Film

Roma

Name: Roma
Genre: Drama
Released: 2018
Cast: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey, Carlos Peralta, Marco Graf

Roma is Alfonso Cuarón's black-and-white memory of a household in early-70s Mexico City, shot in aching 65mm and centred on a live-in maid whose quiet devotion holds the family together through crisis. The camera drifts and lingers rather than drives plot; tenderness accumulates instead of arriving in big moments. This is cinema built to be felt slowly, for anyone who loves immersive, sensory filmmaking over momentum.

TMDb rating

7.6

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Cold War2018

Pawlikowski's black-and-white love story across decades shares Roma's aching visual restraint — every frame composed like a photograph you want to live inside, heartbreak delivered in silences rather than speeches.

But It's colder and more elliptical than Roma; you get fragments of a relationship, not a full emotional throughline.

Belfast2021

Branagh's own black-and-white childhood memoir, set against the Troubles, has the same tenderness toward the adults who raised him and the same trust that small domestic moments carry historical weight.

But It's warmer and more sentimental than Roma, with music and humour smoothing over pain Cuarón lets sit raw.

The Souvenir2019

Joanna Hogg reconstructs her own past with the same hazy, half-remembered texture Cuarón brings to his childhood home — a film built from fragments of memory rather than a driving plot.

But It's deliberately opaque and upper-class in its concerns; some viewers find the characters frustratingly hard to read.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Only Yesterday1991

An adult woman reconstructs a transformative stretch of her past through ordinary domestic and rural detail — the same structural trick as Roma, memory rebuilt from small chores and small kindnesses, just drawn instead of filmed.

Studio Ghibli without a single fantastical element — a hand-drawn, deeply grounded memory piece about growing up in 1960s Japan that proves animation can hold as much emotional weight as any live-action memoir.

But The pace is gentle to the point of sleepy, and some viewers can't get past animation being used for something so mundane.

Amour2012

Haneke's unflinching study of an aging couple facing decline shares Roma's refusal to look away from domestic suffering, filmed with the same patient, unsentimental camera.

But It is bleaker and more claustrophobic, with almost none of Roma's visual grandeur or moments of grace.

Y Tu Mamá También2001

Cuarón's earlier Mexico City film shows the same eye for social texture and class division, wrapped in a raucous road-trip coming-of-age story full of sex, humour, and heartbreak.

But It's brasher and more explicit than Roma, with a restless, youthful energy instead of measured stillness.

A Separation2011

Farhadi's Tehran-set drama turns a household's fracture into something with the moral complexity of a courtroom thriller, treating domestic labour and class tension with the same seriousness Cuarón does.

But It's talkier and more plot-driven, built on escalating arguments rather than Roma's slow accumulation of feeling.

Parasite2019

Bong Joon-ho's dissection of household staff and the families who employ them shares Roma's fascination with domestic space as a stage for class, but turns the tension into a pitch-black thriller.

But It's genre cinema through and through — twisty, violent, and satirical where Roma is contemplative and sincere.

Marriage Story2019

Baumbach's portrait of a family coming apart matches Roma's interest in the woman left holding a household together, with performances that ache in similarly quiet ways.

But It's dialogue-heavy and contemporary New York, missing the visual poetry and historical texture that make Roma so distinct.

The Tree of Life2011

Malick's memory-drenched family portrait uses the same patient, wandering camerawork to turn childhood recollection into something almost devotional — a film for the same slow, meditative mood.

But It swerves into cosmic, abstract imagery that has nothing to do with domestic realism, and will test anyone's patience for ambiguity.

Gosford Park2001

Altman's camera drifts between upstairs and downstairs exactly as Roma's drifts between Cleo and her employers, making the household staff the true centre of the story rather than the family they serve.

A country-house ensemble where the servants quietly run the show and the masters are the ones being watched — witty and sharp, with real tenderness toward the people who do the work.

But It's a comedy of manners wrapped around a whodunit — brisk, talky, and English to its bones, a world away from Roma's hushed sincerity.