Film

Priscilla

Name: Priscilla
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: 2023
Cast: Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi, Ari Cohen, Dagmara Dominczyk, Tim Post

Sofia Coppola's intimate portrait of Priscilla Beaulieu and Elvis Presley focuses on their private relationship rather than celebrity spectacle. It's a quiet, unhurried film about loneliness, desire, and the impossible task of loving someone whose public life eclipses everything else. For viewers drawn to character-driven romance and psychological complexity over stardom narratives.

TMDb rating

3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like quiet, observant character studies where a big myth gets seen through a lonely young woman's eyes, and you're happy with mood doing the work of plot.

Skip it if you need brisk momentum or a clear arc, since it drifts through long stretches of waiting, rooms and quiet unease rather than building toward a big set piece.

What it asks of you: Patience comes first here: close attention to small gestures across just under two hours, moving at the pace of a held breath rather than a plot.

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

If you liked this

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood2019

Tarantino's meditation on fading fame and Hollywood mythology, with the same fascination with how legends are made and what they cost the people closest to them. Beautifully nostalgic without being saccharine.

But Nearly three hours long, and the pacing is deliberately slow. If you want plot momentum, you'll find it frustratingly elliptical.

A Ghost Story2017

Poetic exploration of love, time, and presence in a relationship. Like Priscilla, it's visually restrained and emotionally devastating, finding profound intimacy in quiet moments and the spaces between people.

But Deeply melancholic and abstract. Some find it more art installation than narrative; it requires patience and emotional openness.

The Fabelmans2022

Spielberg's autobiographical reflection on family, desire, and the ways we use art to understand the people we love. Shares Priscilla's gentle touch with domestic psychology and coming-of-age vulnerability.

But Slow-moving and self-absorbed. If you're not interested in a filmmaker's meditation on his own youth, the lack of conventional conflict will lose you.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Master2012

Both are intimate psychological studies of power imbalance masked as love, and both ask whether the person we think we're loving is real or a projection of our own needs.

Paul Thomas Anderson's exploration of two men locked in an inexplicable, almost erotic relationship of dominance and submission. Swaps Priscilla's heterosexual love story for homosocial obsession, but captures the same psychological entanglement and the question of who really controls whom.

But Cryptic, difficult, and unresolved. Nothing is explained; if you need a clear framework for understanding characters' motivations, this will frustrate you immensely.

Carol2015

Todd Haynes' exquisite study of longing and intimacy between two women in the 1950s. The same restraint, the same focus on glances and silences, the same understanding that desire and vulnerability are inseparable.

But Pacing is glacial by design. Expect long takes and emotional subtlety rather than dramatic revelations.

Manchester by the Sea2016

Kenneth Lonergan's character study of grief and unspoken feeling. The film trusts the audience to understand what's being communicated through absence and gesture—much like Coppola's approach here.

But Heavy and emotionally exhausting. There's no catharsis, no uplift. If you want to feel better after watching, this isn't it.

The Lighthouse2019

Two-hander focused on psychological deterioration and the strange intimacy between two isolated people. Visually striking and claustrophobic, exploring how proximity breeds both connection and resentment.

But Black-and-white, experimental framing, and deliberately dense dialogue. The whole thing feels like watching a nightmare from 1910.

Certain Women2016

Kelly Reichardt's austere, beautiful film about female longing and the quiet ways women navigate desire and disappointment. Shares Priscilla's faith in cinema as a space for interiority.

But Plotless and observational to the point of abstraction. If you need clear narrative structure, this will feel like watching paint dry.

The Hours2002

Three women's lives intersect through literary and emotional echoes. Like Priscilla, it's a film about the interior lives of women and the ways love and creativity both sustain and destroy us.

But Formally ambitious and sometimes overwrought. The parallel structure occasionally feels forced, and the emotional climaxes can read as theatrical.

American Honey2016

Andrea Arnold's American road movie about young people seeking connection and escape. Contains similar moments of tender vulnerability amid larger systems of exploitation and control.

But Two hours forty minutes of observational wandering with a very loose narrative. Patience is required; clarity is not guaranteed.

Phantom Thread2017

Both examine what happens when one person becomes the other's muse, canvas, or project, and what love costs when the power is so radically unequal.

Daniel Day-Lewis as a brilliant, controlling fashion designer whose relationship with his muse becomes a baroque dance of mutual destruction. Like Priscilla but darker, stranger—a love story told as a battle for dominance and definition.

But Deeply perverse, mannered, and bleak. The romance is genuinely unsettling; if you expect warmth or healthy relationship dynamics, you'll recoil.