The Best Movies That Have Multiple Storylines

The beauty of cinema and filmmaking is that no story is the same, and filmmakers love to experiment with story structure and characters, sometimes creating a mosaic that can involve multiple different storylines in a single film. These films are crafted by true visionaries who aim to achieve something more refreshing and different than a standard linear plot.

Although a more unconventional storytelling technique in film, when it works, it really works, and therefore also leaves you with a satisfying payoff in the end. Here are some of the best movies that utilize a plethora of characters and storylines that are woven expertly into one narrative.

12

Kinds Of Kindness

Immediately following up on his gorgeous Oscar-winning masterpiece Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos delivered Kinds of Kindness in 2024. Though Kinds of Kindness also stars Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Margaret Qualley, it’s not the same movie. You can think of it as three entertaining anthology stories playing out in the frame of one film, with the actors switching off characters in each new segment.

All the stories are crafted with the usual strangeness and uniqueness of Yorgos Lanthimos’ style. The first one feels very Kubrickian, with Jesse Plemons playing a character who works for an enigmatic Dafoe and submits his whole life to his boss’ control. In the next, Plemons is a police officer who starts to change in disturbing ways when his wife, who has been missing at sea, suddenly returns. The last one is about a cult and sees Emma Stone doing an iconic dance in front of her purple Dodge Challenger.

11

Cloud Atlas

There’s really no sci-fi film quite like the scale and scope of Cloud Atlas. But what more do you expect from the brilliant minds of The Matrix creators, who teamed up with German filmmaker and composer Tom Tykwer, who directed Run Lola Run, episodes of Netflix’s Sense8 alongside the Wachowskis, and composed music for The Matrix films?

It’s based on the novel by David Mitchell and is a tale that spans centuries, bouncing around time periods and several storylines where the same actors portray different characters. Cloud Atlas is a very complex film, moving from the past to the very far future of 2144 and 2321 with seemingly random characters and stories. It might be too confusing and not cohesive enough, but the film’s creativity and cinematic vision are a marvel.

10

Crash

Crash is a film consisting of intertwined storylines dealing with the sensitive topic of race relations in America, producing an even more complex web of characters than in Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing (another excellent film with the same themes). The film went on to win the highest honor of Best Picture at the Oscars in 2005, which was considered a controversial decision, and also Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing.

The cast is filled with a long list of stars, each playing characters dealing with their own personal situations involving racism in Los Angeles. One of the highlights is Matt Dillon’s character, Officer John Ryan, who is a racist LA cop with scenes and dialogue that still reverberate in today’s society. The way the storylines and characters all connect leads to a twist-filled and tragic finale.

9

Traffic

What Crash is to exploring race relations in America, Traffic is to the war on drugs and drug trafficking. Directed by the visionary Steven Soderbergh, Traffic follows the POVs of multiple characters involved in the war on drugs – Mexico’s police officers and military, a conflicted Ohio judge tough on drugs with a daughter who’s an addict, and two undercover DEA agents who delivered a major drug bust for the US.

Once again, this story tries to parallel real life with the ongoing war with Mexico’s cartels, with the film using the fictional Obregón cartel based out of Tijuana. The choice of cinematography from yellow filters to blue filters to represent the different storylines and locations gives the film a unique feel. Traffic also won four Oscars, including Best Director for Soderbergh and Best Actor for Benicio Del Toro.

8

Nocturnal Animals

Nocturnal Animals is a very dark and disturbing psychological thriller, based on the novel Tony and Susan by Austin Wright. It follows Amy Adams’s character, Susan Morrow, an art gallery owner whose ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal’s Edward Sheffield) comes back into her life when she receives a shocking manuscript from him. She soon becomes lost in it, planning on discussing it with him when they agree to meet over dinner.

The movie follows Susan in the present, her failed marriage to Edward, and simultaneously, the storyline of her ex-husband’s book, Nocturnal Animals, as Susan reads it. His manuscript tells a harrowing tale of a family road-tripping through Texas harassed by a scary trio of men who end up raping and murdering the wife and daughter, with Gyllenhaal also playing the husband, Tony, in his novel. It’s a pretty bleak film with subtle notes of revenge.

7

Iñárritu’s Death Trilogy – Amores Perros And Babel

The Oscar-winning director of Birdman and The Revenant, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, is also known for his highly underrated Death Trilogy, which includes the films Amores Perros, 21 Grams, and Babel. The first and last installments are both emotionally charged, character-driven dramas dealing with tragedy across multiple storylines.

Amores Perros follows a character named Octavio who engages in dog fighting, a homeless man named El Chivo who befriends stray dogs, and a supermodel named Valeria who injures her leg in a car crash caused by Octavio’s actions and now finds her dog, Richie, to be missing. The characters are all built around the theme of dogs and love, hence the title.

Babel follows four different families across the globe and seamlessly cuts between each one’s story in the film. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are a tourist couple in Morocco who suffer a tragedy. Meanwhile, you also follow their nanny, Amelia, who takes their kids from the US to Mexico for her son’s wedding. Then, you also follow a deaf and mute girl in Japan and two young brothers in Morocco. And the movie masterfully unveils the connection between all the characters.

6

Sin City

One of the best graphic novel adaptations of all time, Sin City is a gory action-packed movie incorporating the stories of multiple characters in the stylistic black-and-white world of Frank Miller’s Basin City and is co-directed by the author. You even have the likes of Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, and Jessica Alba portraying these characters from Miller’s comic series.

The film flips between the various comic book storylines from Dark Horse’s Sin City, featuring ‘The Yellow Bastard,’ ‘The Hard Goodbye,’ ‘The Big Fat Kill,’ and ‘The Customer is Always Right,’ with the atmosphere and visuals staying true to a comic book aesthetic. It’s also just a star-studded movie that’s very Tarantino-esque in tone and style, with the acclaimed director also providing a small hand in directing it alongside Rodriguez and Miller.

5

Last Night In Soho

Last Night in Soho is a very different movie outing for director Edgar Wright, whose previous works include Baby Driver, Shaun of the Dead, and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. This one is an unsettling psychological horror and mystery movie that slowly unravels its plot within the context of two storylines; one set in the present and the other in the past.

It’s a tale of two young women dreaming in different eras of Soho, told through the eyes of protagonist Eloise, an aspiring fashion designer staying in a room where memories of Sandie from the 1960s start to manifest before her. Sandie seems to be in danger through the past that Eloise unlocks, and the frightening men in Sandie’s life soon start haunting Eloise in the present, forcing her to solve a decades-old mystery and uncover one giant plot twist.

4

The Substance

The Oscar-nominated body horror film The Substance tells a highly original sci-fi horror story with clear influences from filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick, David Cronenberg, David Lynch, and Darren Aronofsky. The film is broken up into three storylines, one following Demi Moore’s Elisabeth Sparkle, the other Margaret Qualley’s Sue, and the third is best left to your surprise.

The Substance centers on the life of aging TV personality Elisabeth Sparkle, who (to stay relevant) injects herself with a green substance that creates a younger, more beautiful version of herself named Sue, who hatches from her back. Sue then quickly breaks into TV fame, and it turns into a tale of jealousy as well as a satire on beauty standards. While the overall plot is linear, the characters really do feel like they’re on different paths that branch off from the main plot.

3

Love Actually

If you’re looking for a Christmas movie and a more mature romantic comedy that contains multiple storylines, Love Actually is the only right choice. The film explores many different characters’ relationships and personal lives, some that are intertwined with others, and it’s an overall funny and endearing film filled with plenty of raunchy and heartwarming moments.

Love Actually remains one of the most iconic love stories in cinema, with moments like Andrew Lincoln’s character, Mark, professing his love to Kiera Knightley’s Juliet outside her door with cue cards he’d written out, or Rowan Atkinson hilariously taking his sweet time wrapping up an expensive gift for a man who means to give it to his mistress, or Bill Nighy’s music video moment as hit singer Billy Mack.

2

Magnolia

At a little over three hours in its runtime, PTA’s Magnolia is one of the longest movies to be mentioned here, but the story and characters are really worth staying with, especially Tom Cruise and Julianne Moore, the former of whom even received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film offers almost a dozen interconnected characters’ storylines taking place in the San Fernando Valley, all tangled in a complex web of loss and regret.

One is a motivational speaker, another a police officer, another a game show host battling cancer, and another the wife of a dying man with cancer. Magnolia is filled with many great dramatic performances by actors like John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, but this is ultimately Tom Cruise’s best dramatic performance outside his action hero movie roles, like in Mission: Impossible, Top Gun, and Reacher.

1

Pulp Fiction

You can’t talk about films featuring multiple storylines without acknowledging the masterpiece Pulp Fiction, winner of Best Original Screenplay and nominated for six other Oscars at the 1995 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. This film stands among Tarantino’s best, forming a disjointed story of hitmen, thieves, gangsters, and a boxer that will all connect organically over a non-linear progression.

John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson form an iconic duo of hitmen, Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield, who are contracted by a gangster named Marsellus Wallace, played by Ving Rhames, to be sent out on various missions. Meanwhile, Honeybunny and Pumpkin are two thieves robbing a diner, and boxer Butch Coolidge crosses Wallace during a match and is now on the run with his girlfriend.