5 Best Movies to Watch by Sakura Andô

The title of this 2018 Palme D'or winner is not to be taken metaphorically: Shoplifters is about a marginalized family of day workers, crooks, and small-time outlaws, who live on the fringes of Japanese society. Osamu (Lily Franky) and Nobuyo (Sakura Andô) both have jobs but spruce up their low-wage income by committing petty crimes. One day in winter, Osamu takes in a bruised girl he finds outside in the cold and introduces her to the family in his ramshackle house. But when the second-youngest member of the family, Shota (Kairi Jyo), finds himself teaching her how to shoplift, he faces a moral dilemma that threatens to unravel the family's fabric. If you were hitherto unfamiliar with the unique storytelling and social realism of Hirokazu Koreeda, we really recommend checking it out—as well as his other movies, namely, Still Walking, Like Father, Like Son, I Wish, and After the Storm. His 2018 outing features the last ever performance of Kirin Kiki, who plays the elderly matriarch and passed away that same year. Like many of Koreeda's works, Shoplifters is an understated, beautiful, and mysterious study of the effects of poverty and trauma and a delicate portrait of a family in Japan's urban underbelly.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Family, Thriller

Actor: Aju Makita, Akira Emoto, Chizuru Ikewaki, Hajime Inoue, Haruna Hori, Jyo Kairi, Kairi Jo, Kairi Jyo, Kengo Kora, Kirin Kiki, Lily Franky, Mayu Matsuoka, Miyu Sasaki, Moemi Katayama, Nana Mizoguchi, Naoto Ogata, Sakura Andô, Sosuke Ikematsu, Yoko Moriguchi, Yuki Yamada, 山田裕貴, 松冈茉优, 蒔田 彩珠

Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda, Hirokazu Koreeda

Rating: R

The film starts with an atmosphere of almost peaceful defeat. We see a rather stealthy Godzilla, but it doesn’t last long until we’re back to regular programming with the metal-chewing monster. Time spent without Godzilla is spent on people trying to be heroes, armed with admirable optimism. The many scenes of wreckage turn this into a very human story about shared trauma. Godzilla vs other kaiju is usually an easy sell, but Godzilla vs people is a hard story to root for, just because of how unbalanced it gets. But the film finds a way to make it work—the final battle is epic, packed with a lot of heart and preparation.

Genre: Action, Horror, Science Fiction

Actor: Akio Nakadai, Eisuke Sasai, Etsuji Harada, Gohshuu, Hidemasa Mase, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Hirotaka Akatsuma, Hiroyuki Toritani, Ippei Sasaki, Keisuke Fujita, Kenji Anan, Kenji Mizuhashi, Kentaro Furuyama, Kisuke Iida, Kiyomi Aratani, Kota Kawabata, Kunihiro Suda, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Mami Tokuda, Masataka Matsubara, Michael Arias, Miki Mirai, Minami Hamabe, Mio Tanaka, Munetaka Aoki, Ozuno Nakamura, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Saki Nakatani, Sakura Andô, Saori, Seiji Okuda, Sentarou Kusakabe, Shinsuke Kasai, Sho Nishigaki, Shohei Abe, Shoji Omiya, Shota Taniguchi, Takato Yonemoto, Takumi Matsui, Tetsu Hirahara, Tetsunori Akira, Touta Tawaragi, Yosuke Minokawa, Yuji Komatsu, Yuki Takao, Yuki Yamada, Yukio Tsukamoto, Yuya Endo

Director: Takashi Yamazaki

Rating: PG-13

Remember Bing Bong from Inside Out? This time, there’s a whole world of imaginary friends that don't fade into the recesses of a child’s mind– instead, they transfer to another place, ready to take on the imaginations of children around the world. That’s the basic premise of The Imaginary. Of course, Studio Ponoc’s third film has been at least partially inspired by Studio Ghibli, with some of its staff having their start there, and with the film’s dreamlike portals and strange cats, but the film takes a more straightforward approach to its story and analogies. As Rudger fights against Mr. Bunting, the film examines, well, imagination, but in all its forms– fodder for corporations to feed on, propaganda to calm the masses, but also as the innately human response to grief, as a mature solution to life’s troubles. The Imaginary may not be a stand-out, but we can’t help but applaud Studio Ponoc’s sincerity in celebrating human creativity.

Genre: Adventure, Animation, Drama, Family, Fantasy

Actor: Akira Terao, Atsuko Takahata, Hana Sugisaki, Ikue Otani, Issey Ogata, Kokoro Hirasawa, Kokoro Terada, Mitsuaki Kanuka, Riisa Naka, Rio Suzuki, Sakura Andô, Takayuki Yamada

Director: Yoshiyuki Momose

Rating: PG