Best Japanese Films Kinema Junpo (1926-2025)

2017 film

2017 film directed by Naoko Ogigami

Japan, 1943, during World War II. Young Suzu leaves her village near Hiroshima to marry and live with her in-laws in Kure, a military harbor. Her creativity to overcome deprivation quickly makes her indispensable at home. Inhabited by an ancestral wisdom, Suzu impregnates the simple gestures of everyday life with poetry and beauty. The many hardships, the loss of loved ones, the frequent air raids of the enemy, nothing alters her enthusiasm…

When a massive, gilled monster emerges from the deep and tears through the city, the government scrambles to save its citizens. A rag-tag team of volunteers cuts through a web of red tape to uncover the monster's weakness and its mysterious ties to a foreign superpower. But time is not on their side - the greatest catastrophe to ever befall the world is about to evolve right before their very eyes.

Toshio hires Yasaka to work in his workshop. But then this old acquaintance, who has just been released from prison, begins to meddle in Toshio's family life.

Taira is a disaffected youth from a seaside town reveling in violence. Enamored by his strength, Yuya joins his crusade in attacking strangers. Meanwhile, Taira's brother looks for him.

A recently widowed writer whose wife died in a bus crash comes to terms with his grief—or lack of it—in caring for the children of a working man who also lost his wife in the same accident.

A woman hires actors and strangers to pretend to be her friends and family at her wedding.

2016 film

2016 film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

A recently divorced and traumatized man moves to Hakodate, Hokkaido and attends a vocational college to learn carpentry along with several other students who are in the same boat as he. When a couple of the guys go to a hostess club the man meets an unconventional girl who likes him and a relationship is born.

A man brutally murders a married couple and leaves the word “ikari” (“rage”) written with their blood. The killer undergoes plastic surgery and flees. At three different locations in Japan, a male stranger appears. People suspect that the stranger might be the murderer.

A depressed widower, a bored housewife, and a gay lawyer all intersect in this triptych of love lost.

In the final days of World War II, occupying Japanese forces in the Philippines face resistance from the local population and the American offensive. The dwindling Japanese soldiers attempt to survive through the horrors of war.

2015 film directed by Ryūsuke Hamaguchi

2015 film by Hirokazu Koreeda

2015 film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Seiji is a third generation "Gosei kai" gang member. He works to build up the group's strength. Meanwhile, a journalist investigates a case that occurred 19 years ago. He meets Hayato, Daisuke and Asami.

In suburban Tokyo in 1945, years of war and concentrated air raids by US forces have left the city in tatters and the population poor, tired, and hungry. The 19-year-old Satoko and her mother bide their time working nominal jobs and trying to stave off hunger. A displaced aunt turns up looking for shelter, but she is just another hungry mouth to feed. Satoko is becoming a woman and is drawn to the only eligible man in the neighborhood. This is a decidedly quiet film that focuses on a single character and her survival in dire circumstances in the spring of her life.

2015 film by Izuru Narushima