Introducing Japanese Cinema: Part 2

If Part 1 gave you a way in, think of this as a few more doors to try. Across six themes, from the New Wave and wild, surreal oddities to horror, philosophical musings, all-time classics and recent standouts. Whether you’re revisiting old favourites or meeting these films for the first time, we hope there’s something here for you to discover.

Top 5 New Wave 

From the late 1950s through to the 1970s a disparate and inventive group of directors were challenging the traditional forms and content of cinema that had gone before in order to explore new visual techniques alongside provocative subject matter.

• Branded to Kill (Seijun Suzuki, 1967)
• Tampopo (Juzo Itami, 1985)
• Ecstasy of the Angels (Koji Wakamatsu, 1972)
• Battles Without Honor and Humanity (Kinji Fukasaku, 1973)
• Bitterness of Youth (Tatsumi Kumashiro, 1974)

Top 5 Wild & Surreal

Japan has a rich history of avant-garde, underground and extravagantly bizarre film: from works that splice genre acrobatics with breakneck tonal shifts, to more conceptually experimental fever dreams…inspired madness awaits!

• Symbol (Hitoshi Matsumoto, 2009)
• The Taste of Tea (Katsuhito Ishii, 2004)
• Visitor Q (Takashi Miike, 2001)
• Emotion (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1966)
• The Flying Luna Clipper (Ikko Ono, 1987)

Top 5 Horror

Japan’s cultural history has always been imaginatively alive to the supernatural and grotesque, providing a fertile environment for truly extraordinary horror cinema. Whether it’s the folkloric enchantment of ghosts, cyber fears and posthumanism, or the psychosexual extremity of arthouse nightmares, the diversity and wealth of Japanese horror cinema is truly staggering.

• A Page of Madness (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926)
• The Face of Another (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1966)
• The Ghost of Yotsuya (Nobuo Nakagawa, 1959)
• Fires on the Plain (Kon Ichikawa, 1959)
• Ringu (Hideo Nakata, 1998)

Top 5 Philosophical

These are films that bring an intellectual, contemplative or meditative sensibility to profound questions of existence.

• Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (Shuji Terayama, 1971)
• The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (Kazuo Hara, 1987)
• The Human Bullet (Kihachi Okamoto, 1968)
• Pale Flower (Masahiro Shinoda, 1964)
• Maborosi (Hirokazu Koreeda, 1995)

Top 5 Classics

Does what it says on the tin: a primer of all-time greats to enjoy!

• Gate of Hell (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1953)
• The Insect Woman (Shōhei Imamura, 1963)
• Floating Clouds (Mikio Naruse, 1955)
• High & Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)
• The Shape of the Night (Noboru Nakamura, 1964)

Top 5 of the Twenty First Century

As an evolving frontier of contemporary film, Japan continues to be one of the most exciting, challenging and diverse – here are some more recent highlights.

• Happy Hour (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2015)
• United Red Army (Koji Wakamatsu, 2007)
• The Tale of Iya (Tetsuichirô Tsuta, 2013)
• The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki, 2013)
• 13 Assassins (Takashi Miike, 2010)

Read our Introduction to Japanese Cinema Part 1 and visit our official Letterbox for the full list.