Parts Per Billion
Year: 2014
Runtime: 98 mins
Language: English
Director: Brian Horiuchi
During a devastating war, three couples find themselves grappling with difficult choices that will change their lives forever. Len, Mia, Andy, Esther, Anna, and Erik are complex characters, flawed yet beautiful, as they confront a catastrophic, human-made biological disaster. The film explores whether love can endure even when the world is ending and profound sacrifices must be made.
Parts Per Billion (2014) – Spoiler-Free Movie Summary & Plot Overview
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In a world teetering on the brink of collapse, a relentless war has pushed humanity into a fragile limbo where every breath feels borrowed. The looming threat of a human‑made biological disaster casts a pall over everyday life, turning ordinary streets into corridors of whispered fear. Against this backdrop, the film unfolds as a quiet, tension‑laden meditation on how love and survival intersect when the future itself is uncertain.
Len is a once‑promising writer now adrift, wrestling with a sense of purposelessness that has begun to seep into his marriage. His partner, Mia, a sharp‑tongued lawyer, balances her career’s demands with the lingering ache of having taken her husband for granted. Their interactions reveal a marriage caught between lingering affection and the weight of unspoken regrets, each conversation a tightrope between hope and resignation.
Erik lives in the shadow of his family’s wealth, channeling his restless energy into music while trying to prove his independence. His relationship with Anna is marked by a mixture of tenderness and friction, as she oscillates between yearning for deeper connection and grappling with unsettling visions that hint at something far larger than their personal concerns. Their dynamic paints a portrait of youthful passion strained by the world’s encroaching dread.
Andy carries the legacy of his scientific past, haunted by the ethical shadows of his work, while his wife Esther embodies quiet optimism that clings to the possibility of redemption. Their partnership illustrates a generational perspective on responsibility and the moral compromises made in the name of survival. Together, these three couples navigate an atmosphere thick with anxiety, each confronting choices that test the limits of their devotion, resilience, and humanity as the world around them threatens to unravel.
Last Updated: September 26, 2025 at 04:34
Explore Movie Threads
Discover curated groups of movies connected by mood, themes, and story style. Browse collections built around emotion, atmosphere, and narrative focus to easily find films that match what you feel like watching right now.
Apocalyptic relationship dramas like Parts Per Billion
Intimate character studies set against the backdrop of a collapsing world.For viewers seeking movies like Parts Per Billion, this thread gathers sci-fi and drama films where a world-ending event serves as the setting for intense character studies of couples and families. If you enjoyed the focus on strained relationships under catastrophic pressure, you'll find similar emotionally heavy stories here.
Narrative Summary
The narrative typically follows one or more couples or families as a catastrophic event unfolds around them. The plot interweaves the large-scale disaster with intimate, personal conflicts, showing how external chaos exacerbates internal tensions and forces profound moral and emotional choices.
Why These Movies?
Movies are grouped here because they share a primary focus on the human emotional response to apocalypse rather than the mechanics of survival. They blend high-stakes external plots with heavy, relationship-driven drama, creating a specific, melancholic vibe of love tested by the end of the world.
Bleak but hopeful sci-fi movies like Parts Per Billion
Stories of profound devastation where humanity's resilience still flickers.If you liked the devastating yet ultimately hopeful tone of Parts Per Billion, this list features similar sci-fi films. These movies explore dark themes like war and disaster but maintain a fragile undercurrent of hope, offering a bittersweet rather than entirely bleak viewing experience for fans of heavy emotional storytelling.
Look to the Light
2024
Parts Per Billion
2014
Daylight's End
2016
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
2001
Blade Runner 2049
2017
Cargo
2011
Vesper
2022
The Book of Eli
2010
Dark Encounter
2019
Scorched Earth
2018
Children of Men
2006
Phoenix 2772
1980
Children of Love
2003
Lovely, Dark, and Deep
2024
The Cloud
2006
Narrative Summary
The narrative journey is one of overwhelming loss and confronting harsh truths about the world and oneself. Characters are pushed to their absolute limits, and many may not survive, but the story often concludes with a small, symbolic act or discovery that implies the potential for renewal or the enduring value of human connection.
Why These Movies?
These films are grouped by their unique tonal balance: they are unflinchingly dark and heavy, yet they avoid a completely hopeless ending. This creates a specific, resonant emotional experience—bittersweet and contemplative—that distinguishes them from purely tragic or triumphantly hopeful stories.
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Parts Per Billion Summary
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