Slice of life is a depiction of mundane experiences in art and entertainment. In theater, slice of life refers to naturalism, while in literary parlance it is a narrative technique in which a seemingly arbitrary sequence of events in a character’s life is presented, often lacking plot development, conflict, and exposition, as well as often having an open ending.
Recently I loved Perfect Days which is mostly about a guy who just wants to clean toilets while people keep bothering him.
Its super cute and lovely and extremely extremely simple yet a really good watch.
I think clerks would apply. There was even two endings where one was less open.
There’s a movie with Phillip s. Hoffman and he’s just huffing paint the entire time.
Wasn’t that just a documentary?
Mike Leigh does movies like that. For instance: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100024/
Nomadland comes to mind. Something about the whole movie makes it so facinating.
Would stranger than fiction count?
Jim Jarmusch’s movies (and Clerks) were the first thing I thought of too. Night on Earth and Mystery Train are my favorites.
Been a while since I’ve watched it but Kids (1995) might qualify as fitting the category (not sure if it’d be a “best” though).
The Castle (1997)
Yep, though it does have a through-line plot it’s very much in this genre.
EO. Bits of people’s lives in Poland, told through the eyes of a donkey
Gummo. That movie confuses me still to this day how it got made.
One of my favorite movies ever!
Lost in Translation has a lot of seemingly mundane moments.
It’s a cute movie about little boys refusing to speak because their parents won’t let them watch the neighbor’s TV. Set in a suburban Tokyo neighborhood in post-war Japan.
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) is often considered to be a prime example, I think.






