Yi Yi (2000)

Nearly three hours with one Taipei family, and few films make ordinary life feel this full. Edward Yang follows the household from a wedding through the months after it: a father who has just run into his first love, a teenage daughter, a grandmother lying in a coma, and eight-year-old Yang-Yang, who photographs the backs of people's heads because they can never see that part of themselves. The whole film works on his principle. Yang won Best Director at Cannes, and a 2016 BBC poll of critics ranked it eighth among the century's films. Give it a free evening; the length is what lets it breathe.