Best movies like Last Life in the Universe
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
An obsessive-compulsive Japanese librarian living in Bangkok spends most of his days contemplating suicide in his lifeless apartment. His life changes when he witnesses the death of Nid, seconds before he was about to jump off a bridge. This brings him in contact with Nid's elder sister Noi - these two lost and lonely souls help each other find the meaning to their meaningless existences.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Thailand, Japan, Netherlands
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: surreal, atmospheric, lyrical, psychological, serious, art house, dark comedy, romantic, captivating, independent film
Best tv shows and movies like Last Life in the Universe (2003):
Similar in 80%
Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Plot Summary:
A day-in-the-life dark comedy concerning a group of islanders, their respective secrets, and one man's plan to kill himself quietly.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Canada
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, witty, light, feel good, serious, biting, crying, black comedy, dark comedy
Similar in 87%
Ploy (2007)
Plot Summary:
A husband and wife are locked inside a single hotel room with a stranger named Ploy. Subtle suspicions build up to jealousy as the young woman triggers devastating consequences for the couple.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Thailand
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, realistic, captivating, tense, mind bending, serious, contemplative, sexual, erotic
Similar in 78%
The Man Without a Past (2002)
Plot Summary:
The second part of Aki Kaurismäki's "Finland" trilogy, the film follows a man who arrives in Helsinki and gets beaten up so severely he develops amnesia. Unable to remember his name or anything from his past life, he cannot get a job or an apartment, so he starts living on the outskirts of the city and slowly starts putting his life back on track.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 25000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Finland, Germany, France
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: bleak, satirical, black comedy, touching, humorous, semi serious, dark comedy, clever, contemplative, art house
Similar in 80%
Dolls (2002)
Plot Summary:
Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif -- specifically, the kind practiced in Bunraku doll theater performances -- opening each section of his film with a story provided by the puppets and their masters, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Sawako (Miho Kanno), a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter. He initially agrees, causing the unstable Sawako to be committed to a psychiatric hospital. When he leaves his new bride at the altar to save Sawako, however, he realizes that she's so incapable of caring for herself that she needs to be tied to him with a red rope. Inextricably bound, the two wander through Japan, encountering others along the way who have similarly overlooked love for other, more fleeting pleasures: fame, power, money.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Japan
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: surreal, emotional, melancholic, lyrical, romantic, atmospheric, sentimental, bleak, intellectual, depressing
Similar in 84%
Carnage (2002)
Plot Summary:
After a bull is killed in a bullfight, its body parts are transported across Spain, France, Italy and Belgium. The bull's parts fall into the wide variety of people, including: an Italian actress selling the bones in a supermarket promotion, a Spanish woman who dines on its steaks, a little girl in France who imagines a world where animals are much larger than humans, and a taxidermist whose wife is simultaneously giving birth to quintuplets.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 739
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, touching, emotional, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, crying, black comedy, dark comedy
Similar in 79%
Testosterone (2003)
Plot Summary:
Dean has been stumped for some time in his attempt to produce a follow-up to "I was a Teenage Speed Freak," his incredibly successful graphic novel. His fans expect great things from him and his editor, Louise, is hounding him. Instead of working, however, Dean spends his time searching for his Argentine lover Pablo, who went out one night for cigarettes and never came back.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Argentina, USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sentimental, touching, melancholic, erotic, dark comedy, black comedy, queer cinema
Similar in 80%
The Girl on the Bridge (1999)
Plot Summary:
It's night on a Paris bridge. A girl leans over Seine River with tears in her eyes and a violent yearning to drown her sorrows. Out of nowhere someone takes an interest in her. He is Gabor, a knife thrower who needs a human target for his show. The girl, Adele, has never been lucky and nowhere else to go. So she follows him. They travel along the northern bank of the Mediterranean to perform.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: black and white, psychological, touching, humorous, sentimental, stylized, heartbreaking, serious, anthology, postmodern
Similar in 81%
Barry Munday (2010)
Plot Summary:
Barry Munday, a libido-driven wage slave who spends all his time either ogling, fantasizing about or trying to pick up women, wakes up in hospital after a freak attack only to find that his testicles have been removed.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, offbeat, psychological, light, captivating, sentimental, tragicomedy, realistic, independent film
Similar in 87%
Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (2002)
Plot Summary:
The strange comedy film of two close brothers; one, Wilbur, who wants to kill himself, and the other, Harbour, who tries to prevent this. When their father dies leaving them his bookstore they meet a woman who makes their lives a bit better yet with a bit more trouble as well.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Denmark, UK, Sweden, France
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, humorous, black comedy, dark comedy, independent film, offbeat, clever, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 90%
The Good Girl (2002)
Plot Summary:
A discount store clerk strikes up an affair with a stock boy who considers himself the incarnation of Holden Caulfield.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 47000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: USA, Germany, Netherlands
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, realistic, sincere, independent film, melancholic, disturbing, intense, humorous, semi serious, cult classic
Similar in 81%
Chungking Express (1994)
Plot Summary:
Two melancholy Hong Kong policemen fall in love: one with a mysterious female underworld figure, the other with a beautiful and ethereal server at a late-night restaurant he frequents.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 93000
Genere: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Romance
Country: Hong Kong
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, artsy, art house, non-linear, visual, surreal, stylized, cult classic, ambiguous ending, captivating
Similar in 77%
Songs from the Second Floor (2000)
Plot Summary:
A film poem inspired by the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. A story about our need for love, our confusion, greatness and smallness and, most of all, our vulnerability. It is a story with many characters, among them a father and his mistress, his youngest son and his girlfriend. It is a film about big lies, abandonment and the eternal longing for companionship and confirmation.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 20000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: surreal, atmospheric, black comedy, philosophical, art house, disturbing, talky, depressing, melancholic, meditative
Similar in 88%
Up in the Air (2009)
Plot Summary:
George Clooney plays the dry cynical character of Ryan Bingham, an executive who specializes in "downsizing". Ryan lives out of his suitcase, traveling the country for the sole purpose terminating unwanted employees day after day. Just as Ryan is about to reach his life-long goal of the ten million mile frequent flyer mark some major changes come his way. Changes that threaten to crack the cold heartless exterior that is Ryan Bingham.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 347000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: touching, romantic, heartbreaking, emotional, sexy, realistic, thought provoking, humorous, feel good, melancholic
Similar in 88%
Fallen Angels (1995)
Plot Summary:
In this bifurcated crime narrative, a disillusioned hitman attempts to escape from his violent lifestyle against the wishes of his partner, who is infatuated with him, and an eccentric mute repeatedly encounters, then subsequently falls for, a depressed woman looking for the prostitute who supposedly stole her ex-boyfriend's affections.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 48000
Genere: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Hong Kong
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: surreal, atmospheric, visual, neo noir, art house, meditative, mysterious, serious, visually stunning, offbeat
Similar in 83%
Castaway on the Moon (2009)
Plot Summary:
Mr. Kim is jobless, lost in debt and has been dumped by his girlfriend. He decides to end it all by jumping into the Han River - only to find himself washed up on a small, mid-river island. He soon abandons thoughts of suicide or rescue and begins a new life as a castaway. His antics catch the attention of a young woman whose apartment overlooks the river. Her discovery changes both their lives.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 19000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: South Korea
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: touching, philosophical, emotional, psychological, romantic, scenic, art house, atmospheric, sincere, uplifting
Similar in 77%
Kings and Queen (2004)
Plot Summary:
Nora Cotterelle, a woman in her 30s is caring for her ill father, Louis Jenssens. While Nora tries to present a facade that all is well with her life, she is twice divorced and has a son, Elias, whose father is dead. Nora's present relationship is not going well, and she is soon to marry a businessman, while Elias is becoming increasingly withdrawn. A parallel storyline follows her former lover and second husband, Ismaël Vuillard, a musician, with whom she had lived for seven years. He is given to strange behaviour, and as a result he has been committed to a mental hospital, from which he is planning to escape. Nora learns that her father's digestive problems are actually cancer, and facing her father's death, Nora desperately seeks out Ismaël to ask that he reconnect with Elias, but he has mixed feelings about adopting her son. Moreover, he has met Arielle, another patient.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, serious, emotional, clever, realistic, contemplative, talky, gloomy, crying
Similar in 83%
The Skeleton Twins (2014)
Plot Summary:
Estranged twins Maggie and Milo coincidentally cheat death on the same day, prompting them to reunite and confront the reasons their lives went so wrong. As the twins' reunion reinvigorates them, they realize the key to fixing their lives may just lie in repairing their relationship.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 44000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: depressing, melancholic, psychological, dark comedy, emotional, sincere, touching, realistic, indie film, stylized
Similar in 85%
Beginners (2010)
Plot Summary:
A young man is rocked by two announcements from his elderly father: that he has terminal cancer, and that he has a young male lover.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 94000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: touching, sad, emotional, sentimental, sincere, heartbreaking, romantic, visually appealing, indie film, feel good
Similar in 80%
My Life Without Me (2003)
Plot Summary:
A Pedro Almodovar production in which a fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies with out telling her family of her illness.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 26000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Spain, Canada
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: sad, touching, contemplative, romantic, philosophical, sincere, emotional, heartbreaking, depressing, poignant
Similar in 87%
Buffalo '66 (1998)
Plot Summary:
Billy is released after five years in prison. In the next moment, he kidnaps teenage student Layla and visits his parents with her, pretending she is his girlfriend and they will soon marry.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 59000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: black comedy, psychological, dark comedy, art house, cult classic, tense, touching, humorous, depressing, melancholic
Similar in 75%
Harold and Maude (1971)
Plot Summary:
The young Harold lives in his own world of suicide-attempts and funeral visits to avoid the misery of his current family and home environment. Harold meets an 80-year-old woman named Maude who also lives in her own world yet one in which she is having the time of her life. When the two opposites meet they realize that their differences don’t matter and they become best friends and love each other.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 81000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, black comedy, feel good, touching, offbeat, funny, inspirational, depressing, existential, spiritual
Similar in 88%
Warm Water Under a Red Bridge (2001)
Plot Summary:
A newly unemployed salaryman meets a particularly sexual woman.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Country: Japan, France
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: surreal, sexy, erotic, sentimental, sincere, touching, contemplative, art house, humorous, romantic
Similar in 82%
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)
Plot Summary:
Zia, distraught over breaking up with his girlfriend, decides to end it all. Unfortunately, he discovers that there is no real ending, only a run-down afterlife that is strikingly similar to his old one, just a bit worse. Discovering that his ex-girlfriend has also "offed" herself, he sets out on a road trip, with his Russian rocker friend, to find her. Their journey takes them through an absurd purgatory where they discover that being dead doesn't mean you have to stop livin'!.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 57000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: road movie, humorous, independent film, dark comedy, surreal, black comedy, cult classic, contemplative, semi serious, romantic
Similar in 79%
The Science of Sleep (2006)
Plot Summary:
A man entranced by his dreams and imagination is lovestruck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 71000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Country: France, Italy
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: surreal, psychedelic, psychological, philosophical, mind bending, intellectual, meditative, visually appealing, cerebral, mindfuck
Similar in 84%
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)
Plot Summary:
The life you love may be your own.... The wife of a much older man finds herself attracted to their neighbour's son, who is closer to her age.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: melancholic, stylized, emotional, sweet, sentimental, offbeat, romantic, surreal, sex comedy, sensual
Similar in 89%
Lost in Translation (2003)
Plot Summary:
Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 480000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA, Japan
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: melancholic, atmospheric, offbeat, psychological, artsy, emotional, art house, visual, contemplative, heartbreaking
Similar in 90%
Garden State (2004)
Plot Summary:
Andrew returns to his hometown for the funeral of his mother, a journey that reconnects him with past friends. The trip coincides with his decision to stop taking his powerful antidepressants. A chance meeting with Sam - a girl also suffering from various maladies - opens up the possibility of rekindling emotional attachments, confronting his psychologist father, and perhaps beginning a new life.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 222000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, sweet, independent film, funny, melancholic, feel good, realistic, offbeat, emotional
Similar in 82%
Lars and the Real Girl (2007)
Plot Summary:
Extremely shy Lars finds it impossible to make friends or socialize. His brother and sister-in-law worry about him, so when he announces that he has a girlfriend he met on the Internet, they are overjoyed. But Lars' new lady is a life-size plastic woman. On the advice of a doctor, his family and the rest of the community go along with his delusion.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 153000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: touching, psychological, depressing, humorous, melancholic, dark comedy, cute, sweet, indie film, offbeat
Similar in 87%
The Rules of Attraction (2002)
Plot Summary:
The incredibly spoiled and overprivileged students of Camden College are a backdrop for an unusual love triangle between a drug dealer, a virgin and a bisexual classmate.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 53000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA, Germany
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, stylized, melancholic, disturbing, teen, humorous, cult classic, erotic, sexy, philosophical
Similar in 84%
The Wackness (2008)
Plot Summary:
Set in New York City in the sweltering summer, The Wackness tells the story of a troubled teenage drug dealer, who trades pot for therapy sessions with a drug-addled psychiatrist. Things get more complicated when he falls for one of his classmates, who just happens to be the doctors daughter. This is a coming-of-age story about sex, drugs, music and what it takes to be a man.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 31000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, independent film, humorous, semi serious, cult classic, funny, light, psychedelic, feel good