Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month
Plan 75
Faced with a rapidly ageing population, a government in near-future Japan rolls out an unsettling agenda.
Director: Chie Hayakawa
Overview
In a near-future world, the Japanese government introduces a measure to combat an ageing population. Participants who have passed the age of 75 will receive remuneration for signing up to a euthanasia programme. Michi, a 78-year-old hotel maid, faces intense loneliness when let go from her job and sees the scheme as a solution. Hiromu, a Plan 75 recruitment agent, feels conflicted when a family member signs up to the scheme. While Maria, a Filipino care-worker, takes a job in one of the Plan 75 mass crematoriums.
Chie Hayakawa’s slow-burn dystopian feature debut was developed from her earlier short film within the Ten Years Japan anthology, executive produced by Hirokazu Kore-eda. It’s a devastating yet life-affirming work that digs deep into its personal stories, offering a stinging critique of how we view and care for our older generation.
Related
Orphée Orphée
Drama 1950 96 mins Director: Jean Cocteau
Magical retelling of the Orpheus myth by poet, playwright, artist and filmmaker Jean Cocteau.
Air Doll Air Doll
Drama 2009 116 mins Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
A life-size blow-up doll comes to life and falls in love with a video store clerk in Kore-eda Hirokazu’s haunting, melancholy meditation on urban alienation.
Floating Skyscrapers Floating Skyscrapers
Drama 2013 89 mins Director: Tomasz Wasilewski
Hailed as ‘Poland’s first LGBT film’, Tomasz Wasilewski’s striking drama follows a champion swimmer whose gay relationship causes ripples.
Sweet Sue Sweet Sue
Comedy 2022 100 mins Director: Leo Leigh
A shameless woman finds her new lover’s son wants to divide them in this cringe comic drama starring Maggie O’Neill.
El Sur El Sur
Drama 1983 94 mins Director: Víctor Erice
Victor Erice’s second masterpiece, following The Spirit of the Beehive, is a rarely seen meditation on memory, deception and Spain’s 20th-century history.
20,000 Species of Bees 20,000 Species of Bees
Drama 2023 128 mins Director: Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren
Sofía Otero ignites this warm, rich Spanish drama woven from a child’s probing question: who am I?
Woman of the Dunes Woman of the Dunes
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1964 147 mins Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
Hiroshi Teshigahara's mystifying, serene and provocative fable about an entomologist who becomes trapped in a young widow’s desert shack.
Onibaba Onibaba
Horror 1964 102 mins Director: Kaneto Shindo
Stylish, symbolic and erotically charged Japanese horror in which the fortunes of a murderous mother-and-daughter team are upended by a strangely masked samurai.
Maborosi Maborosi
Drama 1995 109 mins Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Koreeda’s first fiction feature is an exquisite meditation on loss, loneliness, uncertainty, and coming to terms with the past.
Boiling Point Boiling Point
Crime 1990 97 mins Director: Takeshi Kitano
A young baseball player becomes mixed up with a psychotic yakuza, in Takeshi Kitano's hilarious and twisted crime tale.
Violent Cop Violent Cop
Crime 1989 103 mins Director: Takeshi Kitano
In his brutal directorial debut, ‘Beat' Takeshi Kitano plays a renegade cop who frequently resorts to violence and unethical methods to get results.
Tony Takitani Tony Takitani
Drama 2004 76 mins Director: Jun Ichikawa
Award-winning film adapted from Haruki Murakami’s New Yorker tale of solitude and obsession.
Orphée Orphée
Drama 1950 96 mins Director: Jean Cocteau
Magical retelling of the Orpheus myth by poet, playwright, artist and filmmaker Jean Cocteau.
La Belle et la Bête La Belle et la Bête
Fantasy 1946 95 mins Director: Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau’s ravishingly restored 1946 film is a cinematic classic. “Five stars. [This] magical exploration of the fairytale is a compelling and bizarre masterpiece” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Air Doll Air Doll
Drama 2009 116 mins Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
A life-size blow-up doll comes to life and falls in love with a video store clerk in Kore-eda Hirokazu’s haunting, melancholy meditation on urban alienation.
Floating Skyscrapers Floating Skyscrapers
Drama 2013 89 mins Director: Tomasz Wasilewski
Hailed as ‘Poland’s first LGBT film’, Tomasz Wasilewski’s striking drama follows a champion swimmer whose gay relationship causes ripples.
Sweet Sue Sweet Sue
Comedy 2022 100 mins Director: Leo Leigh
A shameless woman finds her new lover’s son wants to divide them in this cringe comic drama starring Maggie O’Neill.
Bande à part Bande à part
Crime 1964 95 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Godard's playful tribute to the Hollywood pulp crime movies of the 1940s, executed with typically Gallic cool.