Best Japanese Films Kinema Junpo (1926-2025)

This enticing period melodrama depicts a long-suffering woman's relationship with her brilliant but self-destructive writer husband in postwar Tokyo. Based on a semi-autobiographical 1947 novel by Osamu Dazai, the story centers less on the womanizing, heavy-drinking, suicidal hero than on the wife who loves him. Written by Palm Springs International Film Festival

In 1907, a group of men climb an unconquered peak in the last unmapped region of Japan.

The story of a teenage boy named Yu, who falls for Yoko, a girl he runs into while working as an "up-skirt" photographer in an offshoot of the porn industry. His attempts to woo her are complicated by a spot of cross-dressing – which convinces Yoko that she is lesbian – dalliances with kung-fu and crime, and a constant struggle with the guilt that's a legacy of his Catholic upbringing.

Onchi was exiled to posts around Asia and Africa due to his work as head of a labor union for National Air Line. He is ordered to return to head office after ten years, and continues to struggle. When a National Air Line plane is involved in the worst air disaster in Japanese history, he is assigned to console and provide restitution to the families of the victims.

2009 film by Hirokazu Koreeda

Yojin, an eccentric young farmer living in the countryside, falls in love for the first time in his life. Her name is Machiko, she teaches in a kindergarten and is from Tokyo.

A student tries to fix a problem he accidentally caused in OZ, a digital world, while pretending to be the fiancé of his friend at her grandmother's 90th birthday.

A 15-year-old girl forced into police protection to escape from the journalistic hordes after her brother is arrested for murder.

Haiji was an elite runner, but has not competed due to a past injury. He then meets fellow elite runner Kakeru who also left running, but caused by a dispute. Their meeting inspires both young men to run again, with Haiji choosing the fabled "Hakone Ekiden" (long distance relay race). The race requires a 10 member team so Haiji and Kakeru recruits 8 others (some of whom have never even run before). Within this unlikely group of runners a bond is formed through their training and a belief that they can accomplish the impossible.

Komaki is a thirty-something woman that has had it with her perpetually unemployed aspiring writer husband. Following the divorce, she moves back to her Tokyo-area hometown of Kyojima along with her young daughter, Non-chan. However, she has a difficult time making ends meet in big city Tokyo. Her solution? Take a chance and try opening her very own bento (lunch box) shop.

Takeda is an honest police officer, father and husband, but after he’s promoted to detective he quickly becomes embroiled in dirty back room dealings, blackmail, and corruption that goes right to the top of the force. Meanwhile, renegade investigator Kusama must decide whether he should shake the foundations of Japanese law enforcement with the information that has come into his possession about the police.

On the outset, the Okunos seem like a normal happy family with father Tadashi and his two bright sons, genetics researcher Izumi and artsy Haru. When a series of arson attacks strike the neighborhood, clues left at the crime scenes seem to be somehow related to the Okunos. Izumi and Haru try to get to the bottom of mystery, slowly unveiling a tragic family secret that has come back to haunt them.

MENTAL is a feature-length documentary that observes the complex world of an outpatient mental health clinic in Japan, interwoven with patients, doctors, staff, volunteers, and home-helpers, in cinema- verite style. The film breaks a major taboo against discussing mental illness prevalent in Japanese society, and captures the candid lives of people coping with suicidal tendencies, poverty, a sense of shame, apprehension, and fear of society.

2009 Japanese film directed by Shūichi Okita

A rock band writes a song called "Fish Story" that is foretold to save the world. The song exceeds the boundaries of space and time and ties people and their stories together.

A rebellious ninja in 17th century Japan takes refuge with a fisherman and his family.

A woman finds out her father is not her real one after her mother falls into a coma while searching for a mythical creature. She decides to meet her real father who happens to be an off-beat antique shopkeeper.

Ikku, Mighty and Tomu live in Saitama, not exactly the coolest places to get involved in a wanna-be rap star lifestyle. But try they do with their freestyle rap band Sho-Gung. Yu Irie, who gained the Grand Prize at Yubari Fantastic Film Festival with this film, grew up in Saitama and inserts the grim realities of suburban youth skillfully in his comedic style.

Based on the semibiographical novel by Jun Miura, Oh My Buddha is the classic summer coming-of-age story that is burned to a crisp with teenage angst, youthful dreams and that warm sense of folk zeitgeist of the 70s. The narrator is a first-year student at an all-boys Buddhist school. Jaded by his dull, ordinary life, he longs for the type of creative, liberal and forward life his idol Bob Dylan leads, writing rock songs alone in his room, imitating his hero's signature croon, until one day he got invited on an island trip of sexual liberation with his fellow liberal friend.

In the early 1200s, Dogen brought Chinese Zen philosophy to Japan, and established the Japanese Zen school of Buddhism. He taught that a person was capable of realizing Buddhahood within himself, by way of Zazen. Zazen is extended hours of sitting and meditating to achieve a state of “Mu” (nothingness, or empty existence).