Movie · 2023 · Drama, Romance · 1h 46m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 9.3/10 (1.8M ratings)
Overview
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.
Ratings
Curator score: 9.3/10
IMDb: 7.8/10
Letterboxd: 4.16/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
Metacritic: 94
TMDB: 7.7/10
Director
Celine Song
Production
A24, Killer Films, 2AM, CJ ENM
Cast
Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro, Moon Seung-ah, Leem Seung-min, Yoon Ji-hye, Choi Won-young, An Min-young, Seo Yeon-woo, Chang Ki-ha, Shin Hee-cheol, Park Jun-hyuk, Jack Alberts, Jane Yubin Kim, Noo Ri Song, Si Ah Jin, Yoon Seo Choi, Hwang Seung-eon, Jojo T. Gibbs, Emily Cass McDonnell
Curator Review
Verdict
A quietly devastating romantic drama about memory, immigration, and the lives we don’t choose. It’s emotionally precise, beautifully acted, and more interested in the ache of possibility than in melodrama.
Best for
viewers who like restrained, adult romance
fans of reflective films about identity and time
people drawn to immigrant and cross-cultural stories
audiences who prefer emotional understatement over big plot turns
Skip if
you want a conventional love triangle
you need high drama or constant conflict
you dislike slow, contemplative pacing
you prefer romances with a clear, cathartic ending
Overview
Past Lives is a film of glances, pauses, and the things people cannot quite say to one another. Celine Song turns a simple premise into something intimate and expansive, tracing how childhood bonds can survive in memory even when real life has moved on. The result is tender, precise, and quietly heartbreaking without ever feeling manipulative.
Worth noting
What makes it resonate is its patience. The film understands that longing is not always about wanting someone back; sometimes it is about measuring the distance between the person you were and the person you became. Greta Lee gives the story its emotional center, while the film’s structure lets each character feel like a possible life rather than a fixed symbol.
Bottom line
This is a romance for people who like their love stories complicated by time, geography, and self-knowledge. It lingers because it refuses easy answers, and because it treats ordinary conversation as a place where entire futures can be felt and lost.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Jay (4★) · 81625 likes
found a version without subtitles, to get the full arthur experience
Bobby Wagner (4★) · 54633 likes
telling your long lost friend and potential lover to watch eternal sunshine is an act of emotional violence
Patrick Willems (4★) · 52306 likes
Shoutout to the husband for being shockingly chill about this whole situation
cinema excelsior (4.5★) · 34183 likes
Adding the — You dream in a language that I can't understand to my own depressing cinematic universe that already includes hits like:
— I love you. It'll pass. — Feelings can creep up just like that.— I'll go. And I'll stay.— I think it's nice that we share the same sky.