My 25 Favorite Japanese Movies

A truck driver stops at a small family-run noodle shop and decides to help its fledgling business. The story is intertwined with various vignettes about the relationship of love and food.

Momoko, a strange and seemingly emotionless girl obsessed with 18th century France, befriends a Yanki biker and the two experience the ups and downs of their unusual lives in a rural Japanese town.

On the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders are united by loyalty, a penchant for petty theft and playful grifting. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence.

A love story between a famous 25-year-old songwriter, who keeps his identity hidden from the public, and a 16-year-old high school student who possesses a gifted voice.

A master chef's cooking runs on autopilot until a mysterious last request forces him to hunt down a lost recipe from 1930s Manchuria, created by the legendary Yamagata during Japanese occupation.

Aoi and Riku, who have been friends since they were five years old, are part of a band with other students at university they attend.

A young, naive boy sets out alone on the road to find his wayward mother. Soon he finds an unlikely protector in a crotchety man and the two have a series of unexpected adventures along the way.

A restaurant opens at midnight. Both the menu offerings and the personality of the owner draw a series of flawed patrons, including Tamako, whose boyfriend has passed away, live-in worker Michiru, and ruckus-raising Kenzo.

Three sisters live together in Kamakura. When their father - absent for 15 years - dies, they travel to the countryside for his funeral and meet their half-sister. Bonding quickly with the orphaned Suzu, they invite her to live with them.

In Medieval Japan, an elderly warlord retires, handing over his empire to his three sons. However, he vastly underestimates how the new-found power will corrupt them and cause them to turn on each other...and him.

Young women in a small Japanese town look to revive their home's declining fortunes by building a Hawaiian village tourist attraction.

Takatoshi Minamiyama majors in art at a university in Kyoto. On the train to the school, he sees Emi Fukuju and falls in love with her at first sight. They begin to date and enjoy happy days together, but Emi reveals her secret to him.

The first part of the "Chihayafuru" trilogy. Chihaya is a high school student who loves Karuta, a traditional card game from Japan. Chihaya and her friends start a Karuta club at high school to become the greatest Karuta player in Japan.

Two teenagers share a profound, magical connection upon discovering they are swapping bodies. Things manage to become even more complicated when the boy and girl decide to meet in person.

Set during a period of exceptionally rainy weather, high-school boy Hodaka Morishima runs away from his troubled rural home to Tokyo and befriends an orphan girl who can manipulate the weather.

Soon after buying an expensive cello, Daigo learns that his orchestra is disbanding. He moves back to his hometown with his wife, where he answers an ad for what Daigo thinks is a travel agency but is, in actuality, a mortuary.

When two girls move to the country to be near their ailing mother, they have adventures with the wondrous forest spirits who live nearby.

While seeking to cure himself of a curse, young warrior Ashitaka stumbles into a conflict between the people of Iron Town and Princess Mononoke, a girl raised by wolves, who will stop at nothing to prevent the destruction of her home.

During her family's move to the suburbs, a sullen 10-year-old girl wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches and spirits, and where humans are changed into beasts.

Moritaka Mashiro, a junior high student, forgets his notebook in class. His classmate Akito Takagi, notes Mashiro's drawings in it and asks him to become a manga artist to his stories. Mashiro declines. Takagi incites Mashiro to meet with Miho Azuki, Mashiro's crush, and tells her the two plan to become mangakas (manga artists). In response, Azuki reveals her plans to be a seiyuu (voice actress). Mashiro proposes to her that they should both marry when Azuki becomes a voice actress for the anime adaptation of their manga. The two then start creating their manga, under the pen name Muto Ashirogi, in hopes of getting serialized in Weekly Shounen Jump.

A high-school girl named Makoto acquires the power to travel back in time, and decides to use it for her own personal benefits. Little does she know that she is affecting the lives of others just as much as she is her own.

A luxury hotel extorted by yakusa assigns an ordinary accountant to handle the situation. The chaotic results cause the hotel to rethink its plan.

Kaguya is a beautiful young woman coveted by five nobles. To try to avoid marrying a stranger she doesn't love, she sends her suitors on seemingly impossible tasks. But she will have to face her fate and punishment for her choices.

Nagisa is transgender. She grew up in Hiroshima as a man, but now lives in Shinjuku, Tokyo as a woman. Due to an incident, she begins to live with middle school student Ichika, who is a distant relative. Ichika has been neglected by her mother Saori. From living in solitude by herself, to now living with Ichika, Nagisa develops maternal instincts for the first time.

Twenty-year-old Matsuri Takabayashi learns that she only has ten years to live due to an incurable disease. She decides to not dwell on her life and not to fall in love, but she meets Kazuto Manabe at a school reunion.