Same Time, Next Year

Same Time, Next Year (1978) is a romantic comedy-drama directed by Robert Mulligan — watch it online on iFILM. Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn star, adapted from Bernard Slade's long-running Broadway play.

In 1951, a married housewife from Oakland and a married accountant from New Jersey meet at a California inn, end up in bed together by morning, and decide — in so many words — to do this again. Same place, same weekend, every year. The film jumps in five-year intervals: same room, same two people, different decade each time.

Burstyn landed an Oscar nomination for the role, and the film earns it. What Mulligan pulls off here is mostly about listening: the best scenes are two people in a small room with the years piling up between them, each visit a quiet inventory of what changed. It's the kind of film that only gets better once you've had a few decades of your own to compare against. Stream Same Time, Next Year (1978) online on iFILM.