Film
The Sun Is Also a Star
A romance that unfolds across one day in New York between two teenagers from different worlds. Yara Shahidi and Charles Melton carry a film that's thoughtful about immigration, family pressure, and whether we control our own futures—tender without being saccharine, grounded in real stakes. For anyone who loves a good two-hander with actual things to say.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you like young romances built on tight, specific detail and a ticking clock, where two people's small talk carries more weight than the plot's big questions.
Skip it if you find teen-style romantic chatter wearing, or want the heavy issues handled with real depth, since the film keeps its serious subject at a comfortable distance.
What it asks of you: Expect about a hundred minutes of one day unspooled in talk and walking, brisk rather than slow, sweet with a serious undertow, and it rewards attention to small exchanges.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Everything Everywhere All at Once2022
A wildly inventive multiverse romance about choosing between duty and desire, family and self. Like *The Sun Is Also a Star*, it finds cosmic weight in intimate moments and asks whether fate or love matters more.
But Two hours of sensory overload and genre-hopping might exhaust you if you want something quieter and more linear.
Before Sunrise1995
Two strangers meet on a train and spend one night walking Vienna talking about everything that matters. The same 24-hour clock, the same belief that conversation is the truest form of connection.
But Almost entirely dialogue-driven. If you need plot momentum or big dramatic swings, you'll find it too slow.
Moonlight2016
Three chapters following a young man across years and circumstances, asking who we become and whether love survives choice. Achingly tender and formally beautiful, with real attention to what's unspoken.
But Quiet and elliptical. It reveals itself slowly and asks patience; it won't give you easy emotional beats.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Sun Is Also a Star
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
High Fidelity2000
Both use the architecture of a single emotional reckoning (a day, a night of reflection) to explore whether love is destiny or choice, and both believe that knowing someone truly is the only real miracle.
A young man revisits his exes and confronts what he actually wants in love and life. Like *The Sun Is Also a Star*, it's fascinated by the moment attraction becomes something deeper—and asks whether we really understand our own hearts. But it does it from inside a man's head breaking himself open.
But Early 2000s indie tone can feel dated and self-indulgent. If you don't connect with the narrator's voice early, the whole film collapses.
More like this (8)
Love, Simon2018
A high-school romance about connection across the social divide, family acceptance, and finding someone who knows you. Warm, funny, genuinely invested in its characters' inner lives—and it earned its happy ending.
But Plays it straighter and more conventionally than you might want. The tone stays light even when feelings deepen.
The Fault in Our Stars2014
Two teenagers meet and fall in love against a backdrop of mortality and family crisis. Young, smart, unafraid to let big feelings be big—and genuinely moving without being manipulative about it.
But Leans into melodrama. If cancer-romance subgenre feels exhausted to you, the film won't change your mind.
Aftersun2022
A father and daughter's final summer together told with visual poetry and genuine emotional intelligence. About connection across generational divides and the things we carry silently. Stunning and haunting.
But Slow and impressionistic. It builds dread rather than romance and demands you sit with uncertainty and sadness.
The Half of It2020
A queer love triangle in a small Washington town that's smart about obligation, desire, identity, and belonging. Funny and genuinely touching, with characters who feel real and specific.
But Takes its time getting to the emotional payoff. It's more interested in complication than catharsis.
Always Be My Maybe2019
Childhood best friends reunite as adults and navigate identity, culture, ambition, and whether timing matters more than feeling. Warm, funny, with real chemistry and cultural texture.
But Tonal whiplash between comedy and romance means the dramatic moments can feel slightly unearned.
One Day2011
Follows two people across twenty years, checking in annually on the same date. A meditation on how we change, how fate and choice intertwine, and whether some people stay with us no matter what.
But The episodic structure and long timespan diffuse emotional momentum. Some will find it drifting rather than moving.
The Wedding Banquet1993
Both films centre characters caught between two worlds—family obligation and personal desire, belonging and becoming—and ask what we owe and what we choose. Both find grace in the moment of real seeing.
A Taiwanese-American man agrees to marry a woman to appease his parents while navigating his identity and his actual partner. A comedy that becomes tender, it balances family duty, cultural displacement, and the courage it takes to be known. Ang Lee at his most humanly wise.
But The pacing is deliberately unhurried and the emotional registers shift in ways that might feel tonal to modern viewers. Subtitled.
First Reformed2018
Both films are structured around a single character or pair being forced to choose between determinism and freedom, but *First Reformed* asks that question in the voice of anguish where *The Sun Is Also a Star* asks it in wonder.
A pastor confronts faith, mortality, and whether love or activism matters more when the world is burning. Paul Schrader's film is austere and searching in ways *The Sun Is Also a Star* is not—it asks the same questions about fate and agency but through grief and eco-apocalypse rather than romance.
But Bleak, formally cold, often agonizing to watch. No soft landings. It's a film about despair that doesn't resolve it with affection.
People
Cast
Yara ShahidiNatasha Kingsley
Charles MeltonDaniel Jae Ho Bae
Hill HarperLester Barnes
Gbenga AkinnagbeSamuel Kingsley
Jake ChoiCharlie Bae
John LeguizamoJeremy Martinez
Anais LeeYoung Natasha
Miriam A. HymanPatricia Kingsley
Jordan WilliamsPeter Kingsley
Keong SimDae Hyun Bae
Cathy ShimMin Soo Bae
Shamika CottonHannah
Directing
- Ry Russo-YoungDirector
Writing
- Nicola YoonBook
- Tracy OliverScreenplay
Production
- Elysa Koplovitz DuttonProducer
- Leslie MorgensteinProducer
Recommended by
Now Is Good, Everything, Everything, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, Midnight Sun