This piece explores ten “slice of life” films where very little happens in a conventional plot sense, yet everything happens emotionally. From Before Sunrise and Aftersun to My Neighbour Totoro and Perfect Days, it celebrates quiet narratives, ambiguous moments, and everyday rituals, arguing that the real magic lies in contemplation, memory, and the viewer’s own meaning-making.
There is a common misconception that film buffs like watching "slow" films with a non-linear plot because it makes them look smarter. That might account for part of the reason why they indulge in such films, but there's a lot more to where that preference comes from.
I personally believe that the most enduring aspect of these films is how they refuse to walk the watcher through every tiny bit of the film: the characters' feelings, why the setting is the right choice, what every moment is supposed to mean.
There is beauty in leaving spaces blank between the lines for the viewer to fill in and make sense of for themselves. These films leave you with contemplative questions, tucked inside narratives that are often ambiguous. Try watching a film where no one is trying to trick you into staying with shock value, and you'll rediscover the joy of meaning-making.
If there were ever a poster child for films where "nothing really happens," it would be Richard Linklater's ‘Before’ trilogy. Something draws the two protagonists to each other on a train. He's an American backpacking through Europe, she's a French student on her way back to Paris. They strike up a conversation that neither of them is in a hurry to end, so instead of parting ways, they decide to spend one day wandering through Vienna together. You want them to end up together desperately, but the film teaches you to let go of that ask altogether, and draws you into the tiny details that make Jesse and Céline who they are. Linklater makes you feel like a fly on the wall, in the best way possible.
Where to watch: Prime Video
Charlotte Wells places us on a holiday in Turkey with 11-year-old Sophie and her father, Calum. They swim, wander through old ruins, film each other on a camcorder, play pool, and awkwardly sing karaoke to Losing My Religion. What Aftersun understands so beautifully is that growing up often means revisiting memories with an entirely new pair of eyes. Sophie experiences the holiday as a daughter. We experience it alongside her as adults, recognising the parts of Calum that she couldn't possibly have understood at eleven. The film is interested in showing how impossible it is to ever fully know the people we love.
Where to watch: Prime Video
A husband and wife work opposite shifts in Kolkata, barely crossing paths despite living under the same roof. Most of the film follows them through the rituals of their separate days.There's barely any dialogue, yet you never feel like you're missing anything. The film finds extraordinary tenderness in repetition. A break away from grand declarations, it reminds us that love doesn't always have to feel like a high. Sometimes it exists within labour, in care that has become second nature. A packed lunch left on the table, clothes folded before the other returns home, a meal prepared after a long shift—these are its love letters.
Where to watch: Prime Video
A cosy children's film that understood the beauty of slowing down would be My Neighbour Totoro. Two sisters move to the Japanese countryside with their father while their mother recovers in hospital. They spend their days exploring forests, waiting at bus stops in the rain, collecting acorns, and letting their imaginations run wild. There is no villain to defeat or grand adventure to chase in this 1988 animation. The joy lies in watching the sisters exist and finding wonder in ordinary days and in each other's company.
Where to watch: Netflix
Set against the bright chaos of Tokyo, the film follows two people at completely different stages of life who happen to cross paths when they're both feeling untethered. What grows between them is difficult to define, and the film takes its time with it. I'd watch a Sofia Coppola film for the visuals and costume design alone, but this one gives you an unusually tender dynamic as a bonus.
Where to watch: Netflix
What makes Boyhood so remarkably authentic is Richard Linklater's decision to film it over the course of twelve years with the same cast. As Mason grows older, so do his parents. Relationships begin and end, the family moves from house to house, and ambitions change. Linklater's goal was to make you feel like you've lived alongside someone for twelve years. It leaves you contemplating the lives we inherit, the choices we make, and if the two can ever truly be separated.
Where to watch: Netflix
Frances Ha is about feeling like everyone else has received the manual to adulthood except you. Frances is an aspiring dancer in New York, constantly moving apartments, jobs, and friendships, never quite finding solid ground. There isn't a singular goal she's chasing or a conflict she's trying to overcome. Instead, we simply follow her through a phase of life that seems wonderful in all its directionlessness. Shot in luminous black and white, the film carries an effortless charm that makes uncertainty feel romantic.
Where to watch: Netflix
A life can look almost identical from one day to the next and still never repeat itself. That's the revelation at the heart of Perfect Days. Hirayama spends his mornings tending to plants, his afternoons cleaning Tokyo's public toilets, and his evenings with books and old cassette tapes. Nothing remarkable interrupts his routine, yet every day seems to uncover something slightly different.
Where to watch: Prime Video (rent)