A powerful affirmation of the immersive potential of cinema. HAPPY HOUR is a slow-burning epic chronicling the emotional journey of four thirty-something women in the misty seaside city of Kobe. As they navigate the unsteady currents of their work, domestic, and romantic lives a sudden, unexpected rift opens between that propels each to a new, richer understanding of life and love. Filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi's wise, precisely observed, compulsively...

To the Ends of the Earth was commissioned to mark the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and the central Asian republic of Uzbekistan. Yoko (former J-pop idol Atsuko Maeda) travels with a small crew to Uzbekistan (breathtakingly captured by veteran DP Akiko Ashizawa) to shoot an episode of her reality TV travel show. In front of the camera her persona is carefree and happy-go-lucky, but behind the scenes she is cautious and introverted....

With his highly perceptive attention to character, director Koji Fukada creates an explosive family drama with HARMONIUM (FUCHI NI TATSU). Intended as a companion piece to the black comedy HOSPITALITE, HARMONIUM returns to the domestic sphere as it captures the collapse of a seemingly ordinary Japanese family. Life for Toshio, his wife, and their younger daughter Hotaru carries on as usual until he hires the mysterious Mr. Yasaka, an old acquaintance...

A mother and her children withdraw into a dangerous inner world as their home life begins to fall apart, in this family drama.

In the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, journalist Reiko Endo (Yasuko Matsuyuki) travels to the city of Nagaoka in Niigata Prefecture as it prepares for an annual fireworks festival memorializing the fallen victims of war. Drawn to the city by an old flame who plans to put on a war-themed play written by a mysterious student, Reiko embarks on a journey of self-discovery as she learns the storied history of Nagaoka and the ghosts of its...

Propelled by coincidence and imagination, and guided by love's gentle current, acclaimed director Ryūsuke Hamaguchi returns with an enchanting triptych that spins mundane encounters into a world of infinite possibilities.

In this tale of unbreakable family bonds, a man looks after his aging mother, now ill with dementia. As her memory slips, the two bond over love and laughter, as one mom bravely takes on illness with the son she'll soon forget.

Sato is an 8-year-old girl. She is at the sea with her friends when her parents and older sister are murdered. The killer is apparently a man who blamed his business trouble on her father. It is decided that Sato will live with her grandfather. When Sato is on her way to her new home with her grandfather, she sees the news on an appliance shop TV. A young man (Tomoki) whose wife and child were murdered, says at a media conference that he will get...

High-powered attorney Shigemori (Masaharu Fukuyama) reluctantly agrees to defend murder-robbery suspect Misumi (Kōji Yakusho), knowing the man already confessed and had been convicted of murder thirty years ago. But as he digs deeper, Shigemori begins to doubt whether his client could be the murderer after all. From Palme d'Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda, The Third Murder is a gripping and morally complex crime procedural that incisively explores the...

Koji Fukada's followup to the critically-acclaimed HARMONIUM (also available from Film Movement), A GIRL MISSING "is a satisfying slow-burn drama expertly told" (Screen Daily). Ichiko is a private home-nurse who has worked for the elder matriarch of the Oishos for years and regards them as her own family. Ichiko's quiet, routine life is shattered when a young member of the Oishos clan is kidnapped. When it is revealed that the kidnapper is none other...