Chop Shop (2007) December 15, 2008

Ramin Bahranii sets his story of a 12-year-old Latino boy and his older sister in the no-man's-land that is Willet's Point, Queens, a 20-block stretch of junkyards and chop shops (where stolen cars are dismantled for parts), overshadowed by Shea Stadium's giant billboard: "Make Dreams Happen." Perhaps it is because Bahrani and co-author Bahareh Azimi are both of Iranian descent that they are able to conjure up an outsider's reality with such palpable compassion and realism. Without a smidgeon of sentimentality, 'Chop Shop' suggests that for many New York City is closer to a third world country than the jewel in the crown of a land of opportunity.