Once

Once (2007) is an Irish musical drama directed by John Carney — watch it online on iFILM. A Dublin street busker plays covers on Grafton Street to pay the bills and keeps his own songs locked away, not quite brave enough to share them. Then a Czech flower-seller stops to talk and admits she writes too.

Over a handful of days they rehearse, record a rough demo, and argue about what their lives should look like. That's the whole film. Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová weren't actors hired to play musicians — they were musicians who agreed to be filmed, and it shows in every scene. Their actual duo, The Swell Season, wrote and performed the entire soundtrack.

"Falling Slowly" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2008. The film cost almost nothing to make and was shot on Dublin streets with a tiny crew, which gives it the texture of something overheard rather than staged. Stream Once (2007) on iFILM.