Japanese cinema has produced some of the most influential filmmakers and distinctive movies in the history of the medium. From Yasujirō Ozu's intimate family dramas and Akira Kurosawa's groundbreaking thrillers to the psychological horror of Kiyoshi Kurosawa and the boundary-pushing animation of Hideaki Anno, Japanese filmmakers have repeatedly found new ways to use movies to explore human nature.
Japanese cinema has produced countless incredible movies, so narrowing the country's film history to the top 10 movies is an incredibly tall task. But the very best of the bunch are able to do something exceptional with their genre, demonstrating exceptional filmmaking craft, leaving a lasting impact on the international industry, and continuing to reward audiences long after the credits roll.
Nobuhiro Yamashita's Linda Linda Linda might seem like a strange inclusion in a list of Japan's best films; it's a low-key coming-of-age drama that follows a group of teenage girls, who form a band shortly before their school's cultural festival. Desperate to perform, they recruit a Korean exchange student who barely speaks Japanese, and through sleepy late-night rehearsals and awkward language barriers, the girls race against time to prepare. Instead of turning that premise into a conventional high school drama, Yamashita spends far more time on the quiet moments of adolescence: the strange intensity of school friendships, awkward conversations, and difficult-to-articulate dynamics.
Yamashita deliberately removed much of the melodrama of typical high-school coming-of-age movies, including love triangles and dramatic conflicts. The result is a warm, funny, and remarkably natural watch where the band's chaotic preparation is a portrait of teenage friendship more than a conventional underdog story. Linda Linda Linda received praise for its deadpan comedy and ability to make the incoherent nature of adolescence feel so universal, while Bae Doona's performance as the hesitant Korean singer gives the movie much of its charm. It's no wonder Linda Linda Linda lives on as a cult classic.
When an elderly former policeman is found brutally murdered in a Tokyo train yard, two detectives launch a nationwide investigation, but they only have a mysterious name and a regional accent as their clues. Their relentless pursuit throughout The Castle of Sand takes them all over Japan as they gradually construct the victim's identity and work to find out why someone wanted him dead. It's extraordinary because the central mystery slowly transforms into something far more tragic, especially considering that for much of its runtime, the investigation seems to only consist of dead-ends.
The Castle of Sand is simply one of the most meticulously plotted detective movies out there. It cuts off the fat of drama that makes police procedurals so formulaic, and the eventual solution doesn't simply answer the question of who committed the murder. But the real differentiator is that the mystery becomes a story about identity, social prejudices, family, and the lasting impacts of trauma.
Few Japanese movies have a premise quite as audacious as The Man Who Stole the Sun. The movie follows Makoto, an uninspired junior high science teacher, who secretly steals plutonium from a nuclear power plant and builds a working atomic bomb in his apartment. Armed with absolute power, he has no grand political ideology; instead, he blackmails the government into playing rock music continuously on the radio and broadcasting baseball games without commercial interruption, sparking a chaotic, high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse with a tenacious detective.
Makoto's uncertainty of what to do with his power is crucial in transforming an otherwise ordinary man into someone who can terrify an entire nation, but the movie repeatedly undermines the fantasy of absolute power. The Man Who Stole the Sun is part thriller, part dark comedy, and part unsettling examination of what happens when someone gains that much influence so quickly.
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