Best Japanese Films Kinema Junpo (1926-2025)

A psychologically thrilling portrait of the severe dysfunction behind a family clinging to decorum and pride.

Following a tip, Manabu Yazaki loses his last money betting on the older "banba" horse "Unryu" (jockied by Makie, a legendary jockey's daughter) in a draft-horse race held in his childhood home of Obihiro on the island of Hokkaido.

In Kagoshima, in the final days of World War II, an offer of marriage comes to Etsuko Kamiya, who lives with her brother and his wife. The offer comes from Nagayo, but Etsuko is attracted to his friend, Akashi.

2006 film by Yōji Yamada

2006 film by Tetsuya Nakashima

This is the story between single mother housekeeper and mathematics professor,who has a brain damage.

After being stricken with Alzheimer's disease in the prime of his life, a successful young businessman slips slowly away from his loving family.

On a quiet street in Helsinki, Sachie has opened a diner featuring rice balls. For a month she has no customers. Then, in short order, she has her first customer, meets Midori, a gangly Japanese tourist, and invites her to stay with her.

A group of eccentric students decide to make a movie. But, when their star suddenly quits, this witty ensemble cast begins to live the film, including murder, deception and true love.

Follows the ups and downs of four female friends in Tokyo looking for love and trying to cope with the responsibilities in their lives.

Akira had to transfer schools upon graduation because of her father's job. She was reluctant to move because of her secret love for Nao...

A teenager named Noriko Shimabara runs away from her family in Toyokawa, to meet Kumiko, the leader of an Internet BBS, Haikyo.com. She becomes involved with Kumiko's family circle, which grows darker after the mass suicide of 54 high school girls.

The main characters are the Mamiya brothers who are living together although they are over 30-years-old. Unconcerned with appearance and reputations, they enjoy their life in their own way. The only concern is the lack of girlfriends. One day, however, a change occurs to their mundane lives. The elder brother, Akinobu (Kuranosuke Sasaki), falls in love with a girl at a video shop. The younger brother, Tetsunobu (Muga Tsukaji), scrambles around to aid his brother achieve love and arranges various dates. The elder brother strives to return the effort, but gets the cold shoulder. The two brothers return to their original lives, continuing with their ordinary, but happy days.

A lonely retired girl's High School Principal who's lost his wife to alcoholism moves to an old apartment in a country town. There he forms a relationship with a neglected little neighborhood girl.

2006 film by Kōki Mitani

When 17-year-old Makoto Konno gains the ability to, quite literally, "leap" backwards through time, she immediately sets about improving her grades and preventing personal mishaps. However, she soon realises that changing the past isn't as simple as it seems, and eventually, will have to rely on her new powers to shape the future of herself and her friends.

A celebration of the ancient art of Japanese rakugo, roughly translated as “comic storytelling”. The film is interspersed with numerous funerals and wakes, songs, dances, and often disgustingly crude jokes.

Katayama is on the way home to his wife and little daughter when he comes across a gang of punks beating up an innocent man. Katamaya decides to help the stranger and surprisingly wins the fight. This turns out to be a bad decision.

A precarious loner sneaks into a blind woman's home and begins living there without her noticing. Meanwhile, the woman mourns her recently deceased father and struggles to remain connected to the world.

In a poor district of Edo lives a young samurai named Soza. He has been sent by his clan to avenge the death of his father. He isn't an accomplished swordsman however, and he prefers sharing the life of the residents, teaching the kids how to write etc. When he finally finds the man he is looking for, he will have to decide whether he follows the way of the samurai or chooses peace and reconciliation.