On-Gaku is the lo-fi, arthouse rocker comedy we didn’t know we needed. An unconventional animated film coming out of Japan in 2019, On-Gaku (translates to “our sound”) follows a group of bored delinquent teens who come together to play music and discover the joy of creating something of their own. It was based on a manga created by Hiroyuki Ôhashi.
Director Kenji Iwaisawa took seven years to make On-Gaku, his first feature film, and the scrappy passion for filmmaking and classic rock is contagious.
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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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Kiyoshi Kurosawa breaks the mold of serial killer movies with an engrossing thriller that takes you inside the psyche of society.
When police uncover a series of murders, committed by different people using the same strange method, a gloomy detective takes on the descent into the killers’ madness while managing his wife’s own mental stability.
Eerie and masterful, Bong Jon-ho (director of Parasite) lists it as one of his all-time favorite films.
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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.
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Lynch’s first feature film deftly blends the genres of surrealism, black comedy, and body horror, earning it a place among the greatest cult classics of all time.It follows Henry Spencer as he tries to survive his industrial environment, angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.
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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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Love is the only inspiration.
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