All Around Us(2008)

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.

All About Lily Chou-Chou(ja)

Charts the troubled teenage years of students Yūichi Hasumi and Shūsuke Hoshino, exploring the shifting and complex power dynamics of their relationship against the backdrop of Yūichi's love for the dreamy and abstract music of pop star Lily Chou-Chou.

Her Love Boils Bathwater(ja)

After being diagnosed with a terminal illness, Futaba resolves to spend her remaining time reuniting her broken family, reopening the long-closed bathhouse, and helping her shy daughter Azumi learn to stand on her own.

MOTHER(ja)

Shuhei is leading a tough life. His alcoholic mother Akiko can only hook up with bad guys and order Shuhei to go get money from his disapproving grandparents instead of going to school. Except raising the little half-sister, his rock-bottom life seems to have no end.

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.

Tokyo Family(ja)

An elderly couple journey to Tokyo to visit their grown children, only to find them preoccupied and self-involved.

Shoplifters(ja)

In the outskirts of Tokyo, a poor but close-knit group living on the fringes of society survives through shoplifting and odd jobs. When Osamu and his son take in a neglected young girl, their already fragile existence begins to unravel. As the family grows attached to her, buried secrets surface, forcing them to confront the true meaning of love, belonging, and what makes a family.

House of Bamboo(en)

Eddie Kenner is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson, a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals.

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41(ja)

After being used and betrayed by the detective she had fallen in love with, young Matsu is sent to a female prison full of sadistic guards and disobedient prisoners.

Love & Pop(ja)

Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends engage in a practice known as enjo kosai, or "compensated dating", where older men pay young girls for dates. Hiromi plunges deeper into this world to raise money for an expensive ring.

Rashomon(ja)

Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.

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.

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.

Blood on the Sun(en)

Nick Condon, an American journalist in 20s Tokyo, publishes the Japanese master plan for world domination. Reaction from the understandably upset Japanese provides the action, but this is overshadowed by the propaganda of the time.

Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets(ja)

An experimental, psychedelic odyssey through Japanese subculture experienced via the eyes of a disillusioned young man, who must contend with intense familial dysfunction, psychosexual alienation, and existentialist malaise.

Himizu(ja)

Two 14-year-olds from troubled, abusive homes come together sharing misery and pain. In the aftermath of an earthquake, the classmates learn how to survive while relying on one another for emotional and physical support.

Antiporno(ja)

Kyôko, a traumatized young Japanese girl, finds herself struggling with her self-confidence in her adult life. Growing up in a family without her mother and her sister, she constantly questions the rationale of sex and the notion of liberty in modern Japanese society.

The Insect Woman(ja)

A woman, Tome, is born to a lower class family in Japan in 1918. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle. Imamura, with this metaphor, introduces the life of Tome, who keeps trying to change her poor life.

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.

Detective Conan: The Bride of Halloween(ja)

Shibuya, Tokyo, is bustling with the Halloween season. A wedding is being held at Shibuya Hikarie, where Detective Miwako Sato of the Metropolitan Police Department is dressed in a wedding dress. While Conan and the other invited guests are watching, an assailant suddenly bursts in, and Detective Wataru Takagi, who was trying to protect Sato, is injured. Takagi survived and the situation was settled, but in Sato's eyes, the image of the grim reaper that she had seen when Detective Matsuda, the man she had been in love with, had been killed in a series of bombings three years ago, overlapped with Takagi's.

The Human Condition I: No Greater Love(ja)

After handing in a report on the treatment of Chinese colonial labor, Kaji is offered the post of labour chief at a large mining operation in Manchuria, which also grants him exemption from military service. He accepts and moves with his newlywed wife Michiko, but when he tries to put his ideas of more humane treatment into practice, he finds himself at odds with scheming officials, cruel foremen, and the military police.

Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto(ja)

Struggling to elevate himself from his low caste in 17th century Japan, Miyamoto trains to become a mighty samurai warrior.

Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple(ja)

After years on the road establishing his reputation as Japan's greatest fencer, Takezo returns to Kyoto. Otsu waits for him, yet he has come not for her but to challenge the leader of the region's finest school of fencing. To prove his valor and skill, he walks deliberately into ambushes set up by the school's followers.

Two Portraits of MIYAGINO(ja)

In Edo-era Japan, a ukiyo-e artist languishes in his master’s shadow. Creatively stifled, he finds consolation in the company of a prostitute, and becomes entangled in a love triangle. A mystery emerges involving two portraits and the sudden disappearance of the artist Sharaku. Helmed by Cannes-selected director Tatsuji Yamazaki, the film employs kabuki-inspired sequences and stylised sets.

Susanna(es)

An irresponsible young Spaniard having spent 6 months in jail for embezzlement gets a job as a waiter in a bar restaurant and becomes involved in a stolen goods racket.

Hana Yori Dango: Final(ja)

Four years have passed since that emotional marriage proposal at Tsukushi Makino's high-school prom, and Tsukasa Dōmyōji announced his engagement to Tsukushi to the entire world. At an engagement dinner between their families, Dōmyōji's mother, who has been strongly against their relationship before, presents Tsukushi a tiara, which is estimated to be worth roughly 10 billion yen, as a token of their engagement. But that night, the tiara is stolen by somebody! Then, Dōmyōji and Tsukushi travel around the globe to Las Vegas, Hong Kong, and even a deserted island to get the tiara back—the legendary tiara that has been believed to "bring eternal love." In the meantime, where and what are the "F4" fellows, who have just gone separate ways, doing now?

Suzuki Sensei(ja)

Teacher Akira Suzuki breaks away from long-held customs and norms at his school. He tries hard to have the ideal classroom by using his own "Suzuki method". The new semester begins. His homeroom 2-A class is about to have a student council election and preparations for a school festival. A man then takes a female student hostage...

Story of a Prostitute(ja)

Volunteering as a "comfort woman" on the Manchurian front, where she is expected to service hundreds of soldiers, Harumi is commandeered by the brutal Lieutenant Narita but falls for the sensitive Mikami, Narita's direct subordinate. Seijun Suzuki's Story of a Prostitute is a tragic love story as well as a rule-bending take on a popular Taijiro Tamura novel, challenging military and fraternal codes of honor, as seen through Harumi's eyes.

The Challenge(en)

Rick, a down-and-out American boxer, is hired to transport a sword to Japan, unaware that the whole thing is a set up in a bitter blood-feud between two brothers, one who follows the traditional path of the samurai and the other a businessman. At the behest of the businessman, Rick undertakes samurai training from the other brother, but joins his cause. He also becomes romantically involved with the samurai's daughter.

Kabukicho Love Hotel(ja)

This erotically charged drama traces the intersecting stories of a group of employees and visitors at a notorious "love hotel" in Tokyo's red-light district.

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41(ja)

After being used and betrayed by the detective she had fallen in love with, young Matsu is sent to a female prison full of sadistic guards and disobedient prisoners.

Tokyo Towers: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad(ja)

Adapted from the bestselling Japanese autobiography of the same title, this gentle coming-of-age drama concerns an adolescent boy, Boku - Masaya, torn between the inherited recklessness of his father Oton and the inherited responsibility, wisdom and emotional strength of his mother Okan. Following a period of intensely rebellious behavior, Boku learns that his mom has contracted cancer; suddenly, his mother comes to live with him in Tokyo the entire emotional landscape of his life is altered.

The Insect Woman(ja)

A woman, Tome, is born to a lower class family in Japan in 1918. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle. Imamura, with this metaphor, introduces the life of Tome, who keeps trying to change her poor life.

The Mysterians(ja)

In Japan, scientifically advanced invaders from the war-destroyed planet Mysteroid cause an entire village to vanish, then send a giant robot out to storm the city by night, after which they request a small patch of land on Earth and the right to marry earthling women, claiming to be pacifists. Mankind must decide whether to capitulate or to resist.

Chûshingura(ja)

After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor.

Perro callejero(es)

An abandoned child steals to survive and has problems when he decides to steal from the priest who helps him.

Perro callejero 2(es)

After serving his three-year sentence, Perro, who was only visited by Father Maromas, returns to his old environment. There, Chava recruits him back into drug trafficking.

Welcome Home(ru)

New York-set comedy about a group of immigrants who have become hostage to their life choices.

Everybody Calls Me 'The Cat'(es)

Nichiren(ja)

An epic drama about Nichiren's life. Nichiren was a Buddhist monk who lived for 60 years during the Kamakura period (1185-1333) in Japan. Nichiren taught devotion to the Lotus Sutra as the exclusive means to attain enlightenment. Because of his devout belief, Nichiren is met with opposition throught his travels, with life on the line, can Nichiren accomplish his goal?