Genre: Documentary
Director: Jessica Kingdon
If you’re less about adventurous plots, and more about the aesthetics and character arcs, we’ve got you covered. Here are the best plot-less movies and shows to stream right now.
Genre: Documentary
Director: Jessica Kingdon
Genre: Drama, Science Fiction
Actor: Tilda Swinton
Director: Jóhann Jóhannsson
Written like a stage play, directed like the viewer is a fly on the wall, and shot with a love for deep shadows and warm candlelight, Flowers of Shanghai is about as immersive a chamber drama as one could ask for. Having most of the "action" take place off screen, director Hou Hsiao-hsien draws our eye instead to how his characters (including one played by an exceptionally stoic Tony Leung) continue to negotiate for their own freedom against patriarchal norms, pushing against cultural notions of proper decorum. It's a film brimming with repressed emotion, but without ever raising its voice. The vibes, as the kids say, are immaculate.
Genre: Drama
Actor: Annie Shizuka Inoh, Carina Lau, Jack Kao, Michelle Reis, Michiko Hada, Moon Wang, Pauline Chan, Rebecca Pan, Stephanie Fong Shuan, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Vicky Wei
Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien
If the rules to The Traitors sound familiar, it’s because they’re premised on the schoolyard game Mafia (or Werewolf), which itself is based on trickery and deceit. At first glance, it doesn’t seem like much, but once you raise the stakes to a quarter of a million dollars, as the show does, then it becomes a test of morality: how far are you willing to go to win some cash? And when it comes down to it, will you be able to choose between money and friends?
Mix this with typical reality drama, Survivor-like tournaments, and compelling backstories, then you have yourself an addictive watch, as entertaining as it is over the top. It’s not prestige TV, but it’s an enjoyable way to spend your time, especially if you’re a fan of competition shows.
Genre: Reality
Actor: Alan Cumming
A quiet movie about an unpredictable convict who gets enrolled in a wild mustang taming program. These initiatives, common around the country, offer fascinating parallels: both the horses and the inmates are emprisoned, both innately fight against their condition but are actively being made to comply. The central performance by Matthias Schoenaerts is nothing short of a masterpiece. He doesn't speak much and you almost don't want him to: everything else he does communicates so much more than words. Watching this movie just for him is reason enough.
Genre: Drama
Actor: Bruce Dern, Connie Britton, Gideon Adlon, Heath Hensley, Jasmeet Baduwalia, Jason Mitchell, John Logsdon, Josh Stewart, Kelly Richardson, Kieth Johnson, Matthias Schoenaerts, Noel Gugliemi, Santina Muha, Thomas Smittle
Director: Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
One of those long-lost mid-budget dramas that's content with observing the rich yet uneventful lives of average folk, Nobody's Fool reminds us that nothing exciting or shocking needs to happen to make a good story. The late, eternally charismatic Paul Newman leads an ensemble of character actors in relaxed, memorable roles—Bruce Willis, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Margo Martindale, and Jessica Tandy, among others. It's the authentic, neither-love-nor-hate relationship among all these characters that drives all their individual drama forward and keeps the film from stagnating into anything less than endearing. Here, the idea of things never really changing in this small community is meant to be a comfort, not a lament.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Alexander Goodwin, Alice Drummond, Angela Pietropinto, Angelica Page, Anibal O. Lleras, Bruce Willis, Carl J. Matusovich, Catherine Dent, Drenda Spohnholtz, Dylan Walsh, Elizabeth Wilson, Gene Saks, Gerry Robert Byrne, Jay Patterson, Jerry Mayer, Jessica Tandy, Joe Paparone, Josef Sommer, Marcus Powell, Margo Martindale, Melanie Griffith, Page Johnson, Paul Newman, Philip Bosco, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Richard Mawe, Shannah Laumeister Stern
Director: Robert Benton
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Actor: Alex Haw, Barbara Stepansky, David Julyan, Dick Bradsell, Emma Thomas, Gillian El-Kadi, Jennifer Angel, Jeremy Theobald, John Nolan, Lucy Russell, Nicolas Carlotti, Paul Mason, Rebecca James
Director: Christopher Nolan
Genre: Drama
Actor: Liu Baisha, Liu Haoran, Qu Chuxiao, Ruguang Wei, Zhao Wenhao, Zhou Dongyu
Director: Anthony Chen
Shot almost entirely in one take and on a tiny budget, and yet the central performance in this movie is still better than most big-budget dramas I’ve seen this year.
Two indigenous women, one upper-class and the other impoverished, meet on the day that the rich one gets an IUD and the other one, pregnant, finds herself kicked out of her home. They spend a few hours together: they talk, they take cabs, walk, etc; and you as a viewer, follow them throughout their intimate yet difficult moments.
If you like subtle movies that showcase how people live and interact with one another, beyond plot-obsessiveness, this is for you.
Genre: Drama
Actor: Aidan Dee, Anesha Bailey, Anthony Bolognese, Barbara Eve Harris, Charles Jarman, Charlie Hannah, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Elle-Maija Tailfeathers, James Angus Cowan, Jay Cardinal Villeneuve, Kathleen Hepburn, Lissa Neptuno, Paul Jarrett, Sonny Surowiec, Tony Massil, Violet Nelson
Director: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Elle-Maija Tailfeathers, Kathleen Hepburn
It’s very interesting, if not startling, to see an earnest movie made about the white upper class these days. Metropolitan is one such film, and even though it was released in the ’90s, it still stands the test of time precisely because it neither judges nor defends the group of WASPs it follows. It simply shows them in all their elegance and sophistication, as well as their insulation and irony.
Metropolitan takes place in the upper crust of New York debutante society, during Christmas vacation, where soirees are rampant and afterparties even more so. The young-adult leads who navigate the scene in their expensive clothes and self-important aura recall a Scott Fitzgerald novel, or if you like, Gossip Girl episode. But instead of falling into tragedies, these characters just end up in silly but relatable mishaps and misunderstandings: they’re just kids after all. And as high and mighty as they may seem, whiling away in tall Park Avenue apartments, they’re still prone to the universal pains that haunt and shape teenagers. Expect to see heartbreak, jealousy, and longing even among the brightest and wealthiest of New York.
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Actor: Alice Connorton, Carolyn Farina, Chris Eigeman, Donal Lardner Ward, Francis Creighton, Isabel Gillies, Taylor Nichols, Thomas R. Voth, Will Kempe
Director: Whit Stillman
Even if you aren't familiar with Akira Kurosawa classics like Rashomon and Seven Samurai, Madadayo works as a portrait of a great man who seemed to feel nothing at the end of his career other than gratitude. Made up of long, wholesome conversations between real-life Japanese academic Hyakken Uchida (Tatsuo Matsumura) and his former students, the film finds plenty of wisdom in observing the little things. And as hard as his students try to make sure Uchida's twilight years are as comfortable as possible, there's still something elusive about this man overwhelmed by all the good and bad fortune in his life.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Akira Terao, Asei Kobayashi, Eiji Bandô, George Tokoro, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Hisashi Igawa, Kazuhiko Kasai, Kinzō Sakura, Kōjirō Kusanagi, Kyōko Kagawa, Masahiko Tanimura, Masayuki Yui, Masuo Amada, Mie Suzuki, Minoru Hirano, Mitsuru Hirata, Nobuto Okamoto, Noriko Honma, Norio Matsui, Shigeo Katô, Shû Nakajima, Takao Zushi, Takeshi Kusaka, Tatsuo Matsumura, Tetsu Watanabe, Tetsuya Ito, Tomoko Ôtakara, Toshihiko Nakano, Yoshitaka Zushi
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Within seconds of the cold open, the documentary establishes a curious, playful angle to learning about the gut. Giulia Enders, our primary expert and narrator, speaks conversationally with such infectious passion about the gut. The animation styles are diverse and adorable, and the visualization of ideas as a whole is magnetic, making this as much an educational as it is an artistic tribute to the subject. And at its core is a simple idea: having a balanced diet is good for the microbiomes in your gut. All roads leading to that point have been taken care of to create a friendly and fascinating documentary.
Genre: Documentary
Actor: Giulia Enders
Director: Anjali Nayar
A character study in the absolute purest sense, Anne at 13,000 Ft. doesn't even have the kind of satisfying closure one would expect from any story, nor does it explain anything about its protagonist's difficult, erratic behavior in the context of mental health. It's an exercise in testing how much empathy a character can earn solely on account of their being a human being having a hard time. Appropriately, the filmmaking on display makes for a deliberately uncomfortable experience, with tension ratcheting up in practically every given situation, enhanced by the fact that director Kazik Radwanski and star Deragh Campbell improvised much of the movie as they were making it.
Genre: Drama
Actor: Deragh Campbell, Dorothea Paas, Helly Chester, Joseph Simon, Lawrene Denkers, Lisa Aitken, Matt Johnson, Michael Kuthe, Suzanne Pratley, Tiffany Blom
Director: Kazik Radwanski
Genre: Animation, Drama, Fantasy
Actor: Adam Goldberg, Alex Jones, Bill Wise, Caveh Zahedi, Charles Gunning, Ethan Hawke, Glover Gill, Jason Liebrecht, Jeanine Attaway, John Christensen, Julie Delpy, Kim Krizan, Lorelei Linklater, Louis Black, Mona Lee Fultz, Nicky Katt, Peter Atherton, Richard Linklater, Steve Brudniak, Steve Fitch, Steven Prince, Steven Soderbergh, Timothy "Speed" Levitch, Trevor Jack Brooks, Wiley Wiggins
Director: Richard Linklater
Vive L'Amour is a slow-building film that dives deep into the loneliness and longing of urban life, weaving together the lives of three lost souls searching for connection and meaning in a bustling city. Though the film's slow pace and minimal dialogue brilliantly convey the characters' inner turmoil, there are times when the (probably purposeful) lack of direction doesn't quite land. You might also find that director Tsai Ming-liang's evocative cinematography does not hold up this sparse yet bloated plot. Still, Vive L'Amour encapsulates the signature solemn air of Taiwanese cinema, presenting a contemplative exploration of human relationships and urban alienation. It may be polarizing, but one thing is for sure: it will leave you introspective and moved by its profound examination of the human condition.
Genre: Drama
Actor: Chen Chao-jung, Lee Kang-sheng, Lu Yi-Ching, Yang Kuei-Mei
Director: Tsai Ming-liang