dangerous, and crisis-driven, obscuring more ordinary and legal forms of mobility. These findings contribute to research on artistic and media representations of migration, highlighting the role of movies in shaping migration imaginaries, or the collective ways in which societies represent human movement across borders.