One of director Masaki Kobayashi’s greatest films, Samurai Rebellion is set in the Edo period of Japan, where…
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It’s a Summer Film! is a new teen romcom out of Japan that’s simultaneously an ode to creative youth and a love letter to filmmaking in all forms.
Barefoot and her teen friends set out to make an awesome samurai film for their school film fest. They’ve got only a small tripod and an iPhone, while their snooty classmates with high tech filmmaking gear make a romcom.
With humor, heart, and an unexpected sci-fi twist, Sôshi Masumoto’s 2020 film is refreshing, sincere, and the kind of movie you’ll catch yourself smiling at in a dark theater.
A stylish and profound silent film from Yasujiro Ozu — director of Tokyo Story and Late Spring — Dragnet Girl stands alone in the gangster (yakuza) genre.
True to Ozu, the film is intimately focused on family and the interpersonal relationships between career hardened criminal Joji, his jealous girlfriend, and an innocent shop girl who gets pulled into his world.
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From acclaimed director Ayumu Watanabe (Children of the Sea) comes a heartwarming and moving comedy-drama about an unconventional family, based on the popular novel by Kanako Nishi.
Nikuko is a big and jolly personality in an otherwise sleepy seaside town in northern Japan. Her daughter Kikuko is the opposite — quiet and pensive as she navigates the everyday social dramas of middle school. Everything changes for the mother-daughter duo when a shocking revelation from the past threatens to uproot their tender relationship.
David Lynch’s prequel to the popular Twin Peaks series is a dark and harrowing psycho thriller about two teenaged girls who encounter dark visions, supernatural forces, and ultimately grisly fates in two small towns in Washington State — where nothing is as it seems and everyone has something to hide.
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The only film ever directed by revered poet Maya Angelou tells the story of a family fighting to recover from generational and racial trauma in rural Mississippi. True to Angelou, the film is simultaneously powerful and understated with phenomenal acting and a heart-wrenching plot.
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Spike Lee directed and stared in this cult classic comedy set at a Historically Black University in the South. Lee handles tense issues like classism, colorism, political activism, and hair texture bias with musical numbers in this fun, sometimes serious, always engaging comedy.
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One of the best romcoms of all time, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s early aughts classic is a love story, a coming of age tale, and a sports film all in one. Two prodigious basketball players meet, fall in love, and take wildly different paths through the world of high school, college, and professional basketball.
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Akira Kurosawa retells Macbeth by replacing lords and kings with samurai and emperors in this rendition set in medieval Japan. Brutal, suspenseful, and visually stunning — this is by far one of the best Shakespeare adaptations ever made for the screen.
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Baz Luhrmann added his over-the-top flair to one of the greatest love stories of all time, casting Claire Danes and Leo DiCaprio as the titular characters. It’s a perfect storm full of energy and passion set in the fair city of Verona Beach at the height of the 1990s.
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