Coffee and Cigarettes

Coffee and Cigarettes (2004) is Jim Jarmusch's black-and-white anthology, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Eleven short scenes, each built around the same ritual: somebody at a table with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

There's no plot threading it together. Just conversations — awkward, funny, occasionally hostile. Cate Blanchett plays two cousins sniping at each other across a hotel lounge. Tom Waits and Iggy Pop circle a jukebox, each sure the other slighted him. Alfred Molina tries to befriend a coldly indifferent Steve Coogan, and it's painful in the best way. Steve Buscemi, Bill Murray, Roberto Benigni, and Jack and Meg White drift through the rest. Jarmusch shot the segments piecemeal from the late 1980s on, stitching the film together over nearly seventeen years.

This is cinema for people who'd rather sit with a pause than chase a plot: dry humor, casting that doubles as a mixtape, the feel of an overheard chat. The best vignettes you replay like a favorite track. Stream Coffee and Cigarettes online on iFILM.