In the Mood for Love

Hong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery about their spouses creates an intimate bond between them. At once delicately mannered and visually extravagant, Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments. With its aching musical soundtrack and exquisitely abstract cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping-bin, this film has been a major stylistic influence on the past two decades of cinema—from Lost in Translation to Everything Everywhere All at Once—and is a milestone in Wong’s redoubtable career. 
 
Fun fact: Wong landed on the English title In the Mood for Love while listening to Bryan Ferry’s cover of the 1930s song “I’m in the Mood for Love.”  Though not in the film, the song was used in the Hong Kong and U.S. trailers.