Top 50 Japanese live action movies from 2010s
Era largely defined by Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011 and increase in film adaptations of popular manga and anime titles (99,9% of which are complete garbage). Only top 50 simply because not enough quality films to recommend.
List formed out of the 150 japanese live action movies I've seen from the 2010s.
List formed out of the 150 japanese live action movies I've seen from the 2010s.
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- DirectorNobuhiko ÔbayashiStarsTadanobu AsanoTakuro AtsukiMickey CurtisThe story centers on a group of young people who travel back in time when they are in a movie theater just before closing time. They witness deaths during the closing days of Japan's feudal times and on the battlefront in China before they are sent to Hiroshima just before the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing of the city.
- DirectorTetsuichirô TsutaStarsRina TakedaShima ÔnishiMin TanakaAs a tunnel construction project threatens the natural order of one of Japan's last untouched regions, an old man and his granddaughter Haruna's humble lifestyle begins to influence the outlook of a man from Tokyo.
- DirectorKore-eda HirokazuStarsLily FrankySakura AndôKirin KikiOn the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders are united by loyalty, a penchant for petty theft and playful grifting. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence.
- DirectorKore-eda HirokazuStarsMasaharu FukuyamaKoji YakushoSuzu HiroseA courtroom drama centered around the murder of a factory president.
- DirectorTatsushi ÔmoriStarsHirofumi AraiJoe HyûgaMansaku IkeuchiA child's horrific murder brings to light the haunted truth of an affair between her mother and a neighbor. As a magazine reporter investigates the case, he finds that nothing is as it seems.
- DirectorKôji FukadaStarsTadanobu AsanoMariko TsutsuiTaiga NakanoToshio hires Yasaka in his workshop. This old acquaintance, who has just been released from prison, begins to meddle in Toshio's family life.
- DirectorHideaki AnnoShinji HiguchiStarsHiroki HasegawaYutaka TakenouchiSatomi IshiharaJapan is plunged into chaos upon the appearance of a giant monster.
- DirectorKazuyoshi KumakiriStarsMitsuki TanimuraPistol TakeharaRyô KaseIn the city of Kaitan, during the winter, the local shipyard is downsized and workers are laid off. Futa (Pistol Takehara) lives with his younger sister Honami (Mitsuki Tanimura). He loses his job at the shipyard and, feeling uneasy about their situation, goes with Honami to see the sunrise on a nearby mountainside for New Year's Day. Makoto (Takashi Yamanaka), a new city hall employee, visits the only remaining house in a redevelopment area. The home belongs to a 70-year-old woman,Toki (Aki Nakazato) who lives with her cat and a few animals in her backyard. Toki refuses to vacate the land and Makoto tries to persuade her that she will be forcibly evicted. 49-year-old Ryuzo (Kaoru Kobayashi) works in a small planetarium, while his relationship with his wife Haruyo (Haruyo Hika) and teenage son is deteriorating. Haruyo finds release by working as a hostess in a cabaret. Haruo (Ryo Kase) has taken over the operation of his father's gas company, but he worries about the state of his business. He also has a strained relationship with his wife, who takes out her anger on their son Akira. Taichiro, a street car driver, spots his son, Hiroshi (Masaki Miura) walking in downtown Kaitan. Although Hiroshi lives & works in Tokyo, he has come back to Kaitan for business. But he doesn't contact his father, even though it is the holiday season.
- DirectorNobuhiko ÔbayashiStarsShunsuke KubozukaShinnosuke MitsushimaKeishi NagatsukaFulfilling his filmmaking dream of 40 years, Nobuhiko Obayashi's luminous new feature "Hanagatami" delivers a timeless story of the pureness of youth beset by the chaos of war.
- DirectorKore-eda HirokazuStarsMasaharu FukuyamaMachiko OnoYôko MakiRyota is a successful workaholic businessman. When he learns that his biological son was switched with another boy after birth, he faces the difficult decision to choose his true son or the boy he and his wife have raised as their own.
- DirectorShûichi OkitaStarsKoji YakushoShun OguriTsutomu YamazakiRookie movie director Koichi and his crew travels to the mountain village of Yamamura to film his next movie. The villagers are eventually enlisted to help film the movie and, in particular, 60-year-old lumberjack Katsuhiko helps against his will.
- DirectorTakahisa ZezeStarsNoriko EguchiAkira EmotoMitsuru Fukikoshi(Japanese with English subtitles) Part revenge story, part existential meditation, Heaven's Story is 100% modern epic, gracefully threading together multiple suburban tales of lost souls seeking retribution and redemption.
- DirectorRyûichi HirokiStarsShôta SometaniAtsuko MaedaRoy 5tionOver one day at this love hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo - where guests have the choice of staying for a short time or overnight - the dreams and desires of these characters intersect while aspiring for something greater.
- DirectorShin'ichirô UedaStarsTakayuki HamatsuYuzuki AkiyamaHarumi ShuhamaThings go badly for a hack director and film crew shooting a low budget zombie movie in an abandoned WWII Japanese facility, when they are attacked by real zombies.
- DirectorKôji FukadaStarsFumi NikaidôMayu TsurutaTaiga NakanoAfter failing her university entrance exam, Sakuko is invited by her aunt Mikie to spend summer vacation in a beautiful seaside town. Sakuko gets to know the people of the town, including Takashi, a shy relative of her childhood friend.
- DirectorRyûichi HirokiStarsTokio EmotoYukichi KobayashiYuto KobayashiHikari is drifting through Tokyo until she meets Yuji. Hikari's boyfriend got killed in Akihabara in 2008. Yuji's parents went missing after the earthquake of 3/11. Can they both find peace? Filmed in Tokyo and the Fukushima prefecture, this small poetic masterpiece shows the search for hope and forgiveness in the face of destruction.
- DirectorEiki TakahashiStarsMaria AbeAKB48Rina ChikanoYasushi Akimoto created and produced theater idol group AKB48 in 2005. The group has gone on to become national idols. When the group held 3 concerts at the Seibu Dome, a total of 90,000 fans came to see their performances. Documentary of AKB48: Show Must Go On documents the girls up and close and introduces the audience to the problems they face as idols. The camera follows the group over a one-year period. Crafted from more than 1,000 hours of footage, including concerts, rehearsal sessions and interviews with band members, the documentary charts the complex balance of friendship and competition that exists between band members, and takes a look at the more personal side of a multimillion dollar music industry group.
- DirectorYukiko MishimaStarsRena TanakaTadanobu AsanoMiu AraiA 40-year old man sees his life change when his wife gets pregnant. He already has a daughter from his first marriage whom he rarely sees and two step-daughters, from his wife's first marriage. The youngest of his step-daughters is looking forward to a baby brother or sister, but the oldest doesn't welcome the news and suddenly decides that she wants to live with her father. And as if that were not enough trouble, he is forced out of his good office job into an inferior position.
- DirectorKore-eda HirokazuStarsHaruka AyaseMasami NagasawaKahoThree sisters who live in their grandmother's home invite their thirteen-year-old half sister, whom they have just met, to join them.
- DirectorDaihachi YoshidaStarsRyunosuke KamikiAi HashimotoSuzuka OhgoA story about the disappearance of Kirishima, a star athlete of the volleyball club, and how this affects every person in his school.
- DirectorYûya IshiiStarsRyûhei MatsudaAoi MiyazakiJoe OdagiriMajime, an eccentric man in publishing company, who has unique ability of words, joins the team that will compile a new dictionary, 'The Great Passage.' In the eclectic team, he becomes immersed in the world of dictionaries. But the team is overwhelmed with problems. Will 'The Great Passage' ever be completed?
- DirectorYûya IshiiStarsHikari MitsushimaKôtarô ShigaRyô IwamatsuAfter 5 years in Tokyo, 5 part-time jobs, 5 boyfriends, Sawako's life is going nowhere. When her father gets seriously ill she have to take over his struggling factory. Gradually she becomes the decider of her own life.
- DirectorSion SonoStarsKippei ShînaShinnosuke MitsushimaKyoko HinamiA small group of student filmmakers and a shy young girl with strict parents are simultaneously manipulated, seduced and abused by an older man. They follow his bidding, even when murder is involved.
- DirectorYûya IshiiStarsShizuka IshibashiSôsuke IkematsuRyûhei MatsudaNewcomer Shizuka Ishibashi throws herself into the role of Mika, a nurse by day, a 'girlie bar' hostess by night, subject to feelings of anxiety and isolation, and unable to reach through a hard outer shell that stops her from expressing tenderness to anyone else. Sosuke Ikematsu, one of Japan's most important young actors, stars as Shinji, who struggles as a day-hire construction worker with a sense of impending doom, but who still tries to find the source of an unnamable hope he feels inside. The setting is Tokyo in 2017, where empty words, a sense of doom, and feelings of isolation co-exist with hope, trust, and love. In the sense of real life conjured up in these two people is a new kind of film: the densest kind of love story.
- DirectorMipo OhStarsKengo KôraMachiko OnoChizuru IkewakiThis movie has an ensemble cast which draws normal people who might be living next door, in any normal town. And it draws various problems like child abuse, chain of abuse, negligence, teasing, which might exist in any town, more than a little. The problems could be solved sometimes by "kindness" and "consideration" of people. When it comes to know in a family which is closest and smallest community for us that there is someone who has lost those feelings, what people can do? If it comes to know, just go and talk. Just go and hold their hand. It is possible that people could be saved only by that. Plants die if they don't receive nutrient, people also die without the "kindness" of someone. The "kindness" can definitely save someone, it blossoms flower in that person and someone else could also be saved. There is possibility, since everyone was once a child and someone's neighbor. This movie draws the light arising out of series of such feeling.
- DirectorRyûichi HirokiStarsKumi TakiuchiKen MitsuishiKengo KôraBased on the novel "Kanojo no Jinsei wa Machigai ja Nai" (literal translation: Her life is not at fault) by Director Hiroki, it is a powerful story of survivors, who are all trying to find their own silver linings in life.
- DirectorKen OchiaiStarsSeizô FukumotoChihiro YamamotoMasashi GôdaSeizo Fukumoto has reportedly died 50,000 times in a career that has spanned half a century. His work catches the eye of Satsuki, who requests that he mentor her into becoming as good a fighter as he.
- DirectorYoshihiro NakamuraStarsGaku HamadaBengalAmi HachiyaAfter Satoru Watarai graduated from elementary school, he dropped out of school and decided to live within his apartment complex, never to venture outside. Satoru Watari then meets his old friends as they are coming back from their middle school classes. Satoru has now gotten a job at a cake shop within the apartment complex and eventually gets engaged to one of his friends. Satoru, still lives within the apartment complex only, but, as time passes, more of his friends leave.
- DirectorKore-eda HirokazuStarsHiroshi AbeYôko MakiSatomi KobayashiAfter the death of his father, a private detective struggles to find child support money and reconnect with his son and ex-wife.
- DirectorMiwa NishikawaStarsMasahiro MotokiPistol TakeharaEri FukatsuA recently widowed writer whose wife died in a bus crash comes to terms with his grief, or lack of it, in caring for the children of a working man who also lost his wife in the same accident.
- DirectorSatoko YokohamaStarsKen YasudaHirofumi AraiKôdai AsakaSupporting actor Takuji Kameoka is a thirty-seven-year-old single man whose most frequent companion is alcohol. Things change when he meets a bar owner one day, it is love at first sight and the man is at another junction in his life.
- DirectorNobuhiro YamashitaStarsSubaru ShibutaniFumi NikaidôSarina SuzukiAs a band plays for a crowd in a certain town square in Osaka, a young man rushes the stage, grabs the microphone, and begins to sing. The crowd is blown away by the man's singing voice, but after the performance, band manager Kasumi discovers that the man has no memory of his own life other than his talent for singing. Kasumi becomes interested in working with him anyway, and gives him the nickname "Pochi Otoko" (dog man). Before long, Pochi Man is accepted as the lead vocalist of a band, but a major problem from his past will soon come back to haunt him.
- DirectorMasaharu TakeStarsSakura AndôHirofumi AraiYôzaburô ItôA 32-year-old woman living with her parents meets a boxer and finally starts a life.
- DirectorRyôhei WatanabeStarsHiroki HorikawaGôta IshidaJûzô KakeiBecause of her last name "Kumada" (bear + rice paddy) and her appearance, Misa's high school classmates call her "Pooh" disparagingly. She obviously has no friends and can only let down her guard around her pet parrot and the goldfish in the science room at school. But then she finds herself quickly becoming best friends with Izumi, a cute and popular classmate. Although somewhat puzzled by Izumi's interest in her, Misa is excited about having a friend for the first time ever. But Izumi's initial angelic demeanor gradually transforms into a demonic one.
- DirectorEiji OkudaStarsSakura AndôTasuku EmotoMitsuru HirataKyoko is married with a young son and works as an insurance agent. Due to a series of unfortunate events, she brings shame to her family and has to leave her hometown. Shuichi has been in juvenile detention for a crime that he committed as a teenager. After he is released from prison, he begins to work at a small factory in Tokyo. Kyoko and Shuichi, who both left their hometowns, begin to live in Tokyo, but they face the after effects of an unprecedented earthquake and tsunami.
- DirectorAkiko ÔkuStarsMayu MatsuokaKanji FurutachiAnna IshibashiYoshika is 24 years old and works in an office. She doesn't have a boyfriend in her life, but still romanticizes her former junior high school classmate.
- DirectorSion SonoStarsShôta SometaniFumi NikaidôTetsu WatanabeAfter two teenagers from abusive households befriend each other, their lives take a dark adventure into existentialism, despair, and human frailty.
- DirectorTakashi MiikeStarsKoji YakushoTakayuki YamadaYûsuke IseyaA group of assassins come together for a suicide mission to kill an evil lord.
- DirectorKenji UchidaStarsMasato SakaiTeruyuki KagawaRyôko HirosueA failed actor switches identities with a stranger at a bath house thinking it is his way out of his life of misery but only to find himself filling the shoes of an elite assassin.
- DirectorYong-hi YangStarsSakura AndôArata IuraYang Ik-joonBased on the director's own experience, Our Homeland follows a Korean family living in Japan, of which the father (Masane Tsukayama) decided to take North Korean nationality because of his strong belief decades ago. In 1997, Sonho (Arata Iura), the son of the family who was sent to North Korea under a "repatriation program" with the promise of a "paradise" free of discrimination, returns to Japan for the first time in 25 years to seek treatment for his brain tumor due to the difference in medical technology between the two countries. Allowed to stay for only three months and closely monitored by a North Korean officer (Yang Ik-Joon), Sonho is welcomed and embraced by his family and old friends but his father, who is still sticking to the belief but also feeling guilty about sending his son to North Korea at the same time, while Sonho's younger sister Rie (Sakura Andô) develops the aversion to North Korea and its political ideas.
- DirectorMiwa NishikawaStarsYûsuke IseyaRena TanakaTakako MatsuAfter losing their restaurant in a fire, a husband and wife come up with a strange plan to rebuild their shattered finances: marrying the husband off to a series of lonely women and defrauding them.
- DirectorNaoko OgigamiStarsMikako IchikawaReiko KusamuraKen MitsuishiA single woman runs a rent-a-cat service to provide companions for lonely people.
- DirectorDaisuke MiuraStarsKazunobu MinetaMei KurokawaRyûhei MatsudaToshiyuki Tanishi (Mr Tanishi) is a 29-year-old chronic masturbator and toy vending machine salesman - he is socially awkward and down on his luck. Things change when he meets Chiharu a pretty woman who might actually be into him. Unfortunately, he has competition for Chiharu's affection from handsome, rival vending salesman Aoyama.
- DirectorShûichi OkitaStarsTsutomu YamazakiMunetaka AokiMitsuru FukikoshiVegetation thrives in painter Morikazu's garden, which is home to creatures that serve as models for his paintings, including numerous bugs and cats. A sweet and heartwarming day begins for Morikazu, who gazed at these garden creatures on a daily basis for over three decades, and those who love him.
- DirectorShinji AoyamaStarsMasaki SudaKen MitsuishiYukiko ShinoharaCannes Film Festival winner Shinji Aoyama creates a chilling atmosphere in this adaptation of an award-winning novel. A young man tries to fight the deadly influence of his violent, abusive dad. Will the sins of the father carry on to the next generation in the bloodline?
- DirectorMipo OhStarsGô AyanoChizuru IkewakiMasaki SudaTwo troubled souls living on the fringes of a port town fall in love, but their trials are far from over.
- DirectorKiyoshi SasabeStarsAoi MiyazakiMasato SakaiMitsuru FukikoshiA husband is suffering from melancholia, and he wants to commit suicide. His wife, who is a cartoonist, forces him to quit his job for the therapy. The wife's optimism influence the husband, and they live happily ever after.
- DirectorHiroshi IshikawaStarsAoi MiyazakiShioli KutsunaSakura AndôFour women, who have their own different sorrows, embark on a road trip. They look back at their past and restart their lives.
- DirectorKazuya ShiraishiStarsTakayuki YamadaPierre TakiLily FrankyJournalist Shuichi Fujii receives a letter from convicted killer Junji Sudo. Writing from death row, Sudo wants to confess to crimes unknown to the police. On visiting Sudo in prison, Fujii learns about a real estate broker called "Doc" who masterminded a string of murders that Sudo worked muscle for. Set up by Doc, Sudo seeks revenge and implores Fujii to find the evidence needed to bring in his former boss. Working off Sudo's sketchy memories, Fujii begins to piece together a grizzly tale of extortion, torture, rape, and arson. But as his desire to see Doc brought to justice nears the boiling point, he runs into resistance from his editor, who views the story as tripe, the police, who seem indifferent to the case, and his wife, who is at her wits' end dealing with his mother's increasing dementia. Based on true crime cases, "The Devil's Path" exposes the secret underbelly of crime in modern Japan.