Japanese Cinema
by yesimjade | created - 31 Aug 2020 | updated - 04 Apr 2022 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Crazed Fruit (1956)
Not Rated | 86 min | Drama, Romance
Spending their summer on an exotic beach, two brothers fall for the same beautiful girl, whose charm and looks may hide more than they they bargained for.
Director: Kô Nakahira | Stars: Yûjirô Ishihara, Masahiko Tsugawa, Mie Kitahara, Shinsuke Ashida
Votes: 2,253
2. Cruel Story of Youth (1960)
Not Rated | 96 min | Crime, Drama
A harsh young man seduces a freeloading young woman and eventually takes advantage of her knack for hitch-hiking to rob middle-class men.
Director: Nagisa Ôshima | Stars: Miyuki Kuwano, Yûsuke Kawazu, Yoshiko Kuga, Fumio Watanabe
Votes: 2,536
3. Shoplifters (2018)
R | 121 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
On the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders are united by loyalty, a penchant for petty theft and playful grifting. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence.
Director: Kore-eda Hirokazu | Stars: Lily Franky, Sakura Andô, Kirin Kiki, Mayu Matsuoka
Votes: 86,518 | Gross: $3.31M
4. Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter (1970)
Not Rated | 85 min | Crime, Thriller
A street girl gang clashes with racist local gangsters after one of the girls starts dating an Afro-Japanese man.
Director: Yasuharu Hasebe | Stars: Meiko Kaji, Rikiya Yasuoka, Tatsuya Fuji, Jirô Okazaki
Votes: 886
5. Tokyo Drifter (1966)
Not Rated | 82 min | Action, Crime
After his gang disbands, a yakuza enforcer looks forward to life outside of organized crime but soon must become a drifter after his old rivals attempt to assassinate him.
Director: Seijun Suzuki | Stars: Tetsuya Watari, Chieko Matsubara, Hideaki Nitani, Tamio Kawaji
Votes: 9,714
6. Seven Samurai (1954)
Not Rated | 207 min | Action, Drama
Farmers from a village exploited by bandits hire a veteran samurai for protection, who gathers six other samurai to join him.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima, Yukiko Shimazaki
Votes: 367,027 | Gross: $0.27M
7. Minamata (1971)
105 min | Documentary
A documentary about the plight of the victims of Minamata disease, which was caused by the ingestion of fish containing abnormal amounts of mercury released into the sea by a fertilizer factory owned by the Chisso company.
Director: Noriaki Tsuchimoto
Votes: 198
8. Muhomatsu Returns Home (1973 TV Movie)
48 min | Documentary
Three years after his first two documentaries on these soldiers who did not return, Imamura invites one of the interviewees, settled in Thailand, to return to Japan.
Director: Shôhei Imamura | Stars: Fujiko Fujita, Fujio Fujita, Matsuyoshi Fujita, Michiko Hamaguchi
Votes: 67
9. Go, Go Second Time Virgin (1969)
65 min | Drama, Horror
After being raped in an unknown rooftop, seventeen year-old girl Poppo meets a mysterious boy, and both share their sexual traumas and fears, with fatal consequences.
Director: Kôji Wakamatsu | Stars: Mimi Kozakura, Michio Akiyama, Yôko Yamamoto, Seshio Zenbei
Votes: 2,697
10. Moon & Cherry (2004)
82 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
When an alluring young woman joins an erotic writing class, she begins a game of sexual cat and mouse with a naive college student. As they venture into more and more unpredictable ... See full summary »
Director: Yuki Tanada | Stars: Yoshikazu Ebisu, Noriko Eguchi, Akira Emoto, Misako Hirata
Votes: 138
11. A Man Vanishes (1967)
130 min | Documentary, Drama
Plastics salesman Oshima disappeared without a word to anyone, and has been missing for two years. Shohei Imamura and his crew follow Oshima's fiancé Yoshie and actor Shigeru Tsuyuguchi as they investigate the disappearance.
Director: Shôhei Imamura | Stars: Shigeru Tsuyuguchi, Yoshie Hayakawa, Shôhei Imamura
Votes: 830
12. The Family Game (1983)
107 min | Comedy, Drama
Japanese parents hire a tutor for their foolish son and get a critic of their lifestyle.
Director: Yoshimitsu Morita | Stars: Yûsaku Matsuda, Jûzô Itami, Saori Yuki, Ichirôta Miyakawa
Votes: 1,116
13. Shall We Dance? (1996)
PG | 136 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
A successful but unhappy Japanese accountant finds the missing passion in his life when he begins to secretly take ballroom dance lessons.
Director: Masayuki Suô | Stars: Koji Yakusho, Tamiyo Kusakari, Naoto Takenaka, Eri Watanabe
Votes: 11,739 | Gross: $9.68M
14. One Cut of the Dead (2017)
Not Rated | 96 min | Comedy, Drama, Horror
Things go badly for a hack director and film crew shooting a low budget zombie movie in an abandoned WWII Japanese facility, when they are attacked by real zombies.
Director: Shin'ichirô Ueda | Stars: Takayuki Hamatsu, Yuzuki Akiyama, Harumi Shuhama, Kazuaki Nagaya
Votes: 29,764
15. Tora-san's Runaway (1970)
88 min | Comedy
After an encounter with a dying yakuza's son and at his sister Sakura's urging, Torajiro attempts to change his vagrant lifestyle and become an honest worker with a steady job.
Director: Yôji Yamada | Stars: Kiyoshi Atsumi, Chieko Baishô, Aiko Nagayama, Hisashi Igawa
Votes: 163
16. Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973)
Not Rated | 99 min | Crime, Drama
During the violent chaos of post-War Japanese black market, a young gangster called Shozo Hirono has to keep up with the rapid shifts of power between unscrupulous bosses.
Director: Kinji Fukasaku | Stars: Bunta Sugawara, Hiroki Matsukata, Kunie Tanaka, Eiko Nakamura
Votes: 4,308
17. Sonatine (1993)
R | 94 min | Action, Comedy, Crime
Several yakuza from Tokyo are sent to Okinawa to help end a gang war. The war then escalates and the Tokyo drifters decide to lay low at the beach.
Director: Takeshi Kitano | Stars: Takeshi Kitano, Aya Kokumai, Tetsu Watanabe, Masanobu Katsumura
Votes: 23,296
18. Mind Game (I) (2004)
Not Rated | 103 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
After a deadly encounter with two yakuza, a loser with a crush on his childhood girlfriend goes to heaven and back, embarking on a psychedelic self-discovery experience with her and his friends.
Directors: Masaaki Yuasa, Kôji Morimoto | Stars: Kôji Imada, Sayaka Maeda, Takashi Fujii, Seiko Takuma
Votes: 10,709 | Gross: $0.04M
19. Cure (1997)
Not Rated | 111 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A frustrated detective deals with the case of several gruesome murders committed by people who have no recollection of what they've done.
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa | Stars: Masato Hagiwara, Koji Yakusho, Tsuyoshi Ujiki, Anna Nakagawa
Votes: 23,120 | Gross: $0.09M
20. Onibaba (1964)
Not Rated | 103 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
Two women kill samurai and sell their belongings for a living. While one of them is having an affair with their neighbor, the other woman meets a mysterious samurai wearing a bizarre mask.
Director: Kaneto Shindô | Stars: Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Satô, Jûkichi Uno
Votes: 21,888
21. Helpless (1996)
80 min | Crime
Yasuo is a gangster just released from jail. Believing his boss double-crossed him, enraged Yasuo is on his way to find the boss. But before setting out for the dangerous trip, Yasuo asks ... See full summary »
Director: Shinji Aoyama | Stars: Tadanobu Asano, Ken Mitsuishi, Yôichirô Saitô, Hiroko Isayama
Votes: 283
22. Dead or Alive (1999)
R | 105 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A yakuza of Chinese descent and a Japanese cop each wage their own war against the Japanese mafia. But they are destined to meet. Their encounter will change the world.
Director: Takashi Miike | Stars: Shô Aikawa, Riki Takeuchi, Renji Ishibashi, Hitoshi Ozawa
Votes: 8,566 | Gross: $0.00M
23. Children of the Sea (2019)
Not Rated | 111 min | Animation, Adventure, Fantasy
A young girl is drawn into a mystery involving sealife around the world, in which two mysterious boys are somehow involved.
Director: Ayumu Watanabe | Stars: Mana Ashida, Hiiro Ishibashi, Seishû Uragami, Win Morisaki
Votes: 3,696
24. Dear Pyongyang (2005)
Not Rated | 107 min | Documentary
A Korean-Japanese daughter tries to understand her father's sworn political loyalty to North Korea.
Director: Yong-hi Yang
Votes: 211
25. Himizu (2011)
129 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
After two teenagers from abusive households befriend each other, their lives take a dark adventure into existentialism, despair, and human frailty.
Director: Sion Sono | Stars: Shôta Sometani, Fumi Nikaidô, Tetsu Watanabe, Mitsuru Fukikoshi
Votes: 4,712
26. Eros + Massacre (1969)
Not Rated | 216 min | Biography, Drama
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 around two 1960s students researching Osugi's theories.
Director: Yoshishige Yoshida | Stars: Mariko Okada, Toshiyuki Hosokawa, Yûko Kusunoki, Kazuko Inano
Votes: 2,322
27. Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (1981)
131 min | Action, Romance
A teenage delinquent schoolgirl named Izumi Hoshi inherits her father's Yakuza clan.
Director: Shinji Sômai | Stars: Hiroko Yakushimaru, Tsunehiko Watase, Rentarô Mikuni, Yuki Kazamatsuri
Votes: 904
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