Late Chrysanthemums(1954)

Sisters of the Gion(ja)

A geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto feels obliged to help her lover when he asks to stay with her after going bankrupt and leaving his wife. However, her younger sister opposes this, thinking that they should both find wealthy patrons to support them.

A Geisha(ja)

Fleeing a distressing family situation, Eiko, a very young girl, becomes an apprentice to Miyoharu, a veteran geisha. Both, determined to preserve their professional integrity, must face the selfishness and ambition of several petty people.

Intentions of Murder(ja)

The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.

Repast(ja)

In post-WWII Osaka, a middle-aged woman is forced to examine her dreary life and marriage when her husband's young and flirtatious cousin arrives for a brief stay to escape an arranged marriage.

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs(ja)

Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for her demanding mother and brother, and knowing she's growing older.

The Woman in the Rumor(ja)

After living a traumatic experience in Tokyo, Yukiko returns to Kyoto, where Hatsuko, her mother, runs a brothel, which upsets Yukiko very much.

Museum(ja)

In Tokyo, Japan, several grotesque murders take place on rainy days. Detective Sawamura, who is in charge of the case, soon discovers that his own family is connected to the crimes.

Zatoichi(ja)

Blind traveler Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a masseur with a fondness for gambling on dice games. When he arrives in a village torn apart by warring gangs, he sets out to protect the townspeople.

Street of Shame(ja)

Follows five sex workers employed at a Japanese brothel while the nation debates the passage of an anti-prostitution law.

Early Summer(ja)

In postwar Tokyo, Noriko lives with her extended family. Although she enjoys her career and her social life, her more traditional family worries about her single marital status at the advanced age of 28. 40-year-old business associate Takako proposes, Noriko's family press her into accepting, but when her widowed childhood friend Kenkichi returns to the neighborhood, she finds her heart leading in another direction.

A Man(ja)

Akira works as a lawyer. One day, he meets with his former client Rie, who asks Akira to perform a background check on her late husband Daisuke.

Throne of Blood(ja)

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.

Café Lumière(ja)

In a distinctly contemporary Tokyo that looks backwards to the city’s disappearing past, Yoko is a writer investigating the life of a modernist composer of the 1930s. She is pregnant by a man she does not want to marry and has found a kindred spirit in a used bookstore owner who aids her research.

Zigeunerweisen(ja)

A surreal period film following a university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.

Pigs and Battleships(ja)

In the city of Yokosuka, Kinta and his lover Haruko, both involved with yakuza, brave the post-occupation period with a goal to be together.

Sakuran(ja)

Kiyoha rises from the lowly courtesan ranks to the high class position of Oiran in the steamy red-light district of Yoshiwara. She is determined to stand on her own two feet and live life as she pleased.

Aristocrats(ja)

Hanako is looking for stability with her man. She gets dumped instead. She begins dating. Miki studied and worked hard to get to where she is and is holding down a job. They are introduced through an intermediary man.

Ugetsu(ja)

In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady Wakasa, as well as Tobei's desire to become a samurai, run the risk of destroying both themselves and their wives, Miyagi and Ohama.

Irezumi(ja)

Otsuya, the daughter of a rich merchant, elopes with her lover Shinsuke, an employee of her father's. During their flight, Otsuya's beauty attracts the gaze of Seikichi, a mysterious master tattooist who sees her pristine white skin as the perfect canvas for his art. The image of the large demonic spider that he emblazons across Otsuya's back marks her as the property of another man, radically altering her relationships with all around her as her personality seems to transform under its influence.

Three Outlaw Samurai(ja)

Shiba, a wandering ronin, encounters a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of their dictatorial magistrate, in hopes of coercing from him a reduction in taxes. Shiba takes up their fight, joined by two renegades from the magistrate's guard, Sakura and Kikyo. The three outlaws find themselves in a battle to the death.

The Tenant(fr)

A quiet and inconspicuous man rents an apartment in Paris where he finds himself drawn into a rabbit hole of dangerous paranoia.

The Secret of NIMH(en)

A widowed field mouse must move her family -- including an ailing son -- to escape a farmer's plow. Aided by a crow and a pack of superintelligent, escaped lab rats, the brave mother struggles to transplant her home to firmer ground.

Bright Future(ja)

Buddies working at an oshibori factory bond over an uncontrollable rage neither can control, as well as a strange jellyfish they keep as a pet.

The Day After(ko)

On her first day at work, Areum replaces a woman who broke up with the boss. The wife of the boss finds a love note, bursts into the office, and mistakes Areum for the other woman.

Pugowitza(de)

World War II is over and Heinrich, a young German boy, influenced by the Russians, starts to act according to Communist principles in a small German village.

The Pillow Book(en)

Nagito has a fetish for calligraphy on the human body and meets her ideal soulmate Jerome, an English translator sent to Japan. However, once Nagiko's father's gay publisher rejoins the scene, the story is overtaken by treachery and bloodlust.

Clay Pigeons(en)

Clay is a young man in a small town who witnesses his friend, Earl, kill himself because of the ongoing affair that Clay was having with the man's wife, Amanda. Feeling guilty, Clay now resists the widow when she presses him to continue with the affair. Clay unknowingly befriends a serial killer named Lester Long who murders the widow in an attempt to "help" his "fishing buddy."

Farewell Tokyo(ko)

Our Folks: The Beginning(pl)

Pawlak and Kargul – the protagonists of the cult-favourite trilogy “Our Folks” – had been neighbours in a village in Podolia before they ended up in the Recovered Territories. Even then, it was one explosive neighbourhood.

Down Town(ja)

A woman struggles to raise her young son on her own in postwar Japan, finding companionship with a kind laborer while still hoping for the return of her missing husband.

The Reflecting Skin(en)

In 1950s rural Idaho, a young boy watches helplessly as his friends and brother fall under the spell of a mysterious widow living up the road and becomes convinced that she is a vampire.

Ocean Waves(ja)

At Kichijōji Station, Tokyo, Taku Morisaki glimpses a familiar woman on the platform opposite boarding a train. Later, her photo falls from a shelf as he exits his apartment before flying to Kōchi Prefecture. Picking it up, he looks at it briefly before leaving. As the aeroplane takes off, he narrates the events that brought her into his life...

Kabei: Our Mother(ja)

Set in Tokyo in 1940, the peaceful life of the Nogami Family suddenly changes when the father, Shigeru, is arrested and accused of being a Communist. His wife Kayo works frantically from morning to night to maintain the household and bring up her two daughters with the support of Shigeru's sister Hisako and Shigeru's ex-student Yamazaki, but her husband does not return. WWII breaks out and casts dark shadows on the entire country, but Kayo still tries to keep her cheerful determination, and sustain the family with her love. This is an emotional drama of a mother and an eternal message for peace.

Violated Paradise(en)

A modern geisha travels through Japan trying to find a job as entertainer, and ends up by finding love and a job as ama, a pearl diver.

Feast of Love(en)

A meditation on love and its various incarnations, set within a community of friends in Oregon. It is described as an exploration of the magical, mysterious and sometimes painful incarnations of love.

Suddenly, Last Summer(en)

The only son of wealthy widow Violet Venable dies while on vacation with his cousin Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she went insane; now Mrs. Venable wants Catherine lobotomized to cover up the truth.

Living Together(ml)

Shyama is a free spirit who lost her parents at a young age. After their death, she becomes attached to her grandfather and uncle. She is brought in a wrong manner and she used to flirt with boys. She becomes friendly with Hemachandran, a boy in the neighbourhood who falls in love with her. However, she moves away from the locality. Later, Hemanth discovers Shyama does love him. However, Shyama is not willing for a marriage as she is told that either she or Hemachandran will die after six months from the marriage. The story continues to tell how they overcome this obstacle in their relationship and family problems.

Try Seventeen(en)

Teenager Jones has opted not to go to college and is instead renting a room in a boarding house to work on his writing skills. Soon, Jones finds himself dividing his time between two women: a young actress named Lisa and a photographer named Jane. After Jane's ex-boyfriend arrives to help her recover from a car accident, Jones begins to understand just how much he cares for her.

The Big Empty(en)

Struggling actor John Person agrees to drive a blue suitcase from Los Angeles to the small town of Baker, Calif., and hand it over to a mysterious cowboy in return for having his credit card debt of $27,000 paid off. Upon his arrival, John can't find the cowboy but receives an ominously head-shaped package he's supposed to hang onto. While waiting, John gets close to Ruthie, whose psychotic boyfriend, Randy, keeps threatening to kill him.

Our Daily Bread(de)

A story about a family after the Second World War. The petty bourgeois cashier Karl Weber of Berlin observes from a distance how his son Ernst participates in the building of a new socialist society. Karl does not understand Ernst's visions, instead he confides in his other son Harry. However, Harry becomes involved in illicit business and Karl quickly realizes that it would be best to join his son Ernst in the citizen-owned factory.