Pen-Ek Ratanaruang

Directing

Pen-Ek Ratanaruang

Born 1962-03-08 · Bangkok, Thailand

Pen-Ek Ratanaruang (Thai: เป็นเอก รัตนเรือง) A Thai film director and screenwriter best known for his arthouse work "Last Life in the Universe", and is considered to be one of Thai cinema's leading "new wave" auteurs, alongside Wisit Sasanatieng and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. He goes by the nickname Tom and is sometimes credited as Tom Pannet.

Acting credits

Citizen Dog poster
6.8

Pod decides to change jobs after losing his finger at a sardine packing plant. His new job as a security guard comes with an unexpected perk in the form of a lanky maid who carries a mysterious white book.

Citizen Dog

2004

Behind the Blur poster
4.0

An insightful documentary about Thai cinema, which features a colourful and long running film history, yet struggles as the industry attempts to move forward. This film examines the past and focuses on the Thai New Wave since 1997 by combining film clips, and interviews from Thai directors and others artists, like Asian hip-hop sensation Thaitanium, who are trying to create a more personal style of art.

Behind the Blur

2009

The Master poster
7.4

A Thai documentary about 'Van VDO' the VHS shop in 1990s. The shop established the independent cinema scene for Thai audience by selling VHS of American, European, and Asian indie films. However, all of them are pirate and illegal.

The Master

2014

Southeast Asian Cinema – When the Rooster Crows poster
5.0

Southeast Asia Cinema - When the rooster crows is a voice of diversity reaching for change. Brillante Mendoza, Eric Khoo, Garin Nugroho, Pen Ek Ratanaruang give voice to a region rich with traditions, ethnic groups, languages, politics, and religions. It is cinema, at its purest form, fighting for freedom of expression, documenting real lives of ordinary people, giving voice to the underdogs and the outcasts. The amalgamation of these aspects gives birth to an ultra-neo-realistic cinema language currently unique to films from this region.

Southeast Asian Cinema – When the Rooster Crows

2014

ตัวกู-ของกู poster
NR

An interview with five renowned artists from various fields, focusing on their beliefs, identity, working methods, and life journey—from the beginning of their careers to their eventual success in their respective disciplines.

ตัวกู-ของกู

2008

Electric Yakuza, Go to Hell! poster
8.5

Documentary about the Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike, where we see him attend film festivals, personal influences and of course the study of his main films, apart from the opinions about him by other filmmakers such as Takeshi Kitano or Kinji Fukasaku.

Electric Yakuza, Go to Hell!

2004

Behind the camera

Morte Cucina poster
3.8

Sao, a talented cook, accidentally meets the man who took advantage of her in the past. She sets her revenge plan in motion using her cooking skill to achieve a rather unexpected result.

Morte Cucina

2026

Morte Cucina poster
3.8

Sao, a talented cook, accidentally meets the man who took advantage of her in the past. She sets her revenge plan in motion using her cooking skill to achieve a rather unexpected result.

Morte Cucina

2026

60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero poster
4.2

An anthology of one-minute films created by 51 international filmmakers on the theme of the death of cinema. Intended as an ode to 35mm, the film was screened one time only on a purpose-built 20x12 meter public cinema screen in the Port of Tallinn, Estonia, on 22 December 2011. A special projector was constructed for the event which allowed the actual filmstrip to be burnt at the same time as the film was shown.

60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero

2011

Last Life in the Universe poster
7.1

An obsessive-compulsive Japanese librarian living in Bangkok spends most of his days contemplating suicide in his apartment. His life changes when he witnesses the death of a young girl and becomes acquainted with her elder sister.

Last Life in the Universe

2003

Last Life in the Universe poster
7.1

An obsessive-compulsive Japanese librarian living in Bangkok spends most of his days contemplating suicide in his apartment. His life changes when he witnesses the death of a young girl and becomes acquainted with her elder sister.

Last Life in the Universe

2003

Total Bangkok poster
NR

This 21-minute documentary marks the directorial debut of acclaimed Thai filmmaker Pen-Ek Ratanaruang in the documentary format. Though modest in scale, it is a charming work infused with his distinctive style and signature sensibility. Commissioned with support from Nike (Thailand) Co., Ltd., the project explores a passion for football by taking viewers into the lives of amateur players who gather on a concrete pitch beneath the Din Daeng Expressway. Pen-Ek himself was a regular participant in this football community, lending the film a personal and intimate perspective. The documentary serves as a reflection of urban dreamers struggling to find space to play the game they love, capturing their aspirations with a blend of humor, melancholy, and the uniquely ironic touch that characterizes Pen-Ek’s filmmaking.

Total Bangkok

2006

Transistor Love Story poster
6.9

An aspiring singer leaves his pregnant bride a radio for company when he is drafted into the army; unfit for military life, the man goes AWOL and joins a pop music troupe but soon after his wife tracks him down his life spirals out of control.

Transistor Love Story

2001

Transistor Love Story poster
6.9

An aspiring singer leaves his pregnant bride a radio for company when he is drafted into the army; unfit for military life, the man goes AWOL and joins a pop music troupe but soon after his wife tracks him down his life spirals out of control.

Transistor Love Story

2001

Headshot poster
6.1

A hitman named Tul is shot in the head during an assignment. When he wakes up from a two month coma Tul discovers that he literally sees everything upside down.

Headshot

2011

Headshot poster
6.1

A hitman named Tul is shot in the head during an assignment. When he wakes up from a two month coma Tul discovers that he literally sees everything upside down.

Headshot

2011

Ploy poster
6.0

A husband and wife are locked inside a single hotel room with a stranger named Ploy. Subtle suspicions build up to jealousy as the young woman triggers devastating consequences for the couple.

Ploy

2007

Ploy poster
6.0

A husband and wife are locked inside a single hotel room with a stranger named Ploy. Subtle suspicions build up to jealousy as the young woman triggers devastating consequences for the couple.

Ploy

2007

Fun Bar Karaoke poster
5.8

Pu is a young woman who is having some bad dreams. Her father, meanwhile, has fallen in love with a karaoke bar hostess girl named Yok who's the girlfriend of a mobster. A hitman named Noi is then dispatched to kill the father, and Pu ends up falling in love with Noi.

Fun Bar Karaoke

1997

Fun Bar Karaoke poster
5.8

Pu is a young woman who is having some bad dreams. Her father, meanwhile, has fallen in love with a karaoke bar hostess girl named Yok who's the girlfriend of a mobster. A hitman named Noi is then dispatched to kill the father, and Pu ends up falling in love with Noi.

Fun Bar Karaoke

1997

Invisible Waves poster
5.9

After inadvertently killing his girlfriend, a man flees Macau for Thailand in an attempt to cope with his guilt, and avoid possible arrest. But the relocation doesn't prevent his problems from following him, as his new friends could be potential enemies.

Invisible Waves

2006

Samui Song poster
5.8

A soap opera actress finds herself increasingly pressured by her husband, a rich foreigner entirely devoted to a charismatic cult leader.

Samui Song

2018

Samui Song poster
5.8

A soap opera actress finds herself increasingly pressured by her husband, a rich foreigner entirely devoted to a charismatic cult leader.

Samui Song

2018

Gatlang : Happiness, Hardship and Other Stories poster
6.0

Gatlang is the name of a small village at an altitude of 7400 feet located in Nepal. A land that no one has ever mentioned. It was hidden under a secret area at the edge of the world's sky. It was shrouded in a faint gray mist that shrouded in all directions. That place calls for us to visit.

Gatlang : Happiness, Hardship and Other Stories

2018

Nymph poster
6.0

An urban husband and wife travel to the jungle and learn just how precious their relationship is.

Nymph

2009

Nymph poster
6.0

An urban husband and wife travel to the jungle and learn just how precious their relationship is.

Nymph

2009

6ixtynin9 poster
6.8

A woman, fired from a financial corporation during the Asia crisis, returns home with no money. However, she finds a box with a fortune in front of her door, and decides to keep it. However, the people that left it there soon want it back.

6ixtynin9

1999

6ixtynin9 poster
6.8

A woman, fired from a financial corporation during the Asia crisis, returns home with no money. However, she finds a box with a fortune in front of her door, and decides to keep it. However, the people that left it there soon want it back.

6ixtynin9

1999

6ixtynin9 poster
6.8

A woman, fired from a financial corporation during the Asia crisis, returns home with no money. However, she finds a box with a fortune in front of her door, and decides to keep it. However, the people that left it there soon want it back.

6ixtynin9

1999

Paradoxocracy poster
4.6

Sociopolitical Documentary directed by Pen Ek Ratanaruang and Pasakorn Pramoolwong narrating the forward of (sometimes backward) Thai politics since People's Party (Khana Ratsadon) established a constitutional monarchy on 24 June 1932.

Paradoxocracy

2013