Top 10 Movies Told Through Multiple Perspectives

Drew Goddard is one of the smartest writers working in film today, known for penning intelligent scripts like “The Cabin in the Woods,” “The Martian,” and “Bad Times at the El Royale.” The latter film concerns seven strangers meeting at a hotel on the California-Nevada border. The movie plays out like a novel, as it’s told in “chapters” that explain each character’s situation and how they got to the El Royale. The story often folds into itself, complete with numerous flashbacks, alternate views of particular events, and one specific scene that is told through three separate perspectives. The structure is a bit awkward, but it definitely shows off the exciting dexterity of Goddard’s writing.

Now if you want to talk about dexterous writing, may we present you with the Wachowskis’ “Cloud Atlas.” Co-directed with Tom Tykwer, this is arguably the sisters’ most popular film after “The Matrix,” having been adapted from David Mitchell’s novel of the same name. This wickedly ambitious piece of work contains six separate stories, each with its own distinct time period, spanning from 1849 to 2321. It details how each protagonists’ actions influence the others, and more broadly and thematically, how decisions of the past influence actions of the present and future. Mitchell himself has described the story as being about the universality of human nature, and what better way to explore that theme than covering nearly 500 years’ worth of story?

This film brought the detective mystery back to life, injecting it with some surprising social commentary along the way. Like all great stories of its kind, “Knives Out” begins with a death - that of 85-year-old Harlan Thrombey. Private detective Benoit Blanc is sent to investigate, and he proceeds by asking the individual members of Harlan’s family about their actions the preceding night. Throughout the explanations, the audience is given accompanying visuals in the form of flashbacks. The flashbacks often intersect with each other, offering different perspectives on certain events depending on who is telling the story.

With “Dunkirk,” virtuosic director Christopher Nolan tried his hand at a World War II drama. And, this being Nolan, he had to make it as inventive and elaborate as he possibly could. To do this, he decided to tell the story through multiple perspectives and time periods. The story is told through three points of view. There’s Tommy, a soldier awaiting evacuation. Dawson, a civilian sailor who rides his personal boat into Dunkirk. And Farrier (FARE-EE-ur), a Spitfire pilot tasked with defending the evacuation. The stories are also told in different time spans. Tommy’s story takes place over one week, Dawson’s in one day, and Farrier’s in just one hour before they finally intersect at the oil blast rescue and the evacuation of Dunkirk.

Gillian Flynn proved a master storyteller with “Gone Girl,” a unique mixture of psychological thriller, true crime mystery, and domestic drama. The first half of the film primarily concerns Ben Affleck’s Nick Dunne, who becomes the primary suspect in his wife Amy’s mysterious disappearance. Every piece of evidence points to Nick being guilty in some capacity. That is, until the story does a complete 180 and shifts its focus to Amy, who is revealed to be alive and on the run. Not only that, but it also shows us how Amy managed to successfully frame her own husband. It’s a great bait and switch, and it helped make “Gone Girl” one of the most popular films of 2014.

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has only written a handful of films throughout his career, but each one crackles with energy and originality. His fifth writing credit was “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” a movie in which a grieving man named Joel Barish has the memories of his girlfriend Clementine erased after she did the same to him. But there’s also a second story arc taking place concurrently with Joel’s - that of the technicians performing the procedure. In fact, one of the technicians is using Joel’s extracted memories to date Clementine in the present - after she had forgotten about Joel. It’s a unique story that uses science fiction to comment on memory and the progression of romantic love.

Paul Thomas Anderson is another acclaimed screenwriter who proves incredibly ambitious with his scripts. “Magnolia” is his character-hopping masterpiece. While the movie recounts individual stories throughout the course of one day in Los Angeles, they all interconnect in some capacity or another - typically through familial relations. Both Earl Partridge and Jimmy Gator are dying of cancer and estranged from their children. All the intersecting stories are brought together in the movie’s famous climax, wherein frogs begin falling from the sky. It’s one of the greatest endings in movie history, and it shows the power of telling a story through multiple perspectives - provided the writer has the talent to pull it off.

Quentin Tarantino was all about multiple perspectives in his early career. Both “Reservoir Dogs” and “Jackie Brown” employed the technique, but none did it as well or as stylishly as “Pulp Fiction.” This movie tells the interweaving stories of various gangsters and criminals. There’s the diner robbers Pumpkin and Honey Bunny, hitmen Vincent and Jules, and crooked boxer Butch. Vincent serves the throughline through all the stories, sometimes playing a major role and other times having his role cut short. The movie is also told out of sequence, allowing the story to both begin and end with the diner robbery, which interweaves the stories of the robbers and the hitmen. It’s a brilliantly written, Academy Award-winning piece of work.

Often regarded as the greatest film ever made, “Citizen Kane” proved enormously influential for the medium of film. Part of that has to do with its unique narrative structure, which was revolutionary at the time. As everyone knows, the film opens with Kane’s iconic muttering of “Rosebud” and his subsequent death. Following that, journalist Jerry Thompson interviews various associates of Mr. Kane, all of whom offer their own unique perspectives on his life and legacy. These include a late banker, Kane’s business manager, his estranged best friend, his butler, and his ex-wife. Each characters’ story is respectively told through non-chronological flashbacks. The unique and challenging structure won Orson Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz an Academy Award.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

“Vantage Point” (2008)
An Assassination Attempt on the President Is Told Through Various ‘Vantage Points’

“The Handmaiden” (2016)
South Korean Film About a Deceptive Handmaiden to a Japanese Heiress

“Courage Under Fire” (1996)
A Lieutenant Colonel Questions If a Captain Deserves a Medal of Honor

“Hilary and Jackie” (1998)
The Life of a Classic Cellist Told Through Her Sister’s Point of View

“Elephant” (2003)
Follows the Lives of High School Students Before a Traumatic Event

When it comes to multiple-perspective movies, absolutely nothing beats “Rashomon.” Written and directed by Akira Kurosawa, this was actually the first Japanese film to receive significant international attention and acclaim. Much of that has to do with its incredible plot device, which sees different characters providing their own subjective outlook on a specific event. While the objective frame story obviously remains the same, its subjective telling is warped by those recounting it, as everyone has their own beliefs and self-serving motivations. The film serves as an allegory about truth and subjectivity, and it has even given rise to a phenomenon known as the “Rashomon effect,” in which eyewitnesses often give contradictory statements.