Film

Another Year

Name: Another Year
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Released: 2010
Cast: Jim Broadbent, Lesley Manville, Ruth Sheen, Peter Wight, Oliver Maltman

Drama
Slow-burning

Mike Leigh's portrait of a couple so at peace with themselves they become almost unbearably radiant to everyone around them. Tom and Mary are gardening, laughing, eating well—their happiness is real but it acts like a mirror, making their visitors' unhappiness sharper. Funny and sad at once, it's about contentment as its own form of cruelty.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like quiet, observational character studies where the comedy comes from people being exactly themselves, and you don't mind sitting with someone else's sadness for a while.

Skip it if you need plot momentum or a clear through-line, because this drifts through unhurried kitchen-table scenes and its warmth can feel like a long wait for something to happen.

What it asks of you: It runs over two hours at a deliberately unhurried pace, so settle in for a patient, mostly dialogue-driven stretch that rewards close attention to faces and pauses.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Naked1993

Another Leigh masterwork, but inverted: instead of contentment, a brilliant man's rage and misanthropy corrode everything he touches. Both films ask how we live with difficult people.

But Bleak, sexually aggressive, and long. The protagonist is someone you'd cross the street to avoid, and the film doesn't soften that.

Happy-Go-Lucky2008

Leigh again, again about an unflinching personality—this time relentlessly cheerful—and how it meets the world. Less comfortable than Another Year but with real warmth underneath.

But The optimism can feel naive if you're not in the mood for it. Some viewers find it saccharine rather than earned.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things2020

A relationship observed over time, with visitors that expose fault lines. Formally more ambitious, but it shares the film's interest in how we perform versions of ourselves for others.

But It's oblique and elliptical where Another Year is direct. You'll be puzzling over it after the credits.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Another Year

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

In the Mood for Love2000

Both films suggest that the deepest human drama is invisible, played out in small glances and the spaces between words. Neither needs plot machinery because observation is enough.

Wong Kar-wai's film about two neighbours who may fall in love, told through colour, repetition, and surfaces. Like Another Year, it's about what we don't say and what we hide behind domestic routine.

But Visually lush and formally experimental. If you want to watch a story unfold plainly, this is not it.

Synecdoche, New York2008

A filmmaker constructs a life-sized replica of New York inside a warehouse. Like Another Year, it's about how the life we've built becomes a stage we can't step off.

But Deliberately difficult and self-referential. It requires patience and rewards re-watching, which not everyone has the appetite for.

The Remains of the Day1993

A man looks back on a life of emotional restraint and service. It's about how we survive by not feeling, and what that costs—the mirror image of Another Year's contentment.

But Restrained to the point of silence. Stevens' emotional life happens in what's unsaid, which can feel distant.

Secrets & Lies1996

Another Leigh ensemble. A family gathers after a revelation; everyone has been living a version of the truth. Messier and louder than Another Year but asking similar questions.

But It builds toward a confrontation scene that some find cathartic and others find melodramatic after all the restraint.

Ordinary People1980

Upper-middle-class American family fractured by death. Like Another Year, it's about how surface order masks profound unhappiness in those closest to us.

But The therapeutic resolution dates it. It has an optimism about talking things out that Another Year finds much more complicated.

Sideways2004

Two middle-aged men, one happily married and one not, take a wine trip. Sharp-eyed about envy, friendship, and how we make sense of roads not taken.

But Lighter in tone and more forgiving of its characters than Another Year. You might want something with more edge.

A Serious Man2009

Released the year before Another Year, both are about a life in balance and what happens when weight shifts. Both treat domestic life as dramatically sufficient.

A year in the life of a Midwestern professor whose equilibrium cracks. The Coens observe suffering with the same cool attention Leigh brings to contentment. Both films find absurdity in ordinariness.

But Philosophically dark and structurally odd. It won't comfort you or resolve anything. Bleak in a way that Another Year—despite its sadness—is not.

Tokyo Story1953

The closest thing to Another Year in cinema—a film about ordinariness that treats it as tragedy and comedy at once. Both understand that watching people live is enough.

An elderly couple visit their son in Tokyo; almost nothing happens. Like Another Year, it's achingly about how people near each other without quite touching, and how family gatherings expose who we are.

But Ozu's pace is deliberate to the point of stillness. Scenes of people making tea last a long time. Patience isn't optional.