Best movies like The Day He Arrives

A romantic comedy centered on Dexter and Emma, who first meet during their graduation in 1988 and proceed to keep in touch regularly. The film follows what they do on July 15 annually, usually doing something together.

Laurence recounts to his neighbour how his life long friendship with Frank and Daniel has been overturned in just three days by their each independently meeting, and falling for, Martha, who has no idea of their connection. Slowly the tale unfolds, the narrative moving backwards and forwards gradually filling in the gaps until we see the whole picture

When filmmaker Young-soo introduces writer Soo-jung to his friend Jae-hoon, he unintentionally creates a love triangle. While Jae-hoon pursues Soo-jung, Young-soo clashes with his crew. Yet, just as the story appears to end, it starts all over again, this time with plenty of variations.

As the first snow falls in Seoul, two old friends reunite; one is a successful college professor, and the other, a struggling filmmaker recently returned from the United States. After their reminiscences, they finally decide to go in search of the young woman each had romanced years earlier.

While her husband is on a business trip, Gamhee meets three of her friends on the outskirts of Seoul. They make friendly conversation, as always, but there are different currents flowing independently of each other, both above and below the surface.

Haewon, a film student and aspiring actress, feels abandoned. Her mother is about to emigrate to Canada and Haewon has decided to end her affair with one of her professors, a much older married man.

After a beautiful but unsophisticated girl is seduced by a worldly piano player and gives up her out-of-wedlock baby, her guilt compels her to kidnap another child.

Oki, a film student, is entangled in two relationships. One with a fellow student who pursues her and the other, her much older professor.

Young-hee, an actress reeling in the aftermath of an affair with a married film director, escapes to Hamburg. But when she returns to Korea and meets with friends for drinks, startling confessions emerge.

Actor Gyung-soo is passed over and decides to leave Seoul and visit a friend. His friend tells him that the Turning Gate legend foreshadows future events. During his visit, Gyung-soo meets Myung-sook, who quickly falls for him. After a night of passion, he boards the train back to Seoul and meets a married woman who claims to know him. Gyung-soo thinks he may love her, but perhaps he’s chosen the wrong woman.

American Movie is the story of filmmaker Mark Borchardt, his mission, and his dream. Spanning over two years of intense struggle with his film, his family, financial decline, and spiritual crisis, American Movie is a portrayal of ambition, obsession, excess, and one man's quest for the American Dream.

Kwon returns to Seoul from a restorative stay in the mountains. She is given a packet of letters left by Mori, who has come back from Japan to propose to her. Kwon drops and scatters the letters, all of which are undated. When she reads them, she has to make sense of the chronology.

Youngho goes to see his father who is tending to a famous patient. He surprises his girlfriend, Juwon, in Berlin where she is studying fashion design. He goes to a seaside hotel to meet his mother and brings his friend Jeongsoo with him. In each instance, he anticipates an important conversation. But sometimes a shared look, or a shared smoke, can mean as much as anything we could say to those close to us.

A widowed professor living in Paris develops a special relationship with a younger French woman.

A college student befriends two cute girls his age. He loses contact with them. He tries to find them years later.

A young woman on the frontier marries a meek farmer who has an annoying habit of going through a rather drastic change every full moon.

A sexually repressed school teacher releases her pent up passions in a series of shocking crimes.

As a filmmaker and his girlfriend return home from his movie premiere, smoldering tensions and painful revelations push them toward a romantic reckoning.

Two teenagers Jimmy and Rose spend their vacation at the small Irish sea-resort Bray. Out of boredom they observe other people and imagine wild stories about them. One day they observe the blonde Renee, and Jimmy is immediately fascinated by her and even follows her home. She, too, seems to like him, but for a mysterious reason keeps him at a distance.

After a suicide attempt, Lane has moved into her country house to recuperate. Her best friend, Stephanie, has come to join her for the summer. Lane's mother, Diane, has recently arrived with her husband Lloyd, Lane's stepfather. Lane is close to two neighbors: Peter, and Howard. Howard is in love with Lane, Lane is in love with Peter, and Peter is in love with Stephanie.

On a trip to Paris Sally meets Pablo, a tango dancer. He starts teaching her to dance then she returns to London to work on some "projects". She visits Buenos Aires and learns more from Pablo's friends. Sally and Pablo meet again but this time their relationship changes, she realises they want different things from each other. On a trip to Buenos Aires they cement their friendship.

Evicted from his squat and suddenly alone on the streets, George is a man without a home. Struggling with his demons and desperately trying to connect with the daughter he abandoned, he navigates the system, hustling for change and somewhere safe and quiet to gather his thoughts. But the streets are relentless and soon, George finds himself teetering on the edge, alone and abandoned.

Over drinks, two friends agree to swap fond memories of their recent trips to the same seaside town. As the stories unfold in flashback, it becomes evident their accounts take place at the same time and with the same people.

John and Mary meet in a singles bar, sleep together, and spend the next day getting to know each other.

Hong Sang-Soo’s Lost in the Mountains (South Korea, 32min) the visitor is the supremely self-centred Mi-Sook, who drives to Jeonju on impulse to see her classmate Jin-Young – only to discover that her friend is having an affair with their married professor, who Mi-Sook once dated herself. The level of social embarrassment goes off the scale. In Naomi Kawase’s Koma (Japan, 34min), Kang Jun-Il travels to a village in rural Japan to honour his grandfather’s dying wish by returning a Buddhist scroll to its ancestral home. Amid ancient superstitions, a new relationship forms. And in Lav Diaz’ Butterflies Have No Memories (Philippines, 42min) ‘homecoming queen’ Carol returns to the economically depressed former mining town she came from – and becomes the target of an absurd kidnapping plot hatched by resentful locals. Serving as his own writer, cameraman and editor, Diaz casts the film entirely from members of his crew and delivers a well-seasoned mix of social realism and fantasy. —bfi

Moments from the uncompromisingly bleak existence of a secretary, her intellectually disabled sister, aloof and uneasy teacher boyfriend, bizarre neighbor and irritating workmate.

After a breakup, a young woman goes to a mountain resort on vacation and falls for a married policeman. Unbeknownst to her, her ex is also vacationing there.

On location in Portugal, a film crew runs out of film while making their own version of Roger Corman's The Day the World Ended (1956). The producer is nowhere to be found and director Munro attempts to find him in hopes of being able to finish the film.

The story of an aspiring young filmmaker's encounter with a grumpy fount of movie lore.

Stymied by writer's block while crafting his latest script, director Kim Jung-rae persuades his friend Won Chang-wook to drive him to a beach resort where he promptly becomes involved with Chang-wook's girlfriend. Abandoning her and taking up with another woman, Jung-rae winds up creating enough drama to inspire his writing.

Faybien Allan has it all going on; he's young, stylish, and knows the importance of being seen with hip friends at NYC's trendiest spots. But beneath the sparkle of his nightlife and his stunning good-looks, is a man buckling under his father's homophobia. Filled with self-loathing and desperate for direction, he meanders through life until meeting Lonnie, a confident activist with a flirtatious smile. However, despite their obvious chemistry and fireworks in bed, Faybien's insecurities have him looking for the door. Can a budding romance and a few good friends keep him from making the biggest mistake of his life?

In Seoul, a suicidal student meets a young woman who decides to join him in his fatal gesture. Tongsu, an unsuccessful filmmaker, spots a beautiful young woman, who happens to be the lead actress in the film he has just seen. Their stories will cross paths thanks to their love for cinema.

In a triptych of overlapping stories, three different French women – a filmmaker, an adulterer and a divorcee visit a small Korean resort town and encounter a flirtatious director, a lovestruck lifeguard and far too much soju.

Over the course of this drama's six separate stories, a variety of couples struggle with the infidelity, dishonesty and heartbreak that plagues their varied pasts. In overcoming their challenges, these diverse individuals embrace a brighter future.

Delightfully comic exploration of the emotional and social geography of an art-house film director.