Film

Lilies

Name: Lilies
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: 1997
Cast: Brent Carver, Marcel Sabourin, Aubert Pallascio, Jason Cadieux, Matthew Ferguson

Period drama
Slow-burning

A bishop arrives at a prison to confess an old friend, only to be trapped watching an inmate-staged play that reveals their shared past. This is a film about shame, desire, and the weight of secrets—told through theatre within cinema, switching between 1952 and memory. Extraordinary and strange; for viewers who want their emotions unsettled.

TMDb rating

4.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love theatre-within-a-story structures, where a staged play performed by prisoners quietly turns into a reckoning with desire, memory and long-buried guilt.

Skip it if you want a brisk plot or a light touch, since it is talky, stylized and heavy with mood, and its theatrical artifice may feel airless.

What it asks of you: Ninety-six minutes that linger in stage-like rooms and rhythms; it wants patience with shifting timelines and a tone that moves from ornate to raw.

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

If you liked this

The Crying Game1992

A tense, intimate thriller about identity and revelation that hinges on a secret you'll never see coming. Like Lilies, it transforms how you understand everything that came before.

But The famous twist can overshadow the character work. If you know it already, the film's power fades somewhat.

In the Mood for Love2000

Wong Kar-wai's meditation on desire, longing, and roads not taken. Visual poetry about two people who almost love each other—restrained, aching, and hypnotic.

But Deliberately slow and impressionistic. If you need plot momentum, this will feel like watching paint dry in a beautiful suit.

Moonlight2016

Three chapters of one man's life, fractured and lyrical, exploring identity, desire, and the self we show the world. Quietly devastating; it understands silence the way Lilies understands theatre.

But Nearly plotless. It's mood and feeling over narrative—if you watch films for story, this may feel incomplete.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Closet Land1991

Both use confinement and performance as the engine; both understand that truth emerges only when someone finally forces the stage.

An interrogation scene between a torturer and his prisoner becomes a psychological duel about power, performance, and the stories we tell to survive. Like Lilies, it's two people in a room where theatre becomes a weapon and a salvation.

But Claustrophobic and intense—nearly 90 minutes in a single room. It's also disturbing in ways that linger.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire2019

Two women fall in love while a portrait is being painted. Sensual, tender, and built entirely from glances and silences. Knows what desire looks like in art.

But Almost entirely dialogue-free sequences. Some find it gorgeous; others find it glacially paced.

The Pillars of the Earth2010

An epic about ambition, faith, and forbidden love across generations. Long, intricate, and willing to let emotion build over time in the way Lilies does.

But Eight hours across four episodes. A commitment. Also sometimes melodramatic where it aims for tragedy.

Brokeback Mountain2005

Two men. Decades. A relationship that can never be fully lived. Understands shame and longing and the weight of a secret love—Lilies' emotional territory in a different register.

But The sadness is unrelenting. Also, it's become so culturally significant that it's hard to see fresh now.

Nothing Compares2022

A documentary about an artist destroyed by the collision between her private self and her public performance. Shares Lilies' obsession with how personas conceal truth.

But A real person's pain, not a fictional story. Some find that cathartic; others find it too raw to watch.

Carol2015

A mid-century romance between two women. Achingly beautiful, restrained, and intelligent about desire beneath surfaces and the cost of hiding.

But Very slow. If you need things to *happen*, the extended scenes of quiet longing will feel like frustration.

Satantango1994

Both are films about revelation through theatre-like staging; both believe that moral truth is worth waiting for. Both are willing to be difficult.

Béla Tarr's seven-and-a-half-hour Hungarian masterpiece about a closed community and a mysterious stranger. Not narrative cinema—it's hypnotic, geometric, moral. A film about how stories trap us.

But No plot. No speed. Black and white. If you need conventional entertainment, this will feel like penance rather than cinema.

Oranges and Sunshine2010

Both are films about the stories we're told to protect ourselves, and what happens when they crack. Both understand that the past is a play we keep returning to.

A woman investigates the truth of her childhood after decades of silence. Quieter than you'd expect; not a triumph-of-justice story but a reckoning with how we survive trauma. Built on memory the way Lilies is built on it.

But Australian drama, easy to miss. Slower than expected for a thriller about uncovering secrets. Some will find it underpowered.