Shoplifters

Hirokazu Koreeda's modern masterpiece is a dark yet touching account of an unorthodox family that relies on shoplifting to make ends meet.

Japanese auteur Hirokazu Koreeda won the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival for this touching exploration of what it means to be a family. Living in poverty in Tokyo, Osamu and his son are shoplifting groceries when they discover a homeless girl, Yuri. Despite their own struggle, they take her in. But an incident will expose secrets that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence.

With humour and humanity, Koreeda (I Wish, After the Storm) presents an unorthodox yet thoroughly modern family unit which works against the odds; perfectly placed to survive amid a harsh world in which everything - including people - has become commodified. The director’s last collaboration with his regular actress, the late Kirin Kiki, sums up his most frequent themes: nature versus nurture, crime and urban alienation, and the question of what it means to be part of a family. Shoplifters is a modern masterpiece to rank alongside other greats in modern Japanese cinema.