123Movies: A Window Back to Syria, and Forward to Something New

I still remember the echo of my father’s voice when the power would go out in Aleppo.
“No problem,” he’d say. “The stars will tell us a story.”

Back then, before the sky filled with smoke and sirens, we used to huddle around a small TV in our apartment. My parents weren’t wealthy, but they had a love for stories — Arabic classics, old French dramas, dubbed American films with awkward subtitles. It didn’t matter what language it was in. The emotions were universal. And for those brief hours, war, politics, and ration lines vanished.

Now I live in Berlin. I speak three languages, but some nights, I can’t find the words for what I feel.

That’s when I open 123Novies.

The first time I used it, I wasn’t trying to be nostalgic. I was trying to forget. I’d had a rough day — the job center had denied my application again, and someone at a grocery store had stared too long when I paid in coins.

I typed Capernaum into Google, hoping to find a clip. Instead, I found a strange site with an even stranger name: 123Movies. It wasn’t pretty. It looked like one of those sites I was always told to avoid.

But it had the movie. The full movie. No sign-up. No “first month free” lies.

Just the film. Just the boy. Just the pain.

I clicked play, and I cried for the first time in months.

Since then, 123Movies has become something more than just a site to “watch movies.” For me, it’s become a way to remember. To belong. To reclaim.

Through it, I’ve found the films my parents once loved — The Yacoubian Building, Paradise Now, Omar. I’ve found the ones I missed while running — The Kite Runner, A Separation, Wadjda. I’ve found the global ones that taught me I’m not alone in my sadness — Roma, The Pianist, The Lives of Others.

And I’ve found joy again.
Quietly. Gently. Through stories.

In Berlin, I have shelter. I have safety. But belonging? That’s harder.

I speak with an accent. I carry trauma in my shoulders. I’m 23 and feel 40. Some people see refugee and stop looking further.

But 123Movies never asks.
It doesn’t judge.
It doesn’t gatekeep.

It lets me type any title.
Any language.
Any memory I need to find again.

And when I press play, I am no longer just a number in a database.
I am an audience.

I’ve watched Syriana and thought about my uncle’s political jokes.
I’ve rewatched Inside Out and realized how much grief I buried in "Disgust."
I’ve sat with Jojo Rabbit and laughed in places I thought I’d never feel joy again.

And slowly, I started writing again.

Not just applications. Not just emails. But scripts. Monologues. Scenes that speak in Arabic and cry in German. Scenes that belong nowhere — and everywhere.

Scenes that 123Movies, in its strange, glitchy defiance, would probably host.

People say it’s “not legal.” That “it’s unfair to artists.” And yes, maybe they’re right in one way. But here’s another truth:

There are thousands of us who would never experience these stories without it.

Streaming services don’t accept refugee IDs.
Subscriptions are a luxury.
And “local content” rarely includes our languages, our pain, our voices.

123movies new is flawed — but it exists.

And for people like me, that’s a kind of mercy.

Now, when I scroll through it at 2 a.m., it’s no longer just about distraction.

It’s a ritual.
A form of language.
A second education.

It’s how I built a bridge between the boy I was and the man I’m trying to become — someone who believes in futures, not just survival.

I don’t know what my life will look like in five years. Maybe I’ll move again. Maybe I’ll make a film of my own. Maybe I’ll fall in love, in a language I don’t speak well yet.

But tonight, I’ll put on The Prophet. Or maybe Incendies. Or maybe something ridiculous like Zoolander — because sometimes we just need to laugh.

And I’ll say a quiet thank you — not to a corporation or a state — but to a site that let me feel human again, without asking who I was first.

That site is called 123Movies.
And to me, it’s home.