Ito

Love and Other Cults

Ai's mother sends her to live with a cult commune, where she remains for seven years. After the cult is broken up by the police, Ai struggles to fit in with society.

2009

Sad Boyfriend

37 year old sales manager Iwatsu is so caught up in work, he's unable to truly live his life. One night while looking at his graduation album on his phone, he receives a sudden call from a girl named Kana. He's taken to his hometown Kobe, where he lived as a teenager. Slowly, by way of Kana, Iwatsu's past is resuscitated.

2005

Hinokio: Inter Galactic Love

Satoru, a wheelchair-bound elementary student, locks himself away from the outside world after his mother dies. His father designs a remote-controlled robot to go to school for him, allowing him to interact with people and do normal things.

2015

Miss Hokusai

A daughter is constantly overshadowed by her famous father, but she is determined to make her own mark in the world.

7.5

The Taste of Tea

A spell of time in the life of the five-piece Haruno family in rural Tochigi Prefecture. Yoshiko is not an ordinary housewife, instead working on an animated film project. Uncle Ayano, a successful music producer, is looking to get his head together after living in Tokyo. Meanwhile, Sachiko is concerned with why she seems to be followed by a giant version of herself. As the lazy days pass by, each member of the family is followed in a series of episodic vignettes.

2023

THE LEGEND & BUTTERFLY

Oda Nobunaga and Nōhime were originally married to mend a hostile relationship between neighbouring regions. Unfortunately, they were like oil and water, making for a somewhat unhappy marriage. When Oda's enemy, Imagawa Yoshimoto, attacks Owari with his vast army, Oda is devastated by the overwhelming gap in military strength. However, Nohime encourages him not to despair, and the pair draw up a tactical plan that will allow them to overcome the odds.

7.0

1944

The Way of Drama

The Way of Drama unfolds in the world of kabuki in Osaka, but also addresses the politics of popular culture and the rivalry between theatrical styles like those used by amateur actors to dramatise contemporary events.

6.5

Before We Vanish

Narumi is on bad terms with her husband, Shinji, when, one day, Shinji goes missing. He comes back a couple of days later, but he seems like a totally different person, and he is now gentle and tender. He goes for a walk every day. Meanwhile, journalist Sakurai covers the story of a family that was brutally murdered, when an unexplained phenomenon takes place.

1983

Revenge of the Ninja

A peaceful ex-ninja's life shatters when his son's kidnapping forces him back into violence amid an American-Japanese criminal drug war.

2014

Love's Whirlpool

A room in a fancy downtown apartment. The evening orgy kicks off with eight men and women meeting for the first time, including an unemployed guy who pays the 20,000 yen party fee with money from his parents, and a female college student whose run-of-the-mill appearance hides a voracious sexual appetite.

7.8

1966

The Face of Another

A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his new doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality and causing him to question his identity.

6.9

2000

Enlightenment Guaranteed

Two middle aged German brothers - one New Age and recently divorced, the other uptight and sceptical - travel to a Zen monastery in Japan in search of enlightenment, or perhaps just in search of themselves.

1986

The Karate Kid Part II

Summoned by his dying father, Miyagi returns to his homeland of Okinawa, with Daniel, after a 40-year exile. There he must confront Yukie, the love of his youth, and Sato, his former best friend turned vengeful rival. Sato is bent on a fight to the death, even if it means the destruction of their village. Daniel finds his own love in Yukia's niece, Kumiko, and his own enemy in Sato's nephew, the vicious Chozen. Now, far away from the tournaments, cheering crowds and safety of home, Daniel will face his greatest challenge ever when the cost of honor is life itself.

6.9

1966

The Great White Tower

The story contrasts the life of two doctors, former classmates and now both assistant professors at Naniwa University Hospital in Osaka. The brilliant and ambitious surgeon Goro Zaizen stops at nothing to rise to a position of eminence and authority, while the friendly Shuji Satomi busies himself with his patients and research.

7.9

1996

Haru

A young Tokyo businessman joins an online movie forum and develops a special bond with one of its members through back and forth e-mails.

7.4

1962

The Mad Fox

A court fortune-teller loses his mind after a conspiracy leads to the death of his lover. Hope appears to be on the horizon after he becomes romantically involved with his dead lover's twin sister, but more complications arise thanks to a chance encounter with a clan of shape-shifters.

7.8

1980

Kagemusha

Akira Kurosawa's lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.

8.1

1961

Yojimbo

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.

6.5

2001

Suicide Club

When the bizarre mass suicide of 54 high school girls throwing themselves in front of a subway train appears to instigate a string of suicides around the country, Detective Kuroda strives to find the answer, which isn't as simple as he had hoped.

7.7

1974

Sandakan No. 8

A young journalist interviews an elderly woman about being forced into prostitution in Borneo at a brothel called Sandakan No. 8.

Recommended Movies

7.3

2013

Tokyo Family

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

2016

Hands of Stone

The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.

6.9

1960

The Young One

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.

6.2

An Ordinary Man

A war criminal in hiding forms a relationship with his only connection to the outside world - his maid.

6.4

1984

The River

Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.

Trafficked

In this story inspired by real characters, three girls from America, Nigeria and India are trafficked through an elaborate global network and enslaved in a Texas brothel, and must together attempt a daring escape to reclaim their freedom.

5.9

2018

The Padre

American retired Judge Randall Nemes and his hired gun, Gaspar, track down a con man posing as a priest in a small Colombian town only to be thrown off-course by a scrappy 16-year-old girl intent on reuniting with her sister in the United States.

5.9

Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius

The story of golf icon and legend, Bobby Jones, who retired from competition at the tender age of 28.

7.5

1993

Moving

Physically separated from her father and at odds with her distraught mother, a girl must negotiate her own passage to maturity.

6.1

1994

Blue Chips

Pete Bell, a college basketball coach is under a lot of pressure. His team isn't winning and he cannot attract new players. The stars of the future are secretly being paid by boosters. This practice is forbidden in the college game, but Pete is desperate and has pressures from all around.

2019

Adopt a Highway

Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption.

Café Lumière

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.

6.1

2012

Fast Girls

A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.

7.1

2013

What Maisie Knew

In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter custody battle.

6.2

2007

Gracie

A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.

2022

Rogue Agent

Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.

7.3

2012

Imagine

A blind teacher breaks the rules to help a female student rediscover the pleasures of life.

5.8

2015

The Girl in the Book

The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.

6.2

1955

House of Bamboo

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.

Blood and Bones

In 1923, teenager Kim Shun-Pei moves from Cheju Island, in South Korea, to Osaka, in Japan. Along the years, he becomes a cruel, greedy and violent man and builds a factory of kamaboko, processed seafood products, in his poor Korean-Japanese community exploiting his employees.