The Best Bad Thing
After her husband’s death, Mrs. Hata desperately needs help on her cucumber farm. Rinko’ mother wants her to spend the summer helping Mrs. Hata, her life-long friend. But 12-year-old Rinko…
Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad
Adapted from the bestselling Japanese autobiography of the same title, this gentle coming-of-age drama concerns an adolescent boy, Boku – Masaya, torn between the inherited recklessness of his father Oton…
Tora-san, His Tender Love
Traveling salesman Kuruma Torajirō falls in love with an inn manager as New Year’s approaches.
Fireworks, Ferris Wheels and Love
Morihara was left a widower 8 years ago when his wife passed away. He attends his first mixer party under the guidance of his daughter. There he meets Fumika and…
Capone Cries a Lot
Umiemon is a naniwa-bushi singer who travels with his wife to the United States in hopes of achieving fame and fortune.
Zigeunerweisen
A surreal period film following a university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.
Sweet Bean
Sentaro runs a small bakery that serves dorayaki pastries filled with sweet red bean paste (“an”). When an old lady, Tokue, offers to help in the kitchen he reluctantly accepts….
The Taste of Tea
A spell of time in the life of a family living in rural Tochigi prefecture, north of Tokyo. Though her husband is busy working at an office, Yoshiko is not…
After the Storm
Ryota is an unpopular writer although he won a literary award 15 years ago. Now, Ryota works as a private detective. He is divorced from his ex-wife Kyoko and he…
Kakekomi
Kakekomi tells the stories of Edo women in the 1800s that escape abusive husbands and lovers by taking refuge in Tokeiji, a monastery in Kamakura.
The Secret World of Arrietty
14-year-old Arrietty and the rest of the Clock family live in peaceful anonymity as they make their own home from items “borrowed” from the house’s human inhabitants. However, life changes…
Still Walking
Twelve years after their beloved eldest son, Junpei, drowned while saving a stranger’s life, Kyohei and Toshiko welcome their surviving children home for a family reunion. Younger son Ryota still…
Returner
After an alien invasion threatens to annihilate the human race, a young Japanese girl, named Milly, travels back in time from 2084 to October 2002, and enlists the reluctant aid…
Shoplifters
After one of their shoplifting sessions, Osamu and his son come across a little girl in the freezing cold. At first reluctant to shelter the girl, Osamu’s wife agrees to…
Red Paper Lantern
A young and newly-married couple in Tokyo lives a hard life moving repeatedly because of their unfamiliar relationships with their surroundings.