Best Japanese Films Kinema Junpo (1926-2025)

After a quarrel with his mother, Torajiro sets off to find a bride.

Torajiro becomes homesick during his travels after watching a television report about his hometown and meeting a young woman that reminds him of his sister Sakura. Meanwhile, a new tenant moves into Toraya restaurant.

The first in a series of independent documentaries that Tsuchimoto made of the mercury poisoning incident in Minamata, Japan.

A 16-year-old girl works in a factory to pay her late father’s debt. When she makes up her mind to become a hostess, a boy approaches her with kind and gentle manners...(Also occasionally known in English as “Play”)

Based on the novel by Kazumi Takahashi. - Murase is a bodyguard in a yakuza group. Ochiai is a police officer who once was a student activist. When they meet, they are surprised how identical they look. They decide to trade places with each other. Murase investigates the case he was involved in. Ochiai feels rather comfortable in the world of yakuza. They begin to feel sympathy for each other...

In this intricately layered Japanese film, the nature of actresses and what they gain from acting is explored. The lives of three actresses are laid bare, and scenes from their lives are woven in and out of interviews with each of them. Each of them has experienced a traumatic event which contributes to their particular enjoyment of becoming someone else in dramatic roles.

A detective is charged with investigating a bank corruption scandal.

Two university students from Kyoto decide to swap partners and spend the night in an isolated motel. However, one of the couples is attacked. Desperate for answers, they search for the attackers and come across a cult that promotes sexual freedom.

The Americans are swiftly closing on Okinawa, an island just south of the Japanese mainland. The Imperial command sends top generals and several army divisions to defend it at all costs. The mission quickly degenerates as vital resources and troops are diverted to other islands. After a civilian evacuation ends in tragedy most of non-combatants are forced to remain on the island. Many convert to soldier status. Tokyo sends mixed messages that squander time and resources, as when they order the defenders to build an airstrip for aircraft that never come. The truth soon becomes obvious: the high command decides that the island cannot be held and effectively abandons the Okinawan defenders. When the Americans land many troops are deployed in the wrong places. As the slaughter mounts, a suicidal attitude takes hold. Okinawa becomes a death trap, for civilian volunteers and non-combatants as well.

The seventh chapter of the stunning Hibotan Bakuto series. Many years have passed since Oryu the Red Peony began her soul-searching journey after her father was killed. In her travels, she meets villagers whose crops and livelihoods are being destroyed by pollution from a local factory. They seem to work out an agreement, but Oryu must help the poor villagers when the greedy factory owner and corrupt politicians betray them…

日本人の血の流れを求めて戒厳令下の韓国ロケ決行～～ そこに生じた鮮烈なドラマが、緊張感の中におかしさを滲み出させて、あなたの脳天を撃つ―― ！

Tells the story of the samurai Gengobe, who seeks revenge after falling prey to the schemes of a geisha and her husband.

A Japanese girl and a French boy make strides in overcoming the cultural barriers that prevent them from fully expressing the love they have for one another.

The story of a lone wolf struggling with human compassion and duty.

The story is set in 1970 during the time of the first EXPO in Japan. The film’s main figure is a miner who suddenly becomes unemployed because the mine he worked in was shut down. He decides to resettle with his whole family to Hokkaido in northern Japan and start a new life as a farmer.

On a Tokyo dump’s shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who “drives” an imaginary trolley, a homeless father and son designing a dream house, a young woman brutalized at home, drunks, schemers, and saints of small kindnesses. Kurosawa crafts a ragged mosaic of hardship, fantasy, and flickers of grace that keep people moving forward.

Two interwoven stories. The first is a biography of anarchist Sakae Osugi which follows his relationship with three women in the 1920s. The second centers on two 1960s students researching Osugi's theories.

A film set in Nagasaki examining prejudice against atom bomb victims.

Near a remote Buddhist monastery, a young man falls in love with his sister and gets her pregnant. After a monk finds out, the young man becomes an assistant to a master sculptor, only to proceed to complicate matters with his affairs.

When a married man begins an affair with a woman from his past, he comes to suspect her young son intends to murder him.