Film

In This World

Michael Winterbottom's unflinching account of two Afghan cousins attempting to reach Europe from a Pakistani refugee camp. Shot with non-actors in real locations, it moves with documentary urgency through Turkey, shipping containers, and the Balkans. Essential and devastating: a portrait of the refugee crisis made before we'd even begun to understand its scale.

TMDb rating3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a road journey told with documentary texture, where the handheld camera and non-professional cast make the trip feel lived alongside rather than watched.

Skip it if you need stories with a strong dramatic arc or a warmer register, since this is observational, unhurried and grim for long stretches, with little to lift the mood.

What it asks of you: Roughly ninety minutes of patience, with long stretches of waiting, walking and silence, and it trusts you to sit with discomfort rather than be guided through it.

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

If you liked this

The Road2009

A father and son traverse a post-apocalyptic wasteland in search of safety and meaning. Like In This World, it finds profound humanity in the brutality of survival, and refuses sentimentality about suffering.

But It's relentlessly bleak—there are no moments of respite, and the grief is suffocating. Some find it punishing rather than moving.

The Road poster

Landfill Harmonic2015

A Paraguayan orchestra made from recycled waste. It shares In This World's refusal to pity its subjects, instead celebrating their resilience and artistry against material odds.

But At 80 minutes it's slight, and the feel-good arc might strike you as too neat after the rawness of Winterbottom's film.

Landfill Harmonic poster

Capernaum2018

A Lebanese boy navigates the underworld of Beirut with wrenching authenticity. Like In This World, it uses first-time actors to capture the texture of survival and injustice without romance.

But The handheld camera work is sometimes chaotic, and the tone swings between anger and tenderness in ways that don't always feel earned.

Capernaum poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from In This World

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

La Jetée1962

Both use the visual language of borders, transit, and the body as a vessel for something larger—love, survival, meaning—that cannot be contained by geography.

Chris Marker's science-fiction essay told almost entirely in still photographs—a man experiencing memory, time, and a woman across war-torn Europe. It's about movement and yearning made entirely immobile, which inverts In This World's method while reaching for the same emotional truth about displacement.

But It's a 28-minute poem, not a narrative. The voiceover is didactic, and if you need plot momentum or dialogue-driven character, it will feel like punishment.

La Jetée poster
More like this (7)

Come and See1985

Elem Klimov's Soviet war film follows a boy conscripted into the Red Army. It shares In This World's refusal to look away from what cruelty does to the young and innocent.

But It's a horror film wearing a history book's clothes. The violence is not contextualised for catharsis—it exists to traumatise, which some find unbearable.

Come and See poster

Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom2015

Documentary of the 2013-14 Ukrainian uprising. Captured in real time, it has the same urgent, ground-level perspective as In This World, following ordinary people through extraordinary danger.

But It's a news chronicle rather than narrative cinema. If you want story architecture and character arcs, this prioritises witness over form.

Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom poster

Stalker1979

Tarkovsky's philosophical journey into a forbidden zone. It shares In This World's patient, observational style and its meditation on what we'll risk for something intangible.

But It's glacially paced, almost three hours of walking and talking. If you found In This World slow, this will test you severely.

Stalker poster

Moonlight2016

Barry Jenkins' lyrical three-part study of a Black boy becoming a man in Miami. Like In This World, it trusts visual poetry and silence over exposition to convey vulnerability and searching.

But Its dreamlike, fragmented structure demands active watching. Some find the slowness precious rather than purposeful.

Moonlight poster

A Prophet2009

A young man survives French prison through cunning and will. Both films follow the education of a boy into something harder, and both treat their subjects with unsentimental dignity.

But It's a genre film—slick, carefully composed—which may feel too controlled after Winterbottom's documentary rawness. Some find it manipulative.

A Prophet poster

Chungking Express1994

Wong Kar-wai's neon-soaked Hong Kong romance. A complete tonal opposite, but it shares In This World's fascination with strangers in transit and the temporary intimacies of movement.

But It's gauzy, oblique, and about falling in love in the margins. If you want moral clarity and narrative drive, this floats past them both.

Chungking Express poster

Timbuktu2014

Both are set in the Muslim world and filmed by directors of profound empathy; both refuse the Western gaze and insist on dignity. Neither treats its people as victims in a news story.

Abderrahmane Sissako's film of Mali under Ansar Dine occupation. Shot with the same patient, observational eye as In This World, but in colour and with a wider focus—it's about systems of control rather than individual escape.

But It moves at a meditative pace with minimal plot, which some find glacial. The political critique is embedded in texture rather than spelled out.

Timbuktu poster

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