Drama
Anatahan
NEW RESTORATION! Inspired by an actual event during WWII, Josef von Sternberg's Anatahan, tells the story of a dozen Japanese sailors who are stranded on the remote island of Anatahan during the waning days of the war. The war ends, unbeknownst to the men, and they engage in their ow…
Before We Vanish
Three aliens travel to Earth in preparation for a mass invasion, taking possession of human bodies.
Caterpillar
Caterpillar tells the story of a village woman given the grueling task of looking after (and fulfilling the sexual needs of) her quadruple amputee husband, a Japanese soldier in the Second Sino-Japanese War who has been decreed a "War God" by the Emperor. The film serves as a powerful indictment of …
Hard Romanticker
Based on director Gu Su-yeon's autobiographical novel, Hard Romanticker is a spectacularly violent gangster movie that delivers its story with equal amounts of style and carnage. Dripping James Dean-like cool, bleach blond Gu (Shota Matsuda) is a young, cocky Korean-Japanese hoodlum living in Japan.…
Jinsei
A man's journey through life, marked by various names and labels, leads him to unexpected success while confronting modern social issues and personal struggles along the way.
Maborosi
After the mysterious death of her husband, a young mother remarries and moves with her son to a remote seaside village in the first feature by director Hirokazu Koreeda (Shoplifters).
Ramen Heads
Ramen Heads follows Osamu Tomita, Japan’s reigning king of ramen, as he reveals every single step of his obsessive approach to creating the perfect bowl of noodles.
United Red Army
This epic docudrama by Koji Wakamatsu depicts the rise, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, of the far-left Japanese paramilitary group known as the United Red Army. The film portrays in harrowing fashion how the army disintegrated as they began to torture and murder their own members during training…
Village of Dreams
Known to everyone in their idyllic Japanese village as “the brats,” twin brothers Yukihiko and Seizo cause mischief in the name of high adventure, unaware of how due they are for change in the wake of World War II.
Wife of a Spy
Master filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse, Tokyo Sonata) won the Silver Lion (Best Director) at the Venice Film Festival for this riveting, gorgeously crafted, old-school Hitchockian thriller, which follows a Japanese woman during WWII who begins to suspect her husband’s Western connections may…
Zen for Nothing
Swiss novice Sabine arrives at Antaiji and, after a brief welcome, she begins to learn the monastery rules: how to bow, sit in the meditation hall, carry out movements with chopsticks, etc. There’s more to life there than meditation, farming, and maintenance, however—there are picnics, m…