Cities of Last ThingsMovies like Cities of Last Things
- Key Features:
- Non-linear narrative, Crime, Revenge, Redemption, Social commentary, Urban decay, Fate, Tragedy, Betrayal, Violence-moderate
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, cynical
- Target Audience:
- Film festival enthusiasts, Arthouse cinema lovers, Fans of non-linear storytelling
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Despair → Acceptance
Cities of Last Things

Three key events during three different time periods, in three seasons, and on three nights culminate to change the life of Zhang Dong Ling.
Cities of Last Things
An embittered law student commits a brutal double murder; a family man takes the fall and is forced into a harsh prison sentence; a mother and her two children wander the countryside looking for some kind of redemption.

Following the incident in the Southeast Asia Union in 2116, Shinya Kogami resumes his vagrant journey. In a small South Asian nation, Kogami rescues a bus of refugees under attack by armed guerrilla forces. Among the refugees is a young lady by the name of Tenzin, who begs Kogami to teach her how to retaliate against the enemy. Just what does the girl who wishes for revenge and the man who has exacted revenge see as they gaze upon the edge of a world from which there is no escape?

An alcoholic man and his two young children barely survive in Taipei. They cross paths with a lonely grocery clerk who might help them make a better life.

Witek runs after a train. Three variations follow on how such a seemingly banal incident could influence the rest of Witek's life.

Women enter and exit a science fiction author's life over the course of a few years after the author loses the woman he considers his one true love.

A dark comedy about a murder and its consequences presented in a backwards manner, where death is actually a rebirth. The film starts with an "execution" of the main protagonist and goes back to explore his previous actions and motivations.

A climax of brutality and violence after a young man hits some cars in a rush.

A young woman urgently seeks to navigate the maze of contemporary Taipei and find a future. She hopes that her boyfriend Lung is the key to the future, but Lung is stuck in a past that combines baseball and traditional loyalty that leads him to squander his nest egg bailing her father out of financial trouble.

An anthology consisting of three horror shorts from different Asian directors: Memories by Kim Jee-woon, The Wheel by Nonzee Nimibutr, and Going Home by Peter Chan.

After getting mixed up with a dangerous crime syndicate, an undercover cop wakes up to discover he is missing his partner, his wife, and three days of his life.

A mysterious epidemic spreads across the planet. Humanity develops an irrational fear of open spaces that causes instant death. Soon, the world population is trapped inside buildings. As Barcelona descends into chaos, Marc sets off on a quest to find Julia, his missing girlfriend, without ever going outside.

Veteran detective Cham works with rookie cop Will to hunt down the city's serial killer. The investigation leads them to a lair littered with dismembered female limbs, and an ex-con who killed Cham's wife and child years ago...

Best buddies Acerola and Laranjinha, about to turn 18, discover things about their missing fathers' pasts which will shatter their solid friendship, in the middle of a war between rival drug gangs from Rio's favelas.

An unemployed Brit vents his rage on unsuspecting strangers as he embarks on a nocturnal London odyssey.

Paul Rivers, an ailing mathematician lovelessly married to an English émigré; Christina Peck, an upper-middle-class suburban housewife and mother of two girls; and Jack Jordan, a born-again ex-con, are brought together by a terrible accident that changes their lives.

A drama that follows three adults during a single day in New York, one filled with sex, drugs, and indecision.

Jacek climbs into the taxi driven by Waldemar, tells him to drive to a remote location, then brutally strangles him, seemingly without motive.

Vicky recalls her romances with her exes Hao Hao and Jack in the neon-lit clubs of Taipei.

Follows the lives of three families who live in a three-story building in a Roman neighbourhood.

A man lurks the night alleys, killing people at random, he feels nothing, no emotion, and no pain; when he meets a graceful widow he must confront what it means to be human.

A man struggles with the tragic memories of his past to make sense of his present, but soon realizes that time isn't the enemy he thinks it is.

The human city of Zion defends itself against the massive invasion of the machines as Neo fights to end the war at another front while also opposing the rogue Agent Smith.

A polyptych of interconnected stories in different time-zones, shifting between a Yunnan village, a campus, and the Gobi Desert.

Two cops, R and Noma, hunt down renegade cyborgs. Cyborgs are used as commandos by the military, as lust objects and for companionship. Normaly they have a limited lifespan of three years but black market technology is being developed to be able to transfer a cyborg's artificial intelligence into human host. This drives R to find a suitable host for his expiring cyborg Ria.

A troubled actor, a television show runner, and an acclaimed videogame designer find their lives intertwining in mysterious and unsettling ways.

The aging Zhao embarks on his final and greatest campaign, a road to adventure that will crown his name in glory for all time.

Hong Kong's three notorious thieves who have never met one another before appear in the same restaurant. This leads to a rumour that they are joining forces to pull off something big before the Handover, though this is not something that any of them.

A look at modern-day life in China's capital centered on a ménage-a-quatre involving a young woman, her boss, her husband and her boss's wife.

The film tells different stories in a kind of parallel Germany about love, affection and hatred.

A street vendor with a grim home-life forges a connection with a young woman on her way to Paris.

In Hollywood, the lives of a successful film producer, his wife, a police detective and a surveillance agent intersect after a botched abduction.

On a Tokyo dump’s shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who “drives” an imaginary trolley, a homeless father and son designing a dream house, a young woman brutalized at home, drunks, schemers, and saints of small kindnesses. Kurosawa crafts a ragged mosaic of hardship, fantasy, and flickers of grace that keep people moving forward.

A con-team couple head west after taking a city businessman for his BMW. But an encounter with a naive young carpenter traveling home with his life savings challenges their fate as thieves.

An uncompromising look into urban life from the eyes of a voyeuristic photographer, a rebellious teenager, and a married couple teetering on the edge of adultery.

After serving six years for killing his schoolmate, a young man learns that someone is out for revenge.

Features an anthology centred on the experiences of a witch doctor, a film-maker and a disgruntled extra determined to take revenge on him, and a novelist as well as her twin sister.

Twenty years after tragedy cut their graduation trip short, four friends return to that destination to finish what they started in 1980. However, as they find out, you can't repeat the past.

Having spent years in prison, Franz Maurer is released and goes out into a new Poland, where nothing is as he remembered it to be. Who and what is waiting for the man who, for the last 25 years... hasn’t been doing anything? How will he find himself in a world where old principles and loyalty have ceased to exist? We will get to know that when fate reunites Franz and “Nowy”. Their meeting will change everything.

Ilya Goryunov has spent seven years in prison on false charges of drug trafficking. When Ilya is free he realizes that the old life that he yearned for is no more. Although he did not intend to take revenge on the man who sent him to prison, now there is no other way out.

When an evil emperor executes their leader, his band of knights – bound by duty and honour – embarks on a journey of vengeance that will not come to an end until they've destroyed their mortal foe.

A revenge mission becomes a fight to save the world from an ancient threat when superpowered assassin Kai tracks a killer to Bangkok.

The story of a loving couple who struggles to keep its relationship alive against the inescapable passing of time, told in a nonlinear way over the course of ten years in their lives.

The story of a family embroiled in the "White Terror," the Kuomintang government's anti-communist political repression that was wrought on the Taiwanese people from 1947-1987.

A small town pickpocket whose friends have moved on to higher trades finds himself bitter and unable to adapt.

Police inspector and excellent hostage negotiator Ho Sheung-Sang finds himself in over his head when he is pulled into a 72 hour game by a cancer suffering criminal out for vengeance on Hong Kong's organized crime syndicates.

Ouyang Feng is a heartbroken and cynical man who spends his days in the desert, connecting expert swordsmen with those seeking revenge and willing to pay for it. Throughout five seasons in exile, Ouyang spins tales of his clients' unrequited loves and unusual acts of bravery.

A depressed housewife who learns her husband was killed in a car accident the day previously, awakens the next morning to find him alive and well at home, and then awakens the day after to a world in which he is still dead.

The final showdown, and the final reveal. who is Friend? How can he be stopped?

A pig farmer, a busboy, a salon owner, an expat architect and a jaded rich girl cross paths as thousands of dead pigs float down the Yangtze River toward Shanghai.

Marino Pacileo has a soft spot for gambling. When he discovers that Lila's father, the young Chinese girl that he is in love with cannot pay a debt, the gambler steals money from the jail he is in to help the love of his life.

A policeman gets killed and the short-staffed police chief sends for a few experienced officers to support him in his fight with organized crime. Meanwhile, a conflict between local gangster groups escalates.

Three lonely young denizens of Taipei unknowingly share an apartment: May, a real estate agent who uses it for her sexual affairs; Ah-jung, her current lover; and Hsiao-kang, who's stolen the key and uses the apartment as a retreat.

First there was Kidulthood then Adulthood now comes Noel Clarkes last installment brotherhood With Sam facing up to the new world he realizes it also comes with new problems and new challenges that he must face that he knows will require old friends to help him survive new dangers.

Car genius Lino returns to conclude his vendetta against Areski and the corrupt commander who ruined their lives in this turbo-charged trilogy finale.

A harsh young man seduces a freeloading young woman and eventually takes advantage of her knack for hitchhiking to rob middle-class men.

Many thousands of years in the future, Earth’s cities roam the globe on huge wheels, devouring each other in a struggle for ever diminishing resources. On one of these massive traction cities, the old London, Tom Natsworthy has an unexpected encounter with a mysterious young woman from the wastelands who will change the course of his life forever.

While Yeung Kam Wing is trying to remove all connections between the mob and him, his actions are being carefully observed by Lau Kin Ming, who bears a personal grudge against him.

A retired assassin's past catches up with him and his brutality surfaces as he goes on a final killing spree to make things right.

The story of Hong Kong, from New Year's Day to June 30th, 1997, when the British left their colony and turned it over to the People's Republic of China.

A retired businesswoman – who tries to control everything around her – decides to write her own obituary. A young journalist takes up the task of finding out the truth, and the result is a life-altering friendship.

In the not-too-distant future, as a final response to crime and terrorism, the U.S. government plans to broadcast a signal that will make it impossible for anyone to knowingly break the law.

Many years ago Mr. Six was a notorious gangster. That was back when there was still such a thing as honour among thieves, when criminals earned respect and maintained principles. These days Mr. Six is all but forgotten, a living relic residing in a narrow alley. One day Six's son, Xiaobo, is abducted by some spoiled punks after he scratches their precious Ferrari. Mr. Six realizes that he must do whatever it takes to get his son back — even if that means returning to the life he thought he had left behind.

The lives of the tenants of a lower-class apartment building in the outskirts intersect on a backdrop of crime, drug dealing, confused feelings and tainted relationships, in a lucid portrait of contemporary Rome. Marcello, a bisexual former body builder married with Chiara, has an affair with the bourgeois professor Walter; the ambitious Mauro and cold-blooded dealer and his wife Simona get involved in the ambiguous business of the local boss Carmine to move up to the elegant and cruel circles of central Rome that profit from the public funds for the disadvantaged; Valeria and her son Attilio, Flaminia and her violent husband Bruno face the daily difficulties of their troubled lives. The corrupted powers of urban speculation invade a suspended corner of the suburbs, contaminating the lives of a group of lost souls,revealing the desperate world of the slum and the pitiless scene of the city center as the hidden face of the same coin.

When a handful of settlers survive an Apache attack on their wagon train they must put their lives into the hands of Comanche Todd, a white man who has lived with the Comanches most of his life and is wanted for the murder of three men.

A young couple is pushed to the limits of sanity as they attempt to be reunited amid the chaos of a pandemic outbreak. The streets erupt into violence and depravity, as those infected are driven to enact the most cruel and ghastly things imaginable.

A disgraced ex-cop seeks solace by moving to the woods, but his quiet life comes to an end when a private eye recruits him to investigate the murder of an eccentric TV star's wife.

A washed-up Marseilles cop (Auteuil) earns a chance at redemption by protecting a woman from the man who killed her parents as he is about to be released from prison.

Following his release from a brutal stretch in prison for crimes he didn't commit, Mo is struggling to adapt to life on the outside. When his world collides with Doris, a mysterious woman with a violent past, he decides to risk his newfound freedom to keep her in his life.

Three stories about persons forced to think about the ethics and moral issues raised by medical advances.

A man is framed for murder by his drug-dealing best friend who covets his girlfriend, leading to eight years in jail and a vow of revenge upon release.

A former Los Angeles drug dealer moves far away to Texas, making a new life for himself as a married architect in the suburbs. His old crime partner unexpectedly shows up with heroin and gangster business, attracting a slew of violent unsavory characters.

Giulia and Carlo have been happy together for three years, but Giulia's announcement that she is pregnant sends him into a secret panic. Terrified at his imminent entry into the adult world of irreversible responsibilities, Carlo finds himself tempted by a bewitching 18-year-old girl, Francesca, whom he meets by chance at a wedding. The possibility of one last youthful crazy fling before the impending prison of parenthood proves to be too attractive to resist.

A man trying to get home to his dog becomes stuck in a time loop that forces him to relive a deadly run-in with a cop.

Ryunosuke, a gifted swordsman plying his trade during the turbulent final days of Shogunate rule, has no moral code and kills without remorse. It’s a way of life that leads to madness.

A former policeman turns full-time robber and goes on a downward spiral of crime in 1970s Rome.

On the night before retirement, police lieutenant Amore has to investigate the off-duty death of his longtime partner, who fell victim of a shady scheme Amore himself was secretly part of.

Prompted by the death of his father and the grief of his mother, a man recalls the story of how they met in flashback.

A man becomes haunted by his past and is presented with a mysterious legacy that causes him to re-think his current situation in life.

A detective accidentally kills a man and disposes of the body to protect his career. The next day he sees that someone has hanged the corpse from a crane for all to see. He takes charge of the murder investigation to protect himself and find out who did it.

Hardened criminal Maggie Hayward's consistent violence, even in police custody, ends in the execution chamber. However, top-secret US government agent 'Bob' arranges a staged death, so Maggie can be elaborately trained as a phantom killer and subdued into obedience.

In three separate segments, set respectively in 1966, 1911, and 2005, three love stories unfold between three sets of characters, under three different periods of Taiwanese history and governance.

Framed for his family's murder and left for dead, an ex-hitman will stop at nothing to exact revenge on the masked "demons" who have taken over his city.

In post-apocalyptic Yokohama, a hard-boiled cop and a mellowed out drifter hook up with a gang of rebels. When the gang kidnap the cop's son, the wheels are set in motion for an inevitable showdown.

Thomas, a father in his fifties, returns by chance to the town where he grew up. He collapses and wakes up forty years earlier in the body of his teenage self. Thrown back into his past, Thomas will not only have to re-live his first love, but also try to understand the reasons for his father’s mysterious departure. Can you change the past by living it again?

In a broken city rife with injustice, ex-cop Billy Taggart seeks redemption and revenge after being double-crossed and then framed by its most powerful figure, the mayor. Billy's relentless pursuit of justice, matched only by his streetwise toughness, makes him an unstoppable force - and the mayor's worst nightmare.

When a man's best friend is killed on the streets of New York, he transforms into a violent killer, turning New York into a war zone.

A young assassin is sent to kill a retired mob boss. But things get complicated when she begins to like him.

New York City factory worker Eddie Marino is a solid citizen and regular guy, until the day a sadistic street gang brutally assaults his wife and murders his child. When a corrupt judge sets the thugs free, he goes berserk and vows revenge.

"The human whose name is written in the Death Note shall die." After making the hardest decision ever, another serious case confronts L. There are only 23 days left and without his best partner Watari, L has to solve the case all by himself for the very first time.

As the end approaches inexorably, the last humans, living millions of years into the future, send a message to the humanity of the present that is both a plea for help and a warning, but also an epic tale of evolution, decline and hope.

Following the passing of his father, Aaron Hammond returns to his hometown to help his devastated mother and to confront his past demons. Sifting through his father’s belongings, Aaron comes upon a mysterious item that is far more than it seems.

71 scenes revolving around multiple Viennese residents who are by chance involved with a senseless gun slaughter on Christmas Eve.

The last wish of the dying "Monk" is for his foster child, Harald, to find his real son, Ludvig. But the latter is currently in a Swedish prison cell...

Follows a police tactical unit during one dangerous night on the streets of Hong Kong as they try to recover a cop's stolen gun. Things turn deadly when they run into a web of gangland crimes.

A devious femme fatale steals her husband’s drug money and hides out in a small town where she meets the perfect dupe for her next scheme.




