Cover Enrique Gil and Liza Soberano in ‘Alone/Together’. Discover more films like Materialists below (Photo: Black Sheep)
Enrique Gil and Liza Soberano in ‘Alone/Together’. Discover more films like Materialists below (Photo: Black Sheep)
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After Celine Song’s ‘Materialists’, explore Filipino cinema’s enduring fascination with modern romance
After Materialists, Celine Song’s elegant follow-up to Past Lives, viewers are often left searching for films that dissect the same terrain: intimacy complicated by money, ambition and the pressure to define love through status. It is a film that places romance against the structures that shape it, asking how much of our relationships are chosen freely and how much are products of circumstance.
Philippine cinema has been asking these questions for decades. From contemporary dramas set in Manila to modern romances staged abroad, filmmakers have long explored how class, ambition and longing affect the ways Filipinos fall in and out of love. The following nine films stand out as perhaps companions to Materialists, each worth revisiting for the sharpness with which they capture lives in transition.
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1. ‘That Thing Called Tadhana’ (2014, Antoinette Jadaone)
Above ‘That Thing Called Tadhana’ (2014, Antoinette Jadaone)
A cult favourite that defined a generation of Filipino millennials, this film pairs heartbreak with the freedom of escape. Two strangers meet at an airport and drive north, their shared confessions slowly shifting into something tender. To revisit it is to remember the ache of beginnings and endings compressed into one journey.
2. ‘Never Not Love You’ (2018, Antoinette Jadaone)
Above ‘Never Not Love You’ (2018, Antoinette Jadaone)
Shot between Manila and London, the story follows a couple grappling with career ambitions and the realities of migration. The romance builds, fractures and rebuilds under economic strain. A second viewing underscores how migration reshapes intimacy and how sacrifice leaves its trace on every gesture.
3. ‘Kita Kita’ (2017, Sigrid Andrea Bernardo)
Above ‘Kita Kita’ (2017, Sigrid Andrea Bernardo)
Set in Japan, this film uses humour and odd circumstance to tell a love story touched by loss and perception. Its deceptive simplicity hides a darker portrait of grief and renewal. Watching again, one notices the quiet foreshadowing that alters the story’s emotional weight.
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4. ‘Exes Baggage’ (2018, Dan Villegas)
Above ‘Exes Baggage’ (2018, Dan Villegas)
Few films capture the tension between memory and reality as vividly. Two former lovers reunite and are forced to confront the past they left unfinished. It is a study in how love lingers in fragments and how nostalgia can cloud or clarify what once was.
5. ‘English Only, Please’ (2014, Dan Villegas)
Above ‘English Only, Please’ (2014, Dan Villegas)
A romantic comedy that balances wit with cultural observation, the film tells of a Filipino-American writer seeking help from a language tutor. What unfolds is a cross-cultural exploration of love and identity that remains one of the most refreshing portraits of modern Manila.
6. ‘The Mistress’ (2012, Olivia Lamasan)
Above ‘The Mistress’ (2012, Olivia Lamasan)
A glossy yet emotionally grounded drama, this film complicates desire by situating it within family wealth and moral obligation. Bea Alonzo and John Lloyd Cruz deliver performances that remind audiences how romance can be both consuming and constrained by class.
7. ‘Sakaling Maging Tayo’ (2019, JP Habac)
Above ‘Sakaling Maging Tayo’ (2019, JP Habac)
This youthful romance is infused with dares, confessions and the thrill of risk. It captures the intensity of young adulthood and the fragility of connections that form overnight. Its charm lies in showing how vulnerability becomes both a gamble and a gift.
8. ‘Alone/Together’ (2019, Antoinette Jadaone)
Above ‘Alone/Together’ (2019, Antoinette Jadaone)
The film traces the arc of two people who reconnect years after their relationship failed. It explores how ambition and regret change people and how reconciliation can be as complicated as heartbreak. Rewatching it offers a sharper sense of what it means to dream beyond love.
9. ‘Changing Partners’ (2017, Dan Villegas)
Above ‘Changing Partners’ (2017, Dan Villegas)
An adaptation of a stage musical, this film reshapes the same relationship across different genders and ages. By shifting its central couple through multiple lenses, it asks how power, insecurity and devotion define intimacy. It remains one of the boldest Filipino takes on love in flux.
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Angela Nicole Regis Guiral is a digital editor at Tatler Philippines. She studied journalism and has since written features that look closely at how culture, lifestyle and social impact converge, while occasionally wandering into the worlds of style and travel.
