Kore-eda Hirokazu (Still Walking) established himself as a festival favourite around the world with films like After Life, Nobody Knows and Still Walking. and won the Palme d’Or with Shoplifters in 2018. A smash hit in his native Japan, it is a film about love and crime. When a little girl (Sasaki Miyu) is found alone in the cold by Osamu (Lily Franky) and his young companion Shota (Jyo Kairi), Osamu brings her home for a hot meal; when signs point to her being an abuse victim, he decides she should stay. And so she joins the Shibata family, which also includes wife Nobuyo (Ando Sakura), teenager Aki (Matsuoka Mayu) and “grandma” Hatsue (Kiki Kilin). To all appearances, they’re a caring and contented bunch, but they’re also very poor, and they have ways of getting by that “respectable” society frowns on — most notably, theft. Can their happiness last?
Kore-eda is a filmmaker of exquisite sensitivity, attuned to the small moments of significance that so many movies seem designed to make us forget about. One by one, he adds those moments, building ever so patiently to revelation and heartbreak. With its gestures of love, subtle visual grace, superb acting and rich human portraiture this is a very generous film — powerfully sad, but with a lot of beauty to take with you as you leave the theatre.
This wise and insightful film is delicate, poignant and unexpectedly powerful.
Kenneth Turan, LA Times
A thrilling, beautiful tale… This is a film that steals in and snatches your heart.
Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph
You watch master Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest, about an impoverished family living in Tokyo, enchanted by its quiet moments. But just as it lulls you, it also devastates. Like all of Kore-eda’s movies, the family briefly becomes your own.
Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times
Kore-eda Hirokazu
Lily Franky, Ando Sakura, Matsuoka Mayu, Kiki Kilin
Japan
2018
In Japanese with English subtitles
Palme d’or, Cannes
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
Ishihara Takashi, Tom Yoda, Nakae Yasuhito
Producer
Yose Akihiko, Taguchi Hijiri, Matsuzaki Kaoru
Cinematography
Ryuto Kondo
Editor
Kore-eda Hirokazu
Production Design
Mitsumatsu Keiko
Original Music
Hosono Haruomi
Also in This Series
These movies speak to our times and push the boundaries of the art form — the true modern classics we’re confident will withstand the test of time.
In the Mood for Love
Wong Kar-wai's most acclaimed and popular film is a love story about two neighbours (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung) who are drawn together by the long absences of their respective spouses + a newly released short companion piece from 2001.
Paprika
A device capable of transmitting dreams falls into the wrong hands in this dazzling anime meta-movie from visionary filmmaker Satoshi Kon. The imagery here is never less than overwhelming; it's probably the greatest scifi movie of our times.
Margaret
Seventeen-year-old Lisa is rocked with guilt after a woman is killed in a traffic accident. But that’s only one thread in a teeming social tapestry this intense, passionate teen must negotiate as she comes of age in a time of contradiction and confusion.
Certain Women
Spare, incisive portraits of four Montana women (Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and Lily Gladstone) brushing up against the everyday wears and tears of difficult men, their own circumstances, and the desire for something better.
Melancholia
Lars von Trier squares up to the end times with this grandly luxuriant but surprisingly punky sci-fi, set in an imposing country mansion house, where Justine (Kirsten Dunst) blows up what's supposed to be the happiest day of her life.
Moonlight
Moonlight is many things -- a portrait of a young black man coming of age in Miami in the 1980s, a film about fathers and sons, about mentorship and about the scourge of drugs -- but it is also one of the most piercing movie romances of the last decade.
Lady Bird
Greta Gerwig's first film as writer-director is a delightful, painful comedy about "Lady Bird" McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), a Sacramento teen on the point of swapping high school for college, and her hard-working mom, Marion (Laurie Metcalf).
Silence
This sober, probing examination of faith, ego, cruelty and compassion is the most underrated film from the often under-valued latter half of Martin Scorsese's brilliant career; a passion project, about Catholic missionaries in 17th Century Japan.
Synecdoche, New York
Charlie Kaufman wrote Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -- all great, all successful -- then turned director with Synecdoche, which is a masterpiece and which basically went unseen. It's overdue rediscovery.