Film

Lantana

Name: Lantana
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Released: 2001
Cast: Anthony LaPaglia, Geoffrey Rush, Barbara Hershey, Kerry Armstrong, Rachael Blake

A taut crime mystery set among Sydney's suburbs, where a woman's disappearance unravels the connected lives of four couples. Lantana moves between police procedure and intimate domestic life, finding violence not in moments but in silences—the small betrayals and desperate longings that fester in marriage. It's austere and absorbing, for viewers who'd rather watch people's faces than follow plot.

TMDb rating

3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like slow, talky mysteries where the puzzle is really about marriages and the lies people tell themselves, and you don't mind a detective who is as unsettled as anyone else.

Skip it if you want a whodunit with a neat solution, since this scatters its attention across several couples and keeps the central question blurry on purpose.

What it asks of you: Settle in for a long, unhurried two hours, with scenes that overlap and circle back, and a mood that runs cool and wry rather than thrilling.

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

If you liked this

In the Cut2003

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But It's sexually explicit in ways that may feel gratuitous, and the fractured timeline can be confusing on first viewing.

Mulholland Drive2001

Fincher-level control of narrative deception; a mystery where every clue is real but nothing is as it seems, and the city itself becomes complicit in moral corruption.

But It's deliberately withholding and abstract. If you need explanation or clear answers, you'll leave frustrated rather than haunted.

The Long Good Friday1980

Bob Hoskins in a taut crime thriller about a man trying to control chaos, with the same claustrophobic pressure and sudden violence. Lean, perfectly paced, utterly involving.

But It's very male-centred and very 1980s British, which doesn't work for everyone. Some action sequences feel dated now.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Mississippi Burning1988

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But It's deliberately paced and cryptic. Some viewers find it glacial, and it offers no cathartic resolution—you leave with questions that won't settle.

State of Play2009

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But It's more conventional thriller fare—less interested in the psychological toll, more interested in the puzzle itself.

The Killing2011

A Danish crime series that treats murder not as the climax but as the start of a long excavation into motive, shame and the lives surrounding a death. Patient, absorbing, morally complex.

But Each season is 20 episodes. It demands time and commitment, and the pace is methodical rather than propulsive.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead2007

Lumet's final film: a home-invasion robbery that splinters into a study of aging men, family resentment, and how violence echoes through silence. Brutal and intelligent.

But It's relentlessly bleak and contains graphic violence. Not cathartic—it leaves you heavy.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead poster

Brick2006

A high school noir where the detective work is genuine and the emotional stakes matter. Same sense that mystery is just the frame for understanding human damage.

But The high school setting puts some viewers off, and the noir affectation doesn't always stick the landing.

Chinatown1974

The masterclass in a web of corruption that extends into the past, where solving the mystery doesn't resolve anything. Polanski's direction is immaculate, Nicholson never better.

But It's been canonised to death and you may feel its influence more than its originality. Hard to see it fresh now.

The Sopranos1999

Both use crime as a pretext to examine how ordinary men and women betray each other; both locate drama in what goes unsaid between partners.

Chase's genius was understanding that Tony's therapy sessions are where the real work happens—not the murders and crime, but the small, painful recognitions about marriage, family, mortality. Same moral texture as Lantana but stretched across eight seasons.

But It's very long, and if you're watching for plot momentum, you'll stall. The therapy talk will bore you if you're not invested in the internal life.

Memories of Murder2003

Both films suggest that the real mystery isn't the crime but the people closest to it—what they know, what they hide, what they're willing to believe.

Bong Joon-ho's serial killer procedural from South Korea: a masterpiece of atmosphere and moral complexity where the investigation matters less than what it reveals about the investigators themselves. Lantana compressed and amplified.

But It's in Korean, subtitled. It's also very dark—not sensationalist, but genuinely unsettling in its treatment of violence and its ambiguity.