Movie Substrate · Film

Past Lives (2023)

★ 7.7 · 2,290 ratings on TMDB
Past Lives poster★ 7.7

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.

DirectorCeline Song
CastAn Min-young, Chang Ki-ha, Choi Won-young, Greta Lee, John Magaro, Leem Seung-min
GenresDrama, Romance
The emergence reading

Past Lives keeps every mind human — it fights its subject at zero distance. The story fights on E8/E9 of the E0–E14 reality ladder.

zero-distanceUS
Explore Movie Substrate → Where to watch ↗ TMDB ↗ Rotten Tomatoes ↗ Ask about this film → Reading look wrong? → Copy link

Same rung, same subject

Films fighting at the same level of reality, about the same things.

It (2017)E8/E9Back to the Future (1985)E8/E9Coco (2017)E8/E9Se7en (1995)E8/E9Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)E8/E9Iron Man (2008)E8/E9

Same subject, different rung

The same preoccupations examined at another scale — one mind versus a nation.

Origin: Spirits of the Past (2006)E12/E13 · Drama, Romance

Same people

Shared director or cast.

The Big Short (2015)John MagaroOverlord (2018)John MagaroCarol (2015)John MagaroTRON: Ares (2025)Greta LeeSisters (2015)Greta LeeConfession of Murder (2012)Choi Won-young