The WorldMovies like The World
- Key Features:
- Social commentary, Urban alienation, Cultural displacement, Infidelity, Existentialism, Globalization, Chinese history, Theme park, Security guard, Dancer, Betrayal, Loss of identity
- Tone:
- serious, restrained
- Target Audience:
- Fans of art house films, Viewers interested in social commentary, Those who enjoy thought-provoking narratives, Audience interested in international cinema
- Emotional Arc:
- Isolation → Desire → Disillusionment
The World

At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing another woman.
The World
Two disaffected, unemployed Chinese youth drift through life on the streets of their industrial town, their paths crossing with that of a local young singer and dancer working for a liquor company as a spokesmodel.

A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.

China’s rapid changes from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, as seen through the lives of four performers in a theater troupe.

A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.

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.

Security guard Pickle and his trash collector friend Belly Button kill time together in night shifts watching the American-educated boss's dash-cam recordings of his various sexual encounters with women. Against the buddies' will, something horrifying rather than erotic reveals.

A group of performing art troupe members each face their own trials and tribulations in Chengdu; from escaping a family scandal to dealing with unrequited love, each experiences rejection that shapes their lives.

Late one evening Alex suddenly abandons his girlfriend, Simone, to pursue the beautiful Aimee. In his encounter with Aimee time and place dissolve for him and he becomes a stranger to Simone, to whom he cannot return.

Jeanne, a shy young woman, works as a night guard at an amusement park and has a close relationship with her mother. While no man can compete with this opposed duo, Jeanne begins to develop strange romantic feelings for Jumbo, the latest attraction at the theme park...

As she does every morning, Lucie takes advantage of her journey to work to lose herself for a while in the pages of a good book. And as she does every morning, she joins her colleagues at the office with a smile. It's a working day just like any other. Then suddenly all activity in the office stops. All attention is turned towards the window of the opposite building opposite and abanner reading: Man Alone. Is it a hoax? A cry for help? Everyone has his own interpretation, and will try, by any means possible, to discover what lies behind this mysterious message.

In the northern Chinese city of Manzhouli, they say there is an elephant that simply sits and ignores the world. Manzhouli becomes an obsession for the protagonists of this film, a longed-for escape from the downward spiral in which they find themselves.

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

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.

During World War II, a secret agent must seduce and assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai.

A prestigious Stockholm museum's chief art curator finds himself in times of both professional and personal crisis as he attempts to set up a controversial new exhibit.

Sunny is a naïve circus performer who dreams of inheriting his father's knife-throwing skills. However, his hostile colleagues continue to bully him, relegating him to a lowly clown. On a tour to Malaysia, Cheung and other performers discover a cave occupied by the Japanese army during World War II. Instead of finding treasure, the performers - including Sunny - are sprayed with a mysterious chemical that turns them into superhuman mutants...

When a border guard with a sixth sense for identifying smugglers encounters the first person she cannot prove is guilty, she is forced to confront terrifying revelations about herself and humankind.

In the suburbs of Rome two very different souls intersect. One is the son of a restaurant owner who disappeared with his lover. The other is a young mysterious woman who has arrived from China in search of her missing sister.

A study of the friendship between a Chinese woman and a fisherman who came to Italy from Yugoslavia many years ago, who live in a small city-island in the Veneto lagoon.

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.

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

When a fellow scientist asks for Jack's help in locating the mausoleum of China's first emperor, the past collides violently with the present as Jack discovers his amazing visions are based in fact.

Dreams and reality collide as a young woman navigates a tumultuous relationship amid rising social tensions, protests and tragedies in Paris.

The narrative portrays a plain man who guides the viewer through his life in a bleakly stylised world.

An aspiring dancer moves to New York City and becomes caught up in a whirlwind of flighty fair-weather friends, diminishing fortunes and career setbacks.

A couple checks into a suite in Las Vegas. In flashbacks we see that he's a computer whiz on the verge of becoming a dot.com millionaire, she's a lap dancer at a club. He's depressed, withdrawing from work, missing meetings with investors. He wants a connection, so he offers her $10,000 to spend three nights with him in Vegas, and she accepts with conditions. Is mutual attraction stirring?

Years into a benevolent alien occupation, mankind is still adjusting to its new overlords. Their technology initially held promise for global prosperity, but rendered most human jobs – and steady income – obsolete. When two teenagers discover the aliens are fascinated with human love and will pay for access to it, they decide to livestream their romance to make extra cash for their families.

A family's getaway to a luxurious rental home takes an ominous turn when a cyberattack knocks out their devices—and two strangers appear at their door.

Murphy is an American living in Paris who enters a highly sexually and emotionally charged relationship with the unstable Electra. Unaware of the seismic effect it will have on their relationship, they invite their pretty neighbor into their bed.

A seventeen-year-old country boy working in Beijing as a courier has his bicycle stolen, and finds it with a schoolboy his age.

After a series of assassinations in Nanking, a Japanese spy master gathers a group of suspects in a mansion, then a tense cat-and-mouse game erupts as the Chinese agent tries to keep his or her identity a secret.

A symphony in three movements. Things such as a Mediterranean cruise, numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday... Our Europe. At night, a sister and her younger brother have summoned their parents to appear before the court of their childhood. The children demand serious explanations of the themes of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Our humanities. Visits to six sites of true or false myths: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona.

When his girlfriend leaves for New York City on a 3-month-long internship, a strongly opinionated Berkeley arthouse movie theater manager begins exploring life as a bachelor.

Hoping to alter the events of the past, a 19th century inventor instead travels 800,000 years into the future, where he finds mankind divided into two warring races.

A nameless drifter navigates a barren landscape punctuated by satellite dishes, radio towers and droning airplanes. Stopping periodically in anonymous hotel rooms, she makes attempts to connect to an unidentified second party.

While traveling, Emmanuelle meets Kei, a man who constantly eludes her. Though she indulges in the many alluring distractions, she can’t shake their chance encounter. Will she submit to her basest desires to forge a deeper relationship?

The lives of residents in an old Cairo building, "The Yacoubian Building," are affected by issues like corruption, extremism, class disparity, and sexuality. Through diverse characters, the film offers a critical examination of Egyptian society.

The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025.

A young man develops severe neck pain after swimming in a polluted river for a movie shoot, but nobody can provide him any relief.

A movie fan escapes from a labour camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and strikes up a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.

A cataclysmic event causes a man, who dreams of winning the lottery, to become stranded on an island with his co-workers.

Various individuals think they’re coming together for a party in a private home, but a series of revelations results in a huge crisis that throws their belief systems – and their values – into total disarray.

A static camera observes a room as it slowly fills with thirty-six characters from different stages of life, looping further through an absurd dance of social disconnection as each character moves in.

A Russian poet, Andrei and his interpreter, Eugenia travel to Italy to research the life of an 18th-century composer.

Liu Xing a brilliant Chinese student, arrives at University and makes the transition into American life with the help of Joanna Silver. Xing joins a cosmology group working to create a model of the origins of the universe. He is obsessed with the study of dark matter and a theory that conflicts with the group's model. When he begins to make breakthroughs of his own, he encounters obstructions.

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

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

Two cops portrayed by Michelin Men chase an armed Ronald McDonald through the streets of a fictionalized, stylized city.

When eighteen-year-old Pasha rescues a beautiful young woman from a band of strangely powerful attackers, he discovers an underworld of supernatural beings living among us.

Three characters living in an unfinished painting venture out into the real world in search of their creator to convince him to finish his work.

A retired bodyguard who has settled into a corner of the world where China, Russia and North Korea meet as he suffers from early dementia finds a new friend in a young girl. When her life is threatened by her father's connection with a local crime lord, .the bodyguard must call upon his long forgotten skills to save her.

A washed-up private security agent has to escort a valuable Chinese antique out of Shanghai but is ambushed en route.

Revolves around Castro, who was once a very famous TV host, but as he grows old, his popularity is dwindling.

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.

A wealthy young man pursues a young woman of modest means, but circumstances often separate them as the years pass.

A cop in Singapore investigates the disappearance of a Chinese migrant construction worker who spent sleepless nights playing a mysterious video game.

After getting out of prison, small-time crook Mardar stumbles upon a woman who looks exactly like his long-lost lover, who he attempted to kidnap 3 years ago.

Based on a novel by the same name written by Gu Hua, a melodrama about the life and travails of a young woman who lives through the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution.

In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs incident, Sergio chooses to stay behind in Cuba while his wife and family escape to neighboring Miami. Alone in a brave new world, Sergio observes the constant threat of foreign invasion while chasing young women all over Havana. He finally meets Elena, a young girl he seeks to mould into the image of his ex-wife, but at what cost to himself?

A communist soldier is sent to a remote region of China in order to collect folk songs. Staying with a peasant family (a widower with two small children), he discovers a community whose way of life is completely alien to him, but he gradually wins their trust…

Agathe Clery, a marketing manager for a cosmetics company, is snobbish, stubborn and racist. When she is diagnosed with Addison Syndrome, an disorder that darkens the pigmentation of one's skin, she suddenly finds herself resembling a black woman.

An elderly gentleman goes for what he assumes will be an ordinary day at the amusement park, only to find himself in the midst of a hellish nightmare.

In an attempt to move on from the death of Paul, the love of her life, Korine leaves Paris to undertake a project in Mongolia. But after meeting the shaman, Oyun, her trip takes a different direction. Korine has a rare gift that Oyun intends to unveil. She agrees to initiate herself in the practice of Shamanism, leading her to discover an ancient and forgotten culture, but most importantly herself.

Follows the tale of a young woman’s sexual awakening and subsequent journey around the world in pursuit of her ideal lover. Encounters include an Arabian sheik and a Spanish bullfighter. Her friend and butler accompany her and help to arrange her couplings.

A teenage skateboarder becomes suspected of being connected with a security guard who suffered a brutal death in a skate park called "Paranoid Park".

After connecting with the shy Madeline, a jazz trumpeter embarks on a quest for a more gregarious paramour, but through a series of twists and turns punctuated by an original score, the two lovers seem destined to be together.

When three friends open a hot pot restaurant in a former bomb shelter, they discover it’s linked by a single wall to the bank vault next door. While deciding to take the easy money or go to the police, they find out one of the bank’s employees is a former classmate and look to enlist her in deciding their future.

A security guard working at an art museum in Vienna crosses paths with a Canadian woman in town to visit her ailing cousin.

Construction worker Oreste and young fiancee Adelaide meet Nello, a cook in a pizzeria. This love triangle often goes to communist rallies, and enjoys the filthy beaches of Ostia. Will the hostile environment pave a way to jealousy?

Pierre, a professional dancer, suffers from a serious heart disease. While he is waiting for a transplant which may (or may not) save his life, he has nothing better to do than look at the people around him, from the balcony of his Paris apartment.

Two young women find themselves struggling to survive in Paris, street-wise Nathalie, a stripper, and naïve Sandrine, a barmaid. Together, they discover that sex can be used to their advantage, and pleasure.

A man and a woman meet in the ruins of post-war Poland. With vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, they are fatally mismatched and yet drawn to each other.

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.

Three parties pursue the million dollars that driver Xiao Zhang stole to help out his girlfriend.

Ottone, a professional dog sitter who's uncertain about most things in life, asks an analyst if he made the right decision love-wise while recounting the significant relationships he had with four women.

Two North Korean soldiers are killed in the border area between North and South Korea, prompting an investigation by a neutral body. The sergeant is the shooter, but the lead investigator, a Swiss-Korean woman, receives differing accounts from the two sides.

Twenty-something Richard travels to Thailand and finds himself in possession of a strange map. Rumours state that it leads to a solitary beach paradise, a tropical bliss - excited and intrigued, he sets out to find it.

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.

Tang Yijie, the Construction Committee Director, falls off from rooftop and dies in a demolition riot. Yang Jiadong, a young police officer starts his investigation and finds that Tang's death is tied up with another case several years ago. Soon he is framed and suspended from duty, but he never gives up.

Victor is a legal advisor who finds himself abandoned by his wife and fired the same day. He tries to seek comfort from different friends and family members, but everyone he meets is concerned with their own problems. His morale begins to falter when he realizes that no one cares about him.

The lives of two Danish families cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud. But loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait.

It's a story of 29-year-old top-manager Max who is really sure he is absolutely successful. All his life is around earning and spending money. But one day he meet a girl who is from another, real, world. And his own world starts to crash down.

A young camgirl discovers that she’s inexplicably been replaced on her site with an exact replica of herself.

In a near-future city where soaring opulence overshadows economic hardship, Gwen and her daughter, Jules, do all they can to hold on to their joy, despite the instability surfacing in their world.

Ma Chenggang, a wealthy man in Xihong City, worries that his eldest son is too spoiled to succeed him. Determined to raise a capable successor, he takes an unconventional approach. They conceal their wealth, moving the family to a dilapidated neighborhood, and maintain an illusion of poverty, so that his son could develop qualities such as hard work, knowledge, careful budgeting, physical fitness, and perseverance.

A virtually plotless, gaudy, impressionistic portrait of Rome through the eyes of one of its most famous citizens.

A comedy that chronicles a chance encounter between Robert and a Chinese named Jun who wanders lost through the city of Buenos Aires in search of his uncle after being assaulted by a taxi driver and his henchmen.

Set in the glamour of the New York and Paris art scenes, gallery owner Brooke Gatwick and her newscaster husband Owen Shore, face temptation, jealousy, twists and mystery when two seductive newcomers enter their lives.

Backed into a corner by mounting debts, a youth agrees to submit himself to a high stakes game of chance in international waters aboard a disused warship.

All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.

A young man drops out of university and goes to the police. He's done nothing wrong he just wants a job. A particular job. Playing the victim in murder reconstructions. Maybe by getting close to death he can manage to cheat on his own.

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.

A man steps out of a park fountain in Ho Chi Minh City with no recollection of who he is or where he came from. As he wanders through the city, piecing together clues to his past, he is relentlessly pursued by mysterious figures.

A love triangle develops between the male and female leads and the director during the making of a musical in Mainland China.

A cashier poses as a writer for blacklisted talents to submit their work through, but the injustice around him pushes him to take a stand.

Four everyday suburban guys come together as an excuse to escape their humdrum lives one night a week. But when they accidentally discover that their town has become overrun with aliens posing as ordinary suburbanites, they have no choice but to save their neighborhood – and the world – from total extermination.

A detective from Hong Kong teams up with an American gambler to battle against a notorious Chinese criminal.

Filip buys an 8mm movie camera when his first child is born. Because it's the first camera in town, he's named official photographer by the local Party boss. His horizons widen when he is sent to regional film festivals with his first works but his focus on movie making also leads to domestic strife and philosophical dilemmas.

