Cloud Atlas (2012)

This is the best movie that could have been made from a very complex and thought provoking book.  I read the book when it came out  over a decade ago) and my husband read it the week before we watched the movie, so I can say unequivocally that reading the book in close proximity to watching the movie definitely helps with following the message being delivered.

The book consists of 6 separate stories that occur over a span of time that goes from the mid-19th century to the present to well in to a post Apocalyptic future.  The book goes from the past to the present, where something happens that shows that people are interconnected across space and time, and that what happened  in the past affects the future--so the book winds down by going backwards through time again.  So there are 11 time sequences and you start and end with the oldest one. The movie has chosen to present these stories in far shorter segments interwoven throughout the almost three hour film--in order to demonstrate the interconnected quality, the same actors play several characters in different time periods, which this brilliant poster so aptly demonstrates--they cross genders as well as times, and someone who is good in one time might very well be something else altogether in the next.

The movie might be best understood by someone who has neglected to read David Mitchell's fantastic book by the same title by doing a quick read of a summary of the book and then the movie, but I highly recommend the pair as well crafted bookends that tell the same story in a very novel and different way.  Spectacularly done.