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Past Lives

Past Lives

Drama · Romance · 2023

After decades apart, childhood friends Nora and Hae Sung are reunited in New York for one fateful weekend as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life.

Movie details

Past Lives

2023 Drama · Romance 1h 46m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

7.7 / 10

Community rating

After decades apart, childhood friends Nora and Hae Sung are reunited in New York for one fateful weekend as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Past Lives?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Forever First Love

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Paul travels the world to capture the perfect photographic moment. Amid the colour and chaos of a crowded Filipino market, destiny intervenes when Paul’s first love, Anna appears in his lens. The travellers spend the day exploring the beauty of a 16th century town and whilst passions reignite, their principles on relationships, religion and morality clash. The night they spend together will change everything.

The Sun Is Also a Star

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Romance · 2019

Two young New Yorkers begin to fall in love over the course of a single day, as a series of potentially life-altering meetings loom over their heads - hers concerning her family’s deportation to Jamaica, and his concerning an education at Dartmouth.

West Side Story

West Side Story

Crime · 1961

In Manhattan’s Upper West Side, rival gangs of Polish-Americans and newly arrived Puerto Ricans clash for control of the neighborhood, even as two young members from opposite sides fall dangerously in love.

Elena Undone

Elena Undone

Drama · 2010

The wife of a pastor who preaches against homosexuality embarks on an affair with a female writer.

Here

Here

Drama · 2024

An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Romance · 2015

In 1950s Ireland and New York, young Eilis Lacey has to choose between two men and two countries.

A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate

A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate

Drama · 1923

When Marie St. Clair believes she has been jilted by her artist fiance Jean, she decides to leave for Paris on her own. After spending a year in the city as a mistress of the wealthy Pierre Revel, she is reunited with Jean by chance. This leaves her with the choice between a glamorous life in Paris, and the true love she left behind.

August Rush

August Rush

Family · 2007

Evan, a musically gifted orphan, runs away from his orphanage and searches New York City for his birth parents. On his journey, he's taken under the wing of the Wizard, a homeless man who lives in an abandoned theater. After discovering his talent, the Wizard gives Evan the name "August Rush" and devises a plan to profit from his talent. Little does Evan know that his parents, Lyla and Louis, are searching for him too.

Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Celine Song

Written by

Celine Song

Greta Lee

Greta Lee

Nora

Teo Yoo

Teo Yoo

Hae Sung

John Magaro

John Magaro

Arthur

Moon Seung-ah

Moon Seung-ah

Young Nora

Leem Seung-min

Leem Seung-min

Young Hae Sung

Yoon Ji-hye

Yoon Ji-hye

Nora's Mom

Choi Won-young

Choi Won-young

Nora's Dad

Court is in session

Put Past Lives on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.