Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month
Maborosi
Koreeda’s first fiction feature is an exquisite meditation on loss, loneliness, uncertainty, and coming to terms with the past.
Drama 1995 109 mins
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Overview
By 1995 Hirokazu Koreeda was already well established as a documentary director, but it was his fictional debut that brought him international attention; winning prizes at Chicago, Vancouver, and Venice, and securing commercial releases in western countries. An apparently happy marriage is abruptly ended by the husband’s sudden death, but was it accident or suicide? Koreeda’s haunting, meditative film traces a widow’s attempts to cope with and comprehend her bereavement.
With its static camera setups and long takes evoking the work of the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu and Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Maborosi announced a vital new presence in Japanese cinema.
suicide themeRelated
Drama
Funeral Parade of Roses Funeral Parade of Roses
Drama 1970 106 mins Director: Toshio Matsumoto
Toshio Matsumoto's kaleidoscopic masterpiece is one of the most intoxicating films of the 60s.
Radiance Radiance
Drama 2017 102 mins Director: Naomi Kawase
A passionate writer of film versions for the visually impaired meets an older photographer who is slowly losing his eyesight, in this luminous love story from Naomi Kawase (Sweet Bean).
Marketa Lazarová Marketa Lazarová
Period drama 1967 159 mins Director: Frantisek Vlácil
Voted the best Czech film ever made, František Vláčil’s groundbreaking 13th-century epic is a story of a fierce inter-clan rivalry and doomed love.
All My Good Countrymen All My Good Countrymen
Comedy 1968 115 mins Director: Vojtech Jasny
Vojtěch Jasný’s enduring masterpiece chronicles the saga of Czech villagers forced into collective farms by their new Communist rulers.
Cutting It Short Cutting It Short
Drama 1980 98 mins Director: Jirí Menzel
Warmly nostalgic look at small-town life from Oscar®-winning director Jiří Menzel (Closely Observed Trains).
A Siege Diary A Siege Diary
Drama 2021 119 mins Director: Andrey Zaytsev
Visually stunning recreation of the longest siege in history, and its horrific effects on the inhabitants of Leningrad, during the Second World War.
Japan 2021
Seven Samurai Seven Samurai
Drama 1954 207 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
Farmers hire a band of samurai to defend them against marauding bandits in Kurosawa’s influential epic, a touchstone for action movies ever since.
Ran Ran
Drama 1985 154 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa’s visually spectacular epic transplants Shakespeare’s King Lear from Celtic Britain to feudal Japan.
Rashomon Rashomon
Crime 1950 88 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
Credited with bringing Japanese cinema to worldwide audiences, Akira Kurosawa’s breakthrough tells the story of a murder in the woods from four differing perspectives.
Tokyo Story Tokyo Story
Drama 1953 136 mins Director: Yasujiro Ozu
A constant fixture in critics' polls, Yasujiro Ozu's most enduring masterpiece is a beautifully nuanced exploration of filial duty, expectation and regret.
Late Autumn Late Autumn
Drama 1960 128 mins Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Comedy turns to pathos in Yasujiro Ozu's tale of a group of businessmen who conspire to match-make for a widow and her daughter.
Equinox Flower Equinox Flower
Comedy 1958 118 mins Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Ozu's deft comedy takes an ironic look at the decline of paternal authority.
Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda
After Life After Life
Drama 1998 119 mins Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Koreeda's lyrical fantasy challenges the viewer to reflect on the experiences that most make life worth living.
New
Funeral Parade of Roses Funeral Parade of Roses
Drama 1970 106 mins Director: Toshio Matsumoto
Toshio Matsumoto's kaleidoscopic masterpiece is one of the most intoxicating films of the 60s.
Radiance Radiance
Drama 2017 102 mins Director: Naomi Kawase
A passionate writer of film versions for the visually impaired meets an older photographer who is slowly losing his eyesight, in this luminous love story from Naomi Kawase (Sweet Bean).
Marketa Lazarová Marketa Lazarová
Period drama 1967 159 mins Director: Frantisek Vlácil
Voted the best Czech film ever made, František Vláčil’s groundbreaking 13th-century epic is a story of a fierce inter-clan rivalry and doomed love.
All My Good Countrymen All My Good Countrymen
Comedy 1968 115 mins Director: Vojtech Jasny
Vojtěch Jasný’s enduring masterpiece chronicles the saga of Czech villagers forced into collective farms by their new Communist rulers.
Cutting It Short Cutting It Short
Drama 1980 98 mins Director: Jirí Menzel
Warmly nostalgic look at small-town life from Oscar®-winning director Jiří Menzel (Closely Observed Trains).
Old Boys Old Boys
Comedy 2017 95 mins Director: Toby MacDonald
Charmingly idiosyncratic comedy reworking of Cyrano de Bergerac, with Alex Lawther as a boarder who helps the school hero woo a French teacher's daughter despite being besotted with her himself.