A restaurant opens at midnight. Both the menu offerings and personality of the owner draw a series of flawed patrons including Tamako, whose boyfriend has passed away, live-in worker Michiru, and ruck...

The master of a dorayaki pastry store hires a 76-year-old woman whose talents attract customers from all over. But she's hiding a troubling secret. Life's joys are found in the little details, and no ...

Ichiko bakes a cake for an end-of-year party with her friends. In the depths of winter, making mochi and curry keeps the people of Komori warm. Later, spring brings thoughts of her absent mother as we...

Fleeing heartbreak in the big city, Ichiko returns to Komori, her rural hometown. She battles summer's rain and humidity, bakes her own bread, grows hothouse tomatoes and tills the fields. During autu...

In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daugh...

A 21-year-old girl is released from prison, only to deal with the neighborhood gossip about her and family conflicts. She decides to save one million yen, move to where no one knows her and keep repea...

Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell....

In a distinctly contemporary Tokyo that looks backwards to the city’s disappearing past, Yoko is a writer investigating the life of a modernist composer of the 1930s. She is pregnant by a man she does...

Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – includi...

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

In 2012, Atsuya and his 2 childhood friends do something bad and run into an old general store. They decide to stay there until the morning. Late into the night, Atsuya sees a letter in the mailbox. T...

Depicts the life of a family in a remote Japanese timber village. Family head Tahara Kozo lives with his mother Sachiko, wife Yasuyo, nephew Eisuke and young daughter Michiru. Economic recession and f...

A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness....

More interested in partying and flirting with young musicians than work, veteran rock journalist Ellie Klug has one last chance to prove her value to her magazine’s editor: a no-stone-unturned search ...

Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have...

Nola grew up living in a van with her father, Clint—two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past, a...

A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: An...

When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, ...

Love is a business at Family Romance, a company that rents human stand-ins for any occasion. Founder Yuichi Ishii helps make his clients’ dreams come true. But when the mother of 12-year-old Mahiro hi...

A postman learns that he doesn't have much time left to live due to a terminal illness. A devil then appears in front of him and offers to extend his life if he picks something in the world that will ...

On a quiet street in Helsinki, Sachie has opened a diner featuring rice balls. For a month she has no customers. Then, in short order, she has her first customer, meets Midori, a gangly Japanese touri...

Tokunaga is an unpopular comedian. He meets a senior comedian, Kamiya, who holds a strong faith in comedy. They struggle to move forward as comedians....

After failing his university entrance exam, Yuki Hirano sets his eyes on the role of a forestry trainee. Setting off for training he doubts his decision many times, but eventually after passing the tr...

Six directors picked a favorite song by Japanese punk rock band "The Blue Hearts" and made a short film inspired by the song....

Two old friends meet for dinner; as one tells anecdotes detailing his experiences, the other notices their differing worldviews....

Set in Tokyo in 1940, the peaceful life of the Nogami Family suddenly changes when the father, Shigeru, is arrested and accused of being a Communist. His wife Kayo works frantically from morning to ni...

In this tale of second chances, two ex-lovers run into each other in a restaurant. Both are with new partners. Both are unhappy. Both are still in love with the other. Dormant feelings rush to the sur...

Julian dreams of becoming a chef while working in his father's auto repair shop. When he finds out about a cooking competition that awards the winner a full scholarship to culinary school, he jumps at...

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend ...

Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to ...

A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops....

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife...

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 to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor R...

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life....

When Johnny is released from prison following a forgery charge, he quickly lands a job as a short-order cook at a New York diner. Following a brief fling with waitress Cora, he develops an attraction ...

Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan. However, in Japan he manag...

Anzukko (Little Peach) is the daughter of a successful writer. She turns down each one of her suitors, until she marries a beginning writer named Ryokichi. Their life quickly sinks into despair....

Brash, loudmouthed and opportunistic, Kikujiro is the unlikely companion for Masao who is determined to see the mother he has never met. The two begin a series of adventures which soon turns out to be...

Boris is around 20 years old and lives on the road with his disturbed father. When his boss offers him a better job at the restaurant where he works, Boris sees a way out off this rambling life....

A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship....