After her mother runs away from home, Tomoko is raised to be a geisha. One day Tomoko meets her mother in a red-light district in Tokyo and her life...

Once an average and seemingly ordinary Tokyo girl, she suddenly finds herself as a TV star owing to her discovery by a casting company, which noticed...

Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him...

Every day a car accident happens in the city. The involved parties are prey to the settlement agents (jidanya), mediators between the parts and the...

Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces...

A young Tokyo salary man and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he has an extramarital affair.

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money...

The investigative unit of the Metropolitan Police Department organized a special investigative team to uncover a series of frequent gang robberies...

"Youth After School" takes Tokyo and Kyoto as the stage, and tells the story of a family that develops around the daughter's marriage. The play was...

The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old...

A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of inter­generational relationships, Good Morning tells...

1962 Japanese movie

With delicate, unobtrusive strokes, Naruse evokes both the humor and bitterness of his characters’ dilemmas, in this bleak, compelling poignant...

Over more than a decade, the daughter of a Kyoto Imperial University professor comes of age as she witnesses her father fired for opposing the rise...

Woman melodrama by Shiro Toyoda

Michiyo lives in the small place Osaka and is not happy with her marriage; all she does is cook and clean for her husband.

Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Her daughter Katsuyo doesn't see any future in her mother's trade...

Heitaro, who had served his firm loyally for 30 years, reaches the retirement age. He has four unmarried daughters and decides to split his...

When a theater troupe's master visits his old flame, he unintentionally sets off a chain of unexpected events with devastating consequences. A remake...

The disturbing story of a physician who conducted the first operation with general anaesthetic, and the women in his life who are both so determined...

Young widow Ine is suffering under the harsh treatment of her mother in law. As a former Geisha, Ine had struggled to be accepted into the...

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder...

A 28-year-old single woman is pressured to marry.

Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.

In eighth century China, the Emperor is grieving over the death of his wife. The Yang family wants to provide the Emperor with a consort so that they...

1962 Japanese movie

Japan, 1860. The men of the Mito clan, victims of the Ansei purge, anxiously prowl around the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle with the intention of...

A retired actress whose husband has recently died visits her summer home. There she has encounters with old friends and acquaintances who bring...

Ushimatsu's father told him never to reveal his lower-caste heritage; years later, he now contemplates confiding in an activist fighting against such...

On the way back to his childhood home, a septuagenarian man recalls his childhood and adolescence, in particular his love for a young woman.

A Japanese family weathers much hardship after their military uncle comes to live with them during WWII.

A war widow with a young boy manages a farm with her bossy mother-in-law. When a reporter comes to interview her, the two begin an affair. He turns...

Follows a young med student's relationships with two women: a dangerous affair with a childhood friend and his mother's struggle to rebuild their...

Iemon Tamiya is an impoverished masterless samurai who craves a better life, which he cannot have because of his marriage to Oiwa, who is completely...

Part 2 starts where the first film ended, with Iemon disposing of the bodies of his wife and Kohei, marrying upward, and being blackmailed by the...

OSHINO, the beautiful daughter of restaurant owners, is in love with SHIRASAGI the painter. But there is another young man, the son of a moneylender...

Drama about a young nurse who falls in love with a disabled soldier, and based a true story.

Slice of life film centered on a couple of years in the life of a rural high school girl.

Based on the novel by Junichiro Tanizaki. Story of the beautiful blind daughter of a wealthy businessman who falls in love with a servant.

Hayase, a schoolteacher, assists Sakai in editing a German-Japanese dictionary. Hayase owes much to Sakai, as Sakai raised him for 13 years after...

1945 Japanese movie

Young lord Saburo Nobuyasu struggles to find comfort in life. His arranged marriage to Tokuhime, daughter of one-time family enemy Oda Nobunaga,...

1945 Japanese movie

Pre-war Asakusa was a riotous district of cabarets, dance-halls and brothels - a striking backdrop for Shimazu's story of innocence and experience....

After the death of a colleague, the workers at a factory form a labor union.

Though plagued by ill health all his life, a young Japanese man is obligated to fulfill his family's longstanding military tradition.

One of Japan's most popular stories is the tale of Kutsukake Tokijiro, a traveling gambler who finds that he must take care of the wife and child of...

Minamimura, who had always wanted to be free, suddenly quits his job. His hardworking wife is surprised and angry, and throws him out of the house....

Reputedly based on Frank Capra’s 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, A Descendant of Tarô Urashima is about a repatriated soldier who...

A young lawyer falls in love with the daughter of his former professor, whom he's hired to tutor his children.

A film adaptation of Rikuo Honjo's novel "Ishikari River".

In Japanese theater, women's roles are traditionally played by men. The man playing the woman's role, the Onnagata, does not imitate the woman, as in...

Tamio Moroi, a young university graduate, works at a large brewery where he is taught to do nothing but look busy. When his father goes insane, he is...

Sanae is left a widow after her prestigious husband dies, but holds the proceeds of a million yen insurance policy. Being childless, her former...

1945 Japanese movie

TV drama based off the play of the same name by Yukio Mishima.

TV drama based off the play of the same name by Yukio Mishima.

An Indian prince leaves his world of comfort and riches behind to wander and meditate for six years in search of spiritual enlightenment. Siddartha...

About small-time gangster Asakichi's chaotic life in the 1930s. His gambling addiction means that he must not continue working in the family...

A fishing union depends on two brothers to make up the losses caused by the dishonest captains they replaced.

Lending money, job hunting for civilians and babysitting. All these things are usually not listed on a policeman's job description. But for the...

This film is strongly anti-war film. The film is based on the collection of writings by Japanese student soldiers who died during World War II. The...

Saburo and Keiko fall in love with each other but the tide of war separates them.

Ebihara is a budding novelist entangled in a complicated web of relationships with three women from three different generations: Kazue, a coquettish...

A story of Japanese writer Kafu Nagai (1879-1959), a man about sixty with a huge reputation of seducer who falls madly in love for a young geisha...

The tragedy of the geiko girl Ume and the men who try to pursue her.

A poignant story about a young couple, Setsu and Chozo, who are torn apart to save Setsu's father's restaurant.

Historical drama about a sleepy-eyed ronin.

Drama about the lives of the five daughters and daughter-in-law of a store owner.

Detective Katahachi meets a young and beautiful pickpocket and doesn’t arrest her because she was not in the act. Instead, he listens to the...

A female doctor's story of her life in an isolated leper colony.

A 1948 Japanese film.

A story of an ardent young man who laid down his life for his country.

An extremely lovely tribute to Ozu, on the 20th anniversary of his death. It uses a combination of footage from vintage films and new material (both...

A divorced woman enters a marriage arranged by her mother in exchange for money to save the life of her seriously ill son.

When Kaneko Ichinosuke aims to avenge his father who was wrongly accused of embezzlement, the samurai Kochiyama Soshun agrees to assist.

Kazuo Miyagawa’s prizewinning black-and-white cinematography draws out the moral shadings of Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata’s 1952...

A small-town boy with a learning disability attempts to fit in with his classmates.

The legend of the birth of Shintoism. In Fourth Century Japan, the Emperor's son Ouso expects to succeed his father on the throne, but Otomo, the...

An industrialist is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He is on a trip to Europe at the time, and a glimpse of a Japanese woman in that setting causes...

In a rural district of Tokyo, the owner of a farm is abandoned by his two daughters who are attracted to the life of the big city.

Four sisters are all named after flowers. While the two youngest are married, the eldest two remain single, much to the annoyance of their...

Shuhei Hirayama is a widower with a 24-year-old daughter. Gradually, he comes to realize that she should not be obliged to look after him for the...

Twenty-year-old Yoshiko (Setsuko Hara) and her younger sister Asako (Yōko Yaguchi) struggle to accept changes in their home during the preparations...

A tale of two best friends in the WWII era Japan. Takao is a young man enthusiastic about joining the navy to fight for his country. He convinces his...

A documentary about the lives of actors in the Sakura-tai theatrical troupe, which had arrived in the island of Hiroshima to begin preparations for...

Young Setsuko Fujino begins a new job at Tokyo Chemical Company. She likes her boss, Ippei Hitachi, and enjoys serving him tea, despite the fact that...

An early Japanese sound film, notable for being the only Japanese film ever to use the Western Electric Sound System. Contrary to most Western...

Being acquainted with the bride's uncle, a famed private detective is invited to a wedding ceremony. The groom's family is moneyed and owns large...

When the man who seduced the famous painter Otoko as a teenager--and then wrote a bestselling novel about it--reappears in her life, her pupil--and...

A film commemorating the 25th anniversary of Hibari Misora's performing career. Written by Matsutaro Kawaguchi for Hibari Misora to celebrate her...

A Japanese woman writes down three stories she has witnessed or heard of in her diary, each about the difficult situation a young woman finds herself...

An episodic film about life in and around a rural police station and the people it serves.

The Glorious Days

Kanae, who broke up with her husband and moved to her uncle's house, met two men when her father, a university professor, collapsed. Michihara, a...

Inochi uruwashi

The year is 1936. Ōhinata-mura was a very poor village between deep valleys. Soncho, the village head is trying to collect the village taxes from...

A former couple, separated for over 20 years, were reunited after being told their son had only 3 months to live. What should they do as parents? As...

The film explores the joys and sorrows of intergenerational life and the love between a mother and daughter at a lumber wholesale store in Kiba,...