Popular reviews

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  Review by David Sims ★★★★½ 5

  the kinda movie that makes you want to sit down and write a book about your life

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★★

  Of all the writers retreats in all the summer towns in all of New York, he had to walk into hers. As the sun fades on a perfect Montauk night — setting the stage for a first kiss that, like so many of the most resonant moments in Celine Song’s transcendent “Past Lives,” will ultimately be left to the imagination — Nora (Greta Lee) tells Arthur (John Magaro) about the Korean concept of In-Yun, which suggests that people are destined to meet one another if their souls have overlapped a certain number of times before. When Arthur asks Nora if she really believes in all that, the Seoul-born woman sitting across from him invitingly replies that it’s just “something Korean…

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  Review by Matt Neglia ★★★★½ 3

  PAST LIVES tells a profound story of fate, regret & the invisible forces that pull us together even when we’re worlds apart. Such a personal, heartfelt story that goes deep & gently touches your soul. An achingly beautiful directorial debut from Celine Song with three complex & relatable performances from Greta Lee, Teo Yoo & John Magaro that defy convention & capture something modern and genuine. Really impressed with Song’s command over tone, character & story. A major new and exciting filmmaking voice has arrived. Can’t wait for the rest of the world to see this.

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  Review by Brother Bro ★★★★★ 3

  A soulful and incredibly moving portrait of relationships, and of coming and going. The script was honest and true to its characters as they confront questions bigger than themselves. All three leads stole my heart. Took its time setting up the premise in the first half, but by the end it seemed to have nearly the whole audience in tears. This is going to feel deeply meaningful and personal to many. Easy contender for best film of the year.

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  Review by cece ★★★★★ 5

  i am a changed person (i watched the trailer)

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  Review by AmandaTheJedi ★★★★½

  A beautifully unique approach to a core story we’ve seen before

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  Review by Jason Bailey ★★★★½ 5

  You know that thing Ebert said about how the movies that make you cry hardest aren’t the ones where sad things happen, but where people are good? Anyway

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  Review by shookone ★★★★

  cinema of modesty, decency and humanism. time encapsulates memories, the romantic ideal shapes our desires, having the broader view (hence, here: a buddhist one) helps overcoming hurtful facts and eases the pain.

  what i most like about this calm and sedated film shaped out of friendliness is the triangulation that secretly makes the third person to the protagonist in the key moment (which admittedly could also have a lot to do with my white, western, male view).

  in different times there's a good chance that this could be a small film drowning in the arthouse circuit. having a momentum these days (luckily). don't think it's a masterpiece, but a very sweet and humble movie.

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  Review by Robert Daniels ★★★★½

  Still thinking about Celine Song’s acutely rendered PAST LIVES. A perfect script, and an assured lens keeps you suspended in awe. Greta Lee is fantastic (as is John Magaro). But Yoo Teo gives an immaculate performance, fluctuating through different levels and kinds of tensions that ultimately build to three devastating words.

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  Review by Brian Tallerico ★★★★½

  As lovely as you’ve heard. A confident character study about connection and what we leave behind. Feels major.

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  Review by BrandonHabes ★★★★ 9

  My wife and I met at a strange social gathering I'm too embarrassed to recount, and it led to an even stranger long-distance relationship that lasted for six-months over Skype. During that time we talked about books and movies, travel and family, roads taken and not taken, and we did so with the unspoken longing of two birds falling in the mood for love. One might say our relationship (or friendship at the time) eased into a daily routine filled with texts, emails, and nightly video chats. It was always affectionate yet ravined by an unavoidable distance. Interestingly, because of that 713 mile distance, Melissa cut things off during that time at least once, for about a week, and that…

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  Review by Jack Hewitt ★★★★½

  Those cognisant of Richard Linklater and his Texas based melancholies will perhaps draw comparisons between Celine Song’s Berlinale debut Past Lives and his Before Trilogy, inasmuch suggesting Song has packaged the same yearning, love, melancholy and cosmic grace into a neat, A24 sized bundle. It’s no secret Song is inspired by Linklater, Chantal Akerman or Noah Baumbach, nonetheless their semiotics are operating on different levels. Song is far less concerned with chance encounter or decision but inevitability; elevated by the, ahem, past lives that make up the one we’re living now.

  “I want to giver her one last memory.” Nora, then Seung Ah Moon, 12, is on a date with her childhood sweetheart, Hae Sung. Jump cut. 12 years pass.…