Film
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ
Boonmee, dying of kidney failure on his farm in north-eastern Thailand, is joined for his last days by his sister-in-law, his nephew, and by visitors who are not exactly alive: a wife who died nineteen years ago, and a son who went into the forest and came back changed.
About
The first Thai film to win the Palme d'Or, awarded by Tim Burton's jury at Cannes in 2010 to general astonishment and a certain amount of press-room bafflement. It was produced with British, French, German and Spanish money — Illuminations Films in London, Anna Sanders in Paris — as part of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's larger Primitive project on the Isan region and its buried political history.
Boonmee is a farmer with failing kidneys who spends his last days on his land, attended by relatives and by the dead: his wife appears at the dinner table, his lost son returns from the forest in the form of a red-eyed monkey ghost. Apichatpong films all of this in the same register as the dialysis and the tamarind harvest, without effects and without a change of tone, which is the source of both the comedy and the awe.
Critics treated it as the arrival of a major body of work rather than a one-off, and it now sits high on most polls of the century's best films. The catalogue already has Memoria, his European-financed Colombian picture with Tilda Swinton; this is the one that made that film possible, and the better place to begin.
Where to Watch
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Streaming availability via JustWatch. Last checked 2026-08-30.
Top Cast
Thanapat Saisaymar
Boonmee
Jenjira Pongpas
Jen
Sakda Kaewbuadee
Tong
Natthakarn Aphaiwonk
Huay
Geerasak Kulhong
Boonsong
Awards, Festivals & Mentions
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Winner — Palme d'Or, Cannes Film Festival (2010)
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Winner — Asia Pacific Screen Award Best Film (2010)
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Cannes Film Festival 2010 — In Competition
