[The following review contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera has been adapted to other media...

Under certain circumstances, even the most familiar of spaces can seem utterly terrifying. When you’re trapped in your own home for weeks...

Like The Shape of Water and First Reformed, Broker is a cinematic Rosetta Stone, clarifying the central themes that pervade Hirokazu...

[The following review contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Based solely on the list of Hideo Gosha titles available on the Criterion...

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] In the opening scene of Shunji Iwai’s April Story, a college-bound...

The protagonist of Shunji Iwai’s All About Lily Chou-Chou frequently claims that the eponymous (fictional) musician draws inspiration...

As I watched Japan Society’s recent screening of Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?, I gradually realized that I...

Plan 75 expands one of Ten Years Japan’s short segments—itself a modernized (albeit extremely loose) adaptation of The Ballad of...

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] An early scene in No Longer Human—a biopic revolving around the...

Today, following an interminably long absence (thanks in large part to the cancellation of this year’s Japan Cuts, which absolutely...

The story of Toho’s Frankenstein vs. Baragon begins towards the tail end of World War II. With the fall of the Third Reich on the...

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] In addition to being a dedicated police officer, the protagonist of...

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] From the operatic, post-apocalyptic thrills of the Mad Max series...

From Lu Over the Wall to Ride Your Wave, animator Masaaki Yuasa’s films have always involved songs to some extent, but Inu-Oh is the...

Belle is Mamoru Hosoda’s most artistically accomplished work to date. As a longtime fan of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer...

I’m a skeptic by nature. When the blandly attractive heroes and heroines in romcoms talk about “love at first sight” and “true love,” I...

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Two swordsmen stare each other down. Wind howls through the empty...

Masayuki Suo’s Talking the Pictures ends with a quote attributed to director Hiroshi Inagaki: Movies were once silent. But in Japan, they...

[The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] The plot of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car revolves around a...

Recently, I purchased a ticket for Japan Society’s upcoming screening of Tange Sazen and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo, one of only three...