Naoko Ôtani

The body of Shinsuke Maeda, a wealthy older man, is discovered in his garden. While at first glance it appears that he missed his step while exiting into the garden and hit his forehead on a flowerbed rock, it is established that a safe installed in the living room has been emptied. It seems that, the night before, Maeda left the hospital he was staying at of his own will and came home, and was robbed immediately after returning. His daughter Yumie Nagano insists that Chikako Inui, a woman her father had been seeing, must be the perpetrator. She says that Maeda was thinking of getting married to Chikako soon. However, Chikako finds Yumie and her husband suspicious. Troubled by debts incurred by opening their ramen store, they pestered Maeda and he pushed them away. She calmly points out that Maeda gave her a will in which he left all of the 50 million plus yen hidden in the safe to her, so she had no reason to steal from him.

Yasutake Shingo works as a newspaper reporter but his life is stiffled and lifeless. That changes one day when he meets the irrepressible Matsunaga Chie by accident. Just as their relationship is blossoming however, Chie tells Shingo that she has breast cancer. Shingo determines to marry Chie right away, but she'll have to go through surgery and cancer treatments firs...

An old couple, their only son, the son's wife, a young man and his lover live peacefully in a village. Then, a terrifying earthquake strikes that causes a nearby nuclear station to explode. The residents must evacuate, but the family lives on a farm, with only half of the area designated as an evacuation area.

Shuichi Furukawa receives a phone call from his mother. She reminds him that they are moving the next day. The following day, Shuichi takes a train ride back to his hometown. He arrives at his parents home, but nobody is home. He looks for the house key under a potted plant but can't find the key. He starts to thinks back to his childhood days in his parents home. Shuichi grew up with his younger brother, older sister, father who ran a shoe making business out of their garage and mother. Shuichi grew up with a crush on an older woman who lived next door and he loved to make piggy banks out of empty whiskey bottles. One day on a school picnic, Shuichi's classmates grabbed a lunchbox from a fellow student and eventually gave the lunch box to Shuichi. All the other students chanted "throw it away," while Shuichi's former friend looked on in despair.

While celebrating with her friends in her new cheaply rented apartment (with balcony and view of the sea) on the thirteenth floor of a building, the young Sayaka unexpectedly jumps off the balcony committing suicide. Her mother goes insane and her older sister, Mariko, decides to investigate the mysterious death of her sister. She finds that there have been many suicides of young women living in apartment 1303. She finds a book telling the tragic story of the Yukiyo and her mother, the first tenants of the apartment and uncovers the truth behind the suicides.

A portrait of an ordinary family that turns unstable when their frivolous son Shuji returns home after a long absence.

A young woman returns to the island where she grew up.

It is based on the story of The Ballad of Narayama updated to the present day, with the substitution of putting a parent into an old people's home for the abandonment of the original. The film won the Golden St. George and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 21st Moscow International Film Festival.

A widow and her two sons, Seitaro and Koji, live in the small town of Komori, where Buraku people are forced to reside. The two boys are continuously harassed by their teachers and classmates through their childhood as a result of their Buraku heritage. In the midst of the 1918 Great Rice Riots in Osaka, Seitaro meets with Asako, the daughter of a rice shop owner, and falls in love with her. She too is of Buraku descent. At the same period, Hideaki, an old friend of the brothers returns to Komori, and he along with Koji and the townspeople create "Zenkoku Suiheisha", the National Levelers Association, an organization pledged to build a bridge over the river of discrimination, making all people equal in every way.

A fictional account of the life of Japanese author Yukio Mishima told in four parts. The first three parts relate events in three of his novels: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko's House, and Runaway Horses. The last part depicts the events of 25th November 1970.

This is a sad and beautiful story about a father who is a popular comedian and a son who suffered by an incurable disease.

Kato is a small time TV producer. He has a wife Masako, and a young son Taro. Kato also has a friend Yamazaki who he knew since college. Yamazaki has a girl friend Riko who lives with her younger sister Yuko who's an actress. Yamazaki is a lyric writer/womanizer and he starts to have an affair with Masako, but he's still going out with Riko.

On the day his mother dies, young gambler Jirocho swears in front of her grave that he'll never gamble again. But, that night, Jirocho heads to a gambling den, where he bets the condolence money for his mother's funeral. No surprise to learn he loses the lot. Not the hard-boiled yakuza story it seems, this is a comedy featuring many new artists who were making a name for themselves at the time.

After a passenger ship sinks in 1954, Go Akutsu devises a life-saving project in the form of a tunnel under the Tsugaru Strait. While working on this project Akutsu becomes involved with Tae Makimura leading to his estrangement from his wife.

Based on a mystery by Taiwanese-Japanese author Chin Shun-shin. After two elderly men in Yokohama quarrel over a Yang dynasty artifact, one of the men turns up dead with mysterious claw marks across his face. A detective takes up the case, and uncovers secrets dating back to war crimes committed during Japan’s invasion of China in WWII.

A surreal period film following an university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.

After the war-time government orders the disbanding of the Big-Six baseball league, the teams of Waseda and Keio universities play one final game before they are drafted into the armed forces and face the hardships of military service.

UFOs appear on Earth, and people who actually see them suddenly find that their blood has turned blue. Soon panic and hysteria result in the new "blue-bloods" being persecuted by the rest of mankind, and eventually certain all-too-familiar measures begin to be taken against them.

The three-film saga comes to a conclusion as three leaders of the underworld battle it out to determine who will become Don of Japan.

A bad cop is engaged in a violent chase to catch a yakuza boss. In his absence his wife runs away with another man, who turns out to be the very same man that her husband is hunting. Once he discovers this, he loses his nerve and turns in his badge. But the chase turns into a personal vendetta where the ex-cop plans to wipe out the entire gang.

Based on the life of artist Yumeji Takehisa

Toei studios last ninkyo eiga of the 70's.

Convicted of murder, Masayuki Ueda is sent to Hiroshima Prison along with his accomplice. But for a man like him, breaking out of prison is easy.

Blind masseur and master swordsman Zatoichi finds a robbed and fatally wounded pregnant woman, whose baby he delivers before she dies. He takes the baby in search of its father and finds the child's aunt, who is about to be forced into prostitution for want of a payment the dead mother was bringing. Zatoichi determines to save the woman from her cruel fate.

Tatematsu Minoru, a yakuza belonging to the Ishikawa group that runs the Shinjuku area, has a beautiful sister named Akane. He dreams of sending her to college and turning her into a perfect young lady. He's extremely fond of Akane. His fondness for her goes beyond how he feels about his mistress, Kanae. And yet, Akane feels alone. Now, a new tutor comes into her life that seems to have taken a liking to her...

A soldier has been in the Japanese military for the entirety of WWII, and in that time, his dedication to the army has never faltered. However, as the war draws to a close, his commanding officers become increasingly desperate and push their men to ever more absurd extremes. The ridiculousness of the orders from above peak when the hero of the story is assigned to drive a one-man submarine straight into the hull of an enemy battleship.