Peaceful films & books about finding beauty in everyday moments

As a reader, I am inherently and unstoppably nosy. I love to read about how other people live their lives: when they wake up, what they eat for breakfast, how they work, where they go on morning walks, whether they drink coffee or tea, how they unwind in the evenings. I also long for extremely specific details. What’s their preferred coffee cup? The books on their shelves? Favourite flowers to put on the table?

I’m not quite sure why it’s so comforting to watch someone else make coffee, go shopping, or read quietly in a sushi restaurant, but, for me at least, it really, really is.

Of course, most films and books are interested in these ordinary moments – they’re what a life is made of. But the films I share below luxuriate in the small things with more ceremony than necessary, I think. They’re celebrated with a quiet, tender warmth that seems to say, this matters.

Take Haley Lu Richardson’s character, Casey, in Columbus (2017), who we see make herself a cup of coffee, quietly and unhurried, all the way from boiling the water to pouring it over the chemex. We don’t need to see all of the details – and it doesn’t need to be the sole focus on the screen for so long – but it is, wonderfully.

This post follows on from my collection of soothing books and movies about noticing the little things, and I will recommend a few favourites again because they’re perfect. (Please forgive me.) As one lovely example, savour the gorgeous seasonal snapshots from Little Forest (2018):

Similarly, feast on the visual gorgeousness of Studio Ghibli movies, especially my absolute favourite Only Yesterday and its contemplative moments in nature:

Much of this is also inspired by The Anthropologists, one of my favourite slice-of-life books of the last few years (and in some ways a less scathing version of Perfection, Vincenzo Latronico’s 2022 bestseller). It’s not about much beyond a young couple browsing apartments, but it feels remarkably full – like life, really. And look at this cover!

Here’s a nice little excerpt to help you decide whether you’ll enjoy (or feel lulled to sleep by) The Anthropologists:

Daily Life

Manu left home early to go to work at the nonprofit organization on the other side of the city. While he made breakfast, I made a pot of coffee and sat with him at the table in pajamas. It was a ritual of sorts, sitting across from each other, face-to-face. There were few rituals to our lives, certainly none that carried any history, at least not the history of traditions, of nations and faiths. So these small things mattered. I would make sure to sit with him at the table.

Personally, I love it, and I’m so looking forward to reading Savas’s short stories in Long Distance.

But anyway! Time for more movies – and complementary books – all of them quiet odes to small moments, little details, and everyday blessings. (Also, a shoutout to Copenhagen Libraries for letting me stream most of these for free, even if it meant I needed to focus on Danish subtitles 🩷)

This feels like: sitting around a kotatsu table with siblings who care deeply for you, and showing love through good food, genuine smiles, warmth, and kindness.

The same feeling in books: Hirayasumi by Keigo Shinzo, Miss Ruki by Fumiko Takano (thoughts here), Two Women Living Together by Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo (thoughts here), and perhaps there’s something of Anne of Green Gables.

“Let’s live together, the four of us.” Three adult sisters invite their teenage half-sister to live with them after their estranged father dies, and oh, what a life it is: sharing homecooked meals, picking plums, and being surrounded by genuine love. Our Little Sister is joy distilled in a movie; it’s two hours of good people being kind in a beautiful place.

I considered calling Our Little Sister a grown-up Ghibli film, but I’m not sure if that’s true – there’s still so much childhood innocence and essentially no drama or grown-up stresses. Rather, it’s Ghibli through a camera lens, switching the hand-drawn artwork, brought to life with watercolours and acrylics, for gorgeous slice-of-life shots as the sisters go about their lovely days together. It’s such a delight.

This feels like: the quiet routines of everyday life, including getting iced coffee from the vending machine, reading books, listening to music on your drive back from work, and eating alone in little restaurants.

The same feeling in books: The Walking Man or The Solitary Gourmet by Jiro Taniguchi, A Thousand Feasts by Nigel Slater.

If you’ve read much of my writing here, you might be bored of all the mentions of Perfect Days. And I’m sorry. But it’s one of my favourite movies, and I think it’s magnificent. Just watch this trailer. The everyday routines! The moments of blissful solitude! Paying attention to the light through the trees! Driving while listening to Nina Simone! It’s a wonder. Please do watch it if you haven’t already.

This feels like: Perfect Days if Hirayama were a happily married bus driver with an English Bulldog in Paterson, New Jersey.

The same feeling in books: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, maybe?

I don’t love Paterson quite as much as Perfect Days, but it’s almost radical (very quietly, gently so) how wonderfully content it is. If you could do with some inspiration to spend your spare moments in a happily offline and mindful way, rejoice in Paterson writing poetry on the beauty of matchboxes, walking his dog Marvin, or sitting in the local bar chatting to other regulars.

It’s also a glorious celebration of hobbies, amateur art, and being creative – writing poetry, making curtains, learning the guitar – for the sheer joy of it. Delightfully, none of these hobbies and creative projects are monetised or even really shared with the world. It’s also very low on drama. (Who’d have thought that having a loving relationship and hobbies you adore could make you happy?)

And there are bookshelf shots! Some highlights: The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery, Paterson by William Carlos Williams, The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster.

Paterson also has a wonderful top review on Letterboxd:

This feels like: finding a community of good people who relish life’s simple pleasures in a little Japanese cafe in Helsinki.

The same feeling in books: Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum.

Japanese vibes. A Scandinavian setting. And slow attention to good food and coffee… Kamome Diner ticks so many boxes of things I love. As the most whimsical choice on this list, Kamome Diner is the spectacularly comforting story of Sachie, a Japanese woman who opens a cafe specialising in onigiri in Finland. If you’re having a bad day (or a medium one, or even a good one), please watch this.

In the vein of Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop (which author Hwang Bo-reum has shared was inspired by Kamome Diner), each customer brings something that Sachie needs to the cafe, whether that’s help making the perfect cup of coffee, the words to an old Japanese anime (Gatchaman) intro song, or just plain good company. In exchange, Sachie brews excellent coffee and serves onigiri rice balls (“Japanese soul food,” she explains to a Finnish customer).

You can also enjoy Sachie’s daily routine, including swimming at the beautiful Yrjönkatu pool (Finland’s oldest swimming hall, also known for its optional swimwear policy and all-nude rule before 2001), shopping at the market, and doing a gentle aikido squat routine before bed.

Other joys: foraging for chanterelles as sunlight filters through the forest canopy, baking cinnamon buns, and cycling along the lakes. And characters read Tove Jansson, drink out of Moomin mugs, and share Moomin trivia!

This feels like: looking at modernist architecture with unhurried and gentle attention while getting to know a new friend and talking about life’s big and small things.

The same feeling in books: Victory Point by Owen D. Pomery – a stunning graphic novel about a young woman who returns to her hometown (built as an architectural experiment) and ponders how to move forward in her life.

Columbus feels more serious than most of the other picks on this list. It’s a film built around one character’s grief and another’s stagnant ambition, stuck in her hometown to keep tabs on her mother.

But it’s also stylistically stunning – all clean lines, symmetry, and cool, deliberate artsiness. The little details are also gorgeously observed: making sandwiches, knitting on the sofa, making pour-over coffee, and most of all, quietly admiring buildings. The buildings of Columbus – in modernist haven Columbus, Indiana – are almost characters themselves, quietly listening and perhaps even healing somehow.

While admiring Casey’s (Haley Lu Richardson) flip phone, you’d be forgiven for thinking the film was set in the 2000s, but when this is mocked by Jin (John Cho), she quips: “I don’t even know why you waste your data… Smart phone, dumb human.” (Casey explains she uses her phone “for phone calls” – “I have a dumb phone, no internet.” Jin asks: “Does this make you feel better than everybody?” She replies, maybe unconvincingly, “Hardly.”)

This feels like: slowly learning to appreciate life as it comes, in every beautifully imperfect detail.

The same feeling in books: I am trying not to say The Time Traveler’s Wife, but I can’t think of anything more original. I need more recommendations here!

About Time is a bit different from the other films on this list. Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) can travel through time, allowing him to correct every faux pas and always have a second chance. But what if, Tim slowly learns, life is best lived exactly as it is?

This is a Richard Curtis film (of Love Actually and Notting Hill fame), but it’s not a simple rom-com, I promise. There’s such beautiful attention to the magic found in ordinary moments – walks along the beach, time spent with loved ones who won’t always be there, growing as a family – alongside awareness of time itself, which makes watching this so special.

This feels like: living a simple, carefree life, even if you don’t have a fancy job like your friends. That and connecting with others by preparing delicious food (tonkatsu, yakitori, curry) for them and shouting that lunch is ready. Oh, and befriending elderly ladies in your neighbourhood.

The same feeling in books: The obvious answer is the original manga, Hirayasumi by Keigo Shinzo. Also, the delightfully whimsical Miss Ruki by Fumiko Takano, of which Shinzo wrote, “To read it is to grasp something of the essence of Japan.... This is the kind of manga I want to draw.”

Hirayasumi! I’ve loved the manga by Keigo Shinzo for a while now – it’s manga for people who don’t think they like manga (on an adjacent note, you might like these beautiful graphic novels). Here and in the fifteen-minute episodes of the TV adaptation, you’ll meet Hiroto, a super chill guy who reminds me of a friend of mine with his sometimes baffling carefree approach to life. You’ll also meet Hiroto’s cousin Natsumi, an 18-year-old art student, who comes to live with him.

As with many of my recommendations, nothing really happens here at all, and that is all part of its magic. Enjoy!

Thank you for reading! I could keep writing and writing and writing, and I have a list of many other movies that could fit here (Amélie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, maybe Boyhood?) There are also those I’ve heard good things about but haven’t watched (Certified Copy, Chef, Before Sunrise, many Ozu movies), but that would keep this a work in progress for far longer than it already has. So for now, I hope this tops up your to-watch and to-read lists! I’d also love to hear what you’d add 💙

For more like this, might I recommend…

P.S. My Bookshop.com links are affiliate links that help to support my writing, at no extra cost to you. You can also find your closest library copies on WorldCat (hurray for libraries!)

P.P.S. Thank you, paid subscribers! If you like my writing and can justify it, paid subscriptions make my day (and help me keep sharing more posts like this – they take a lot of time and I love being able to prioritise them). I try to keep most of my writing visible to all readers, but you’ll also get access to my fortnightly Lookaftering newsletters full of good things as a paid subscriber. And you’ll be entered in my new monthly giveaway of an envelope full of happy things, like bookmarks, pretty stickers and stationery, little art, and notes from me (Ava won the July edition!) 💙