What are the best "slice of life" movies?

Slice of life is a depiction of mundane experiences in art and entertainment. In theater, slice of life refers to naturalism, while in literary parlance it is a narrative technique in which a seemingly arbitrary sequence of events in a character's life is presented, often lacking plot development, conflict, and exposition, as well as often having an open ending.

53 points · 25 comments · view on lemmy.world

25 Comments

HubertManne@piefed.social · 15 pts · 216d

I think clerks would apply. There was even two endings where one was less open.

Brekky@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 216d

Lost in Translation has a lot of seemingly mundane moments.

B0NK3RS@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 216d

Nomadland comes to mind. Something about the whole movie makes it so facinating.

classic@fedia.io · 10 pts · 216d (3 replies)

So many options in Japanese cinema. It's a more common genre there, or so it seems. Nobody Knows comes to mind.

BertramDitore@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 216d (2 replies)

Seconding this. Japanese cinema has this style figured out. A great recent example is Perfect Days. It’s a gorgeous slice of life film with a small but excellent cast. The main character is played by Yakusho Koji (a pretty famous Japanese actor) and he barely has any lines. There’s very little dialogue in the whole film, but it tells a tight and coherent story.

Ilandar@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 216d

Perfect Days imitates the style of Yasujirō Ozu's films. He pioneered this type of filmmaking in Japanese cinema.

classic@fedia.io · 3 pts · 216d

Can't believe Perfect Days didn't pop to mind. On a personal level, a great example of how potent that genre can be

DABDA@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 pts · 216d

Been a while since I've watched it but Kids (1995) might qualify as fitting the category (not sure if it'd be a "best" though).

GreyShuck@feddit.uk · 7 pts · 216d

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) is often considered to be a prime example, I think.

bstix@feddit.dk · 7 pts · 216d

Mike Leigh does movies like that. For instance: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100024/

flabbergast@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 216d
Ilandar@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 216d

Dogs In Space, an Australian film from 1986. Among the cast is Michael.Hutchence, former lead singer of INXS.

It's about a bunch of young people sharing a house in the suburbs of Melbourne. It has no real story, although from memory it culminates in a big house party scene. It's shot in a pretty unique way where the camera just wanders throughout the house and there are constantly things happening. Conversations sort of start and stop abruptly as the camera wanders around so you have to piece together the different snippets to develop an idea of who these different people are. Watching it sometimes feels like you're a silent housemate of these people, just observing their chaotic lives.

standarduser@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 216d (1 reply)

Would stranger than fiction count?

LuigiMaoFrance@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 216d

Jim Jarmusch's movies (and Clerks) were the first thing I thought of too. Night on Earth and Mystery Train are my favorites.

statler_waldorf@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 216d

Good Morning

It's a cute movie about little boys refusing to speak because their parents won't let them watch the neighbor's TV. Set in a suburban Tokyo neighborhood in post-war Japan.

TachyonTele@piefed.social · 3 pts · 216d (1 reply)

There's a movie with Phillip s. Hoffman and he's just huffing paint the entire time.

SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world · 3 pts · 216d

Wasn’t that just a documentary?

Maven@piefed.zip · 3 pts · 215d

Recently I loved Perfect Days which is mostly about a guy who just wants to clean toilets while people keep bothering him.

Its super cute and lovely and extremely extremely simple yet a really good watch.

SynAcker@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 216d (1 reply)

Gummo. That movie confuses me still to this day how it got made.

flabbergast@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 216d

One of my favorite movies ever!

thews@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 216d (1 reply)

The Castle (1997)

NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 215d

Yep, though it does have a through-line plot it’s very much in this genre.

flabbergast@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 216d
glups@piefed.social · 2 pts · 216d

EO. Bits of people's lives in Poland, told through the eyes of a donkey

Triumph@fedia.io · 1 pts · 216d

Slacker (this is the pure winner, there are no contenders) Twenty Bucks Chicago Cab