Film

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

Name: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Comedy, Drama
Released: 1970
Cast: Barbra Streisand, Yves Montand, Bob Newhart, Larry Blyden, Simon Oakland

Magical realism
Light-hearted

A romantic fantasy about a woman who can hear phones before they ring and regress into past lives under hypnosis. Streisand carries this Vincente Minnelli oddity with warmth and musical flair, moving between contemporary New York and centuries-old personas. It's peculiar, gorgeous to look at, and deeply committed to its own strangeness—perfect for anyone who loves old Hollywood's appetite for the unexplainable.

TMDb rating

3.4

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Red Shoes1948

Both films use regression and transformation—dance/past lives—as the mechanism for revealing who a woman really is beneath social expectation.

Powell and Pressburger's masterpiece about a woman caught between two loves and two worlds, told through obsessively detailed dance sequences. Like *On a Clear Day*, it uses the fantastical to explore real emotional paralysis—the weight of choosing between versions of yourself.

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Vertigo1958

A man becomes obsessed with a woman's alternate persona, trapped by love for who she becomes under mysterious circumstances. The thematic twin to this film, though far darker and more troubling.

But Hitchcock's masterpiece is psychologically harsh. There's no warmth to it, and the revelation is genuinely disturbing.

Funny Girl1968

Streisand's star-making role, proving she could carry a film while being wholly herself—brash, unpolished, magnetic. Shows the same refusal to be conventionally pretty that makes Daisy so alive.

But It's a straightforward biopic romance. If you want oddness and fantasy, this is grounded in real theatrical history.

The Thomas Crown Affair1968

A sophisticated romance between two intelligent, slightly dangerous people, built on chemistry and psychological intrigue. The same elegant uncertainty about whether love or obsession is driving things.

But It's cooler and more cynical than *On a Clear Day*. The tone is controlled rather than exuberant.

Pennies from Heaven1981

Another film about escaping into fantasy and past lives through music, starring Steve Martin as a man trapped between reality and dreams. It shares the melancholy lurking beneath the spectacle.

But It's much darker and more explicitly sexual. The fantasy sequences are intrusions, not escapes, and the ending is bleak.

Hello, Dolly!1969

Streisand in her full theatrical glory, matchmaking and meddling in a candy-colored New York. Another Minnelli musical that refuses to be subtle, celebrating excess as a form of joy.

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Xanadu1980

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La Jetée1962

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A 27-minute science fiction poem built almost entirely from still photographs, about a man traveling through time and regressing into memory and alternate lives. Hypnotic, devastating, and structured around the same question: which version of yourself is real?

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Dead of Night1945

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But It's a horror film from 1945, which means it's in black and white and moves slowly. The scares are psychological rather than visceral, which won't satisfy anyone wanting jumpscares.