Sunshine Hotel (2001): cast, story & where to watch

Released in 2001, Sunshine Hotel is a documentary film directed by Michael Dominic, running about 98 minutes.

What it’s about. Just decades ago, flophouses in New York housed nearly 25,000 men living on the margins of society. Today few remain. Filmmaker Michael Dominic takes his camera behind the doors of the Sunshine Hotel, one of the few remaining affordable refuges for the destitute and out of luck, a world that has seemingly stood still for more than eight decades. Here the hotel residents live in tiny four-by-six-foot cubicles crowned by a ceiling of chicken wire. Focusing on several of the Sunshine’s denizens – including a transgender woman saving all her money for additional surgeries and a hotel manager who doubles as its resident philosopher – Dominic presents a non-judgmental snapshot of a diverse group of characters as memorable as the characters at Harry Hope’s bar in Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh.”

Who’s in it. Sunshine Hotel stars Nathan Smith as Narrator (voice)/Self, Tony Bell as Self, Bruce Davis as Self and Kasmir as Self, among others.

How it landed. With an audience score of 6.8/10, Sunshine Hotel has drawn a solid, mixed-to-positive response.

Where to watch. In US you can stream it on Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Prime Video with Ads and rent or buy it from Amazon Video. See the full, country-by-country breakdown on our where to watch Sunshine Hotel page.

If you liked it. Fans of Sunshine Hotel tend to enjoy One Direction: This Is Us, Burn the Stage: The Movie, BTS World Tour: Love Yourself - Japan Edition and Senna.