It's often said that drama is the spice of life, and when it comes to movies, it's hard not to agree. Who doesn't love heart-pounding suspense, clashing armies, car chases, demonic possessions, and everything else that keeps us coming back to theaters? But sometimes it can be refreshing to look at something more recognizable. While most of us will never fight aliens or travel through time, we all know how banal life can be. Routines, schedules, the boring day-to-day experience of ordinary life - the movies on this list show just how mundane life can be.
8 Paterson (2016)
Paterson is a film without any dramatic flair. It is a true slice-of-life film, offering a beautiful snapshot of a married couple living quietly in suburban America. Adam Driver stars as Paterson, a bus driver (no pun intended) for the town of Paterson, New Jersey. In his spare time he is a poet; someone who loves the work of William Carlos Williams and who composes experimental hymns on matchsticks. Worldly? Certainly. But it's so charming that you won't mind the lack of conflict.
7 My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999)
While many Studio Ghibli films take us on fantastic, fairytale adventures, My neighbours, the Yamadas is only about the daily life of a normal family. What it lacks in imagination it makes up for in comedic effect. It's also relatable, as we can all identify with the challenges of growing up and maintaining relationships. The lives of the Yamadas are certainly mundane, but that's exactly what makes them speak to us.
6 Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Directed by the legendary Coen brothers, Inside Llewyn Davis is more restrained and much less violent than most of their work. At its core, it's a winding odyssey through the folk music world of 1960s New York (more on that in the New Yorker). Llewyn Davis (played by Oscar Isaac) is no Bob Dylan, but he would certainly like to be a modest star. Unfortunately, things often go wrong for poor Mr. Davis, and success of any kind constantly eludes him. The movie features low-level music industry disputes and the challenges of paying rent like a starving artist, but it's profound and deliberately dull.
5 Another Round (2020)
Other round quite different from the other movies on this list. Directed by Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg and starring the great Mads Mikkelsen, it begins with four schoolteachers whose everyday life has exhausted them. Martin (played by Mikkelsen) is particularly downtrodden: he bores his students; his marriage has lost its luster and his relationship with his children is strained. So Martin and his colleagues decide to drink alcohol every weekday - enough alcohol to maintain a BAC of 0.05% or higher (according to the BBC). But what begins as a short-term successful experiment becomes increasingly destructive as they build tolerance and increase consumption. Sometimes rebelling against the mundane goes wrong.
4 Minari (2020)
Minari revolves around a Korean family who move from California to a piece of farmland in Arkansas. The transition from coastal to rural life is a scenario ripe for conflict, but Minari stays understated all the time. The Yi family, made up of Jacob, Monica, and their children David and Anne, face numerous challenges (raising children on a developing farm is no easy task), but most of the film is refreshingly undramatic. Minari reminds us that life is a process and that we don't have to figure everything out to make it through.
3 ladybug (2017)
Of Lady Bird, director Greta Gerwig captures the everydayness of life through a teenage girl who wants more from the world. "Lady Bird" is the nickname of Christine McPherson, our little heroine who attends a Catholic girls' school in Sacramento, California. Although the film is set in 2002, its depictions of family strife, financial struggles, and the ups and downs of teenage life (and love) remain very relatable today. Just don't expect much more at stake than boy issues and college application problems.
2 Still Walking (2008)
Hirokazu Kore-edas Still walking is, simply put, a family drama almost completely devoid of drama. Don't expect loud discussions, fights or screaming competitions at the dinner table. Instead, Kore-eda offers us a poignant look at a humble family and the quiet conflicts that keep them from being as close as they could be. We know, like Kore-eda, that tension doesn't have to boil over and explode in fireworks. Still walking's vision of the everyday feels lifelike.
1 The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
The Banshees of Inisherinin essence perhaps an absurdist black comedy, but it is also a vision of life in its most mundane form. As you can imagine, life on a remote Irish island might not be the most exciting affair, although the green hills and rocky shores are certainly beautiful. The conflict at the heart of banshees is an almost ridiculous dispute between two old friends: one of them has decided that he no longer wants to be friends with the other. This is the biggest drama you've seen on their tiny island in years, and it shows you just how monotonous it is.
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