Yi Yi

Three generations of a middle-class family in Taipei. NJ, a software engineer, is stuck at work and runs into the woman he left thirty years ago. His daughter Ting-Ting is dealing with a first love and a guilt. His eight-year-old son Yang-Yang photographs the backs of people's heads, because nobody can see their own back. Edward Yang wrote and directed. It runs 173 minutes. Yang revised the script after casting: having found Jonathan Chang and Kelly Lee, he lowered the children's ages from 10 and 15 to 8 and 13. Shooting ran from 8 April to 21 August 1999. It premiered at Cannes on 14 May 2000, competed for the Palme d'Or, and Yang won Best Director. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 97 percent and Metacritic at 94. A. O. Scott in the New York Times wrote that it left him with gratitude alongside grief and joy. The box office stopped at 2 million dollars. It has become a fixture of best-of-the-century lists: 40th on the New York Times list in 2025 and 8th on the Rolling Stone list the same year. Who it is for: patient viewers and anyone looking for a family film without the underlining. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for an event. The film stays inside ordinary life for three hours and never ties a knot.