Coherence

2013 Directed by James Ward Byrkit

Nothing is random.

On the night of an astronomical anomaly, eight friends at a dinner party experience a troubling chain of reality bending events.

Emily Baldoni Maury Sterling Nicholas Brendon Lorene Scafaria Elizabeth Gracen Hugo Armstrong Alex Manugian Lauren Maher Aqueela Zoll Carrie Patterson Kelly Donovan Alexis Boozer Sterling Mark Ballou

Alternative Titles

Слаженность, 相干性, 相干效应

thriller science fiction

89 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by lauren ★★★★ 21

i understand that you're supposed to be confused but half of the people in this movie looking the same doesn't really help either
Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★½ 7

???!!!!?????!?!?!?!?!?!????!?!!??!?!!?!?!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?!?!?!???
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★½ 16

82/100
As much as I prefer to avoid reducing films to "x + y" influence equations, this really is almost precisely "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" crossed with Primer, and very nearly as heady and arresting as that sounds. Unlike Carruth, Byrkit (who's worked extensively with Gore Verbinski—he has a story credit on Rango, for example) is a bit too eager to explain himself, even tossing in an overly convenient book that lays out Schrödinger's Cat for viewers unfamiliar with quantum decoherence; a more confident filmmaker would have produced a knowing smile in those with some knowledge of physics and let everybody else simply accept the split as magic. His scenario is arguably even more insanely complicated, though…
Review by russman ★★★★ 4

Note to self: Do not make plans with anyone during celestial events
Review by kayla ★★★★

You literally have to pay attention to every single second of this but it’s really easy to because it sucks you in with how anxious and curious it gets you. As Billy Ray Cyrus once said, much to think about.....
Review by Karsten Runquist ★★★★ 1

This gave me more anxiety than any film I’ve ever seen and I’m going to be legitimately traumatized for the next days/months/years FUCK
Review by Peaceful Stoner ★★★★½ 13

I, Me, Myself. We, Us, Ourselves.
What could possibly be the most startling thing you could ever witness in real life that would make your heart pound, head spin, doubt your mind if its reality or schizophrenic hallucination and make you question your own sanity? A Brontosaurus, a Godzilla, an Alien, a Predator, one look at the mutated, cross species progeny from Eraserhead, a glance at the abominable, heart attack inducing face from Mulholland Drive, witnessing Hannibal Lecter eat a man's brain right out of his head while he is still alive and also feed some to him, reading Jack Torrance's months of work, the enigmatically chilling Polish woman from Inland Empire, Buffalo Bill, Ichi, the killer; which one of…
Review by Lucy ★★★½

what the fuck
Review by Bruno ★★★★½ 15

I am really into films like Timecrimes and Upstream Color, which have intriguing concepts and can be a real mind-bending journey. I’m glad to report that Coherence is certainly one of those. All of them would have fallen into obscurity for me if it wasn't for this incredible community, so thanks to all of you for introducing me to them. Coherence is unlike anything I’ve ever seen! As soon as the comet started passing and the strange occurrences began, I was instantly hooked by the story until the end. It is a very suspenseful experience as it keeps you guessing and questioning the reasoning for all the events. Another aspect I really liked is that there’s a great deal of…
Review by alex todd 🧟‍♂️ ★★★½ 1

you know a film is confusing when you don’t even understand the explained video
Review by DirkH ★★★ 10

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Coherence starts off slightly annoying with a mumblecore sensitivity and hand-held aesthetic, with too many people talking just to fill the silence. It doesn't take too long for this to be pushed back and make place for the preliminary jousts at something resembling a plot.
And that's where the strongest part of this film shines. In the second act Coherence manages to do a lot with a little. It creates a surprising amount of paranoia and the speculations about what's exactly going on, as dumb as they are sometimes, are interesting. They kept me invested and the way the pieces of the puzzle slowly allign is handled really well, betraying a love for clever, low key Sci Fi, something I…
Review by Aeronn ★★★★ 5

Ngl i really loved the concept of this movie. I didn't know what in the world was going on half of the time but i still loved it. It messes with your brain and it requires you to pay full attention to what the characters say or do because otherwise it might not make much sense by the time it ends. I am pretty sure that i understood the ending but i'll have to check a few "Coherence Ending Explained" youtube vids out just to make sure lol.
This also gave me Safdie brothers level of anxiety for some reason.. but i'd happily watch it again in the future.

Recent reviews

Review by Maleena Loomis ★★★★

Have you ever watched a movie and been so confused but knew exactly what was going on
Review by mamone ★★★★½

Wag aattend ng dinner party
Review by Blain Morty ★★ 3

a film so memorable i didn’t realise this was a rewatch
Review by Andrew Heninger ★★★★

Like any good genre-busting thrilled, it ropes you in with its almost too casual style, yet you know something isn’t right. Some major Primer vibes. Add a dash of overlapping dialogue, slowly reveal one more twist or surprise at a time, until you’ve got the audience and characters in so deep they don’t know which way is up, then, go in for the kill. Expertly directed, with satisfying layers upon layers, and vapor-on acting and writing/improvising, and a stellar premise that demands a rewatch.
Review by Eli🏳️‍🌈

this was just a very stressful math problem
Review by lintu ½

I'd rather watch melancholia & us, thank you
Review by 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐞 ★★★★

cool concept that ive never seen before, pretty interesting for a one-setting movie w low budget. creeped me out too ig🙄
Review by j__guerrero ★★★½

I went into this not knowing a damn thing and had no clue what route it’d take. It’s safe to say that I was really impressed by the film overall. The multiple reality concept actually worked well and it had a ton of wtf moments. My only big complaint was the camera work. Shit was like an early 2000’s reality show camera work and I wasn’t a fan of that one but. Other than that, really impressive movie. It also takes place in the Silicon Valley and they mention Santa Cruz and UCSC a few times so I found that cool since that’s in the area I’m in.
Review by Alek Wiltbank ★★★★

The real friends were the friends we killed along the way.

Really solid premise with a lot of low-budget ways of making it all work. There were so many little ideas and branches that they probably could have gone with, so I think trimming it down was one of the harder things they had to do. Really liked what they did with the box, it set up a good mystery that was able to be somewhat forgotten about and then wrapped back around to for a furthered payoff. Using the red glow sticks to make the “others” feel evil early on was a great way to create long lasting tension and prevent relaxing cooperation from becoming the obvious route. I…
Review by makda98 ★★★★

In the process of watching this movie, you will die and come back to life
Review by Presley Thies ★★½

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

This is not a bad film by any means. Coherence is, at times, a fun rumination on quantum realities and parallel existences as a group of sort-of friends have a dinner party as a comet passes overhead. Now, the film breaks down how exactly quantum realities work and puts them to effect in an interesting, intimate scenario, but there's a good bit of scene-laying noise at the beginning of the feature that isn't exactly attention-grabbing. I know, it can't be all-action all the time, I was just simply less than enthralled by the first act.
Second act time. Shit ramps up. Our group of friends slowly but surely come to realize their situation as they become increasingly entangled with the…
Review by wastours ★★★★

Budget is slim but story is FERTILE in this near sci-fi thriller about friends having dinner during a cosmic event. Truly original! Technically there is something to be desired, but working on a 50k budget this film is beyond an accomplishment. Definitely worth watching more than once!