Best Japanese movies50
Films made in Japanese, live action and animated alike.
Ranked by TMDB's audience
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1Movie8.8AnimeAnimationThe Demon Slayer Corps are drawn into the Infinity Castle, where Tanjiro, Nezuko, and the Hashira face terrifying Upper Rank demons in a desperate fight as the final battle against Muzan Kibutsuji begins.
2Movie8.6AnimeAnimationIn a brutal war between devils, hunters, and secret enemies, a mysterious girl named Reze has stepped into Denji's world, and he faces his deadliest battle yet, fueled by love in a world where survival knows no rules.
3Movie8.5AnimeAnimationA young girl, Chihiro, becomes trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free her family.
4Movie8.5AnimeAnimationHigh schoolers Mitsuha and Taki are complete strangers living separate lives. But one night, they suddenly switch places. Mitsuha wakes up in Taki’s body, and he in hers. This bizarre occurrence continues to happen randomly, and the two must adjust their lives around each other.
5Movie8.5ActionDramaDown-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin’s resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.
6Movie8.5ActionDramaA samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.
7Movie8.4AnimeAnimationIn the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive.
8Movie8.4AnimeAnimationShouya Ishida starts bullying the new girl in class, Shouko Nishimiya, because she is deaf. But as the teasing continues, the rest of the class starts to turn on Shouya for his lack of compassion. When they leave elementary school, Shouko and Shouya do not speak to each other again... until an older, wiser Shouya, tormented by his past behaviour, decides he must see Shouko once more. He wants to atone for his sins, but is it already too late...?
9Movie8.4AnimeFantasySophie, a young milliner, is turned into an elderly woman by a witch who enters her shop and curses her. She encounters a wizard named Howl and gets caught up in his resistance to fighting for the king.
10Movie8.4DramaCrimeA Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway.
11Movie8.3AnimeAdventureAshitaka, a prince of the disappearing Emishi people, is cursed by a demonized boar god and must journey to the west to find a cure. Along the way, he encounters San, a young human woman fighting to protect the forest, and Lady Eboshi, who is trying to destroy it. Ashitaka must find a way to bring balance to this conflict.
12Movie8.3DramaKanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.
13Movie8.3AnimeAnimationRising pop star Mima Kirigoe quits singing to pursue a career as an actress. After she takes up a role on a popular detective show, her handlers and collaborators begin turning up murdered. Harboring feelings of guilt and haunted by visions of her former self, Mima's reality and fantasy meld into a frenzied paranoia.
PERFECT BLUE
1998 · 3.4K votes
14Movie8.3AnimeAnimationAs the world moves on from the war and technological advances bring changes to her life, Violet still hopes to see her lost commanding officer again.
15Movie8.3AnimeAnimationSEELE orders an all-out attack on NERV, aiming to destroy the Evas before Gendo can advance his own plans for the Human Instrumentality Project. Shinji is pushed to the limits of his sanity as he is forced to decide the fate of humanity.
16Movie8.3AnimeRomanceOne hot summer day a little girl gets lost in an enchanted forest of the mountain god where spirits reside. A young boy appears before her, but she cannot touch him for fear of making him disappear. And so a wondrous adventure awaits...
17Movie8.3AnimeAnimationWith dreams of diving abroad, Tsuneo gets a job assisting Josee, an artist whose imagination takes her far beyond her wheelchair. But when the tide turns against them, they push each other to places they never thought possible, and inspire a love fit for a storybook.
18Movie8.2AnimeAnimationAfter his classmate and crush is diagnosed with a pancreatic disease, an average high schooler sets out to make the most of her final days.
19Movie8.2AnimeAnimationTanjiro Kamado, joined with Inosuke Hashibira, a boy raised by boars who wears a boar's head, and Zenitsu Agatsuma, a scared boy who reveals his true power when he sleeps, boards the Infinity Train on a new mission with the Fire Hashira, Kyojuro Rengoku, to defeat a demon who has been tormenting the people and killing the demon slayers who oppose it!
20Movie8.2AnimeAnimationIn Fujisawa, Sakuta Azusagawa is in his second year of high school. Blissful days with his girlfriend and upperclassman, Mai Sakurajima, are interrupted by the appearance of his first crush, Shoko Makinohara.
21Movie8.2AnimeAnimationIn the aftermath of the Fourth Impact, stranded without their Evangelions, Shinji, Asuka and Rei find refuge in one of the rare pockets of humanity that still exist on the ruined planet Earth. There, each lives a life far different from their days as an Evangelion pilot. However, the danger to the world is far from over. A new impact is looming on the horizon—one that will prove to be the true end of Evangelion.
22Movie8.2AnimeAnimationAfter her werewolf lover unexpectedly dies in an accident, a woman must find a way to raise the son and daughter that she had with him. However, their inheritance of their father's traits prove to be a challenge for her.
23Movie8.2DramaThrillerA vacationing entomologist suffers extreme physical and psychological trauma after being taken captive by the residents of a poor seaside village and made to live with a woman whose life task is shoveling sand for them.
24Movie8.2AnimeAnimationPopular, outgoing Fujino is celebrated by her classmates for her funny comics in the class newspaper. One day, her teacher asks her to share the space with Kyomoto, a truant recluse whose beautiful artwork sparks a competitive fervor in Fujino. What starts as jealousy transforms when Fujino realizes their shared passion for drawing.
25Movie8.1DramaThe elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.
26Movie8.1AnimeAnimationFleeing the war, the immortal Maquia, graced with eternal youth, finds a baby abandoned in the forest and decides to raise it as her own child, sparking a moving story between a mortal and a being who does not age.
27Movie8.1AnimeAnimationClass 1-A visits Nabu Island where they finally get to do some real hero work. The place is so peaceful that it's more like a vacation... until they're attacked by a villain with an unfathomable Quirk! His power is eerily familiar, and it looks like Shigaraki had a hand in the plan. But with All Might retired and citizens' lives on the line, there's no time for questions. Deku and his friends are the next generation of heroes, and they're the island's only hope.
28Movie8.1AnimeAnimationYuta Okkotsu is a nervous high school student who is suffering from a serious problem—his childhood friend Rika has turned into a curse and won't leave him alone. Since Rika is no ordinary curse, his plight is noticed by Satoru Gojo, a teacher at Jujutsu High, a school where fledgling exorcists learn how to combat curses. Gojo convinces Yuta to enroll, but can he learn enough in time to confront the curse that haunts him?
29Movie8.1AnimeAnimationFound inside a shining stalk of bamboo by an old bamboo cutter and his wife, a tiny girl grows rapidly into an exquisite young lady. The mysterious young princess enthrals all who encounter her. But, ultimately, she must confront her fate.
30Movie8.1DramaThrillerA nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.
31Movie8.1AnimeFantasyTwo sisters move to the country with their father in order to be closer to their hospitalized mother, and discover the surrounding trees are inhabited by Totoros, magical spirits of the forest. When the youngest runs away from home, the older sister seeks help from the spirits to find her.
32Movie8.0CrimeDramaFour people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.
33Movie8.0AnimeAnimationAfter receiving a warning that Yunyun's hometown is in danger, Kazuma's party is relieved to discover it's only a joke...until it isn't. The Demon King's general has just arrived to obtain The Mage Killer, a weapon with world-ending power.
KONOSUBA – God's blessing on this wonderful world! Legend of Crimson
映画 この素晴らしい世界に祝福を!紅伝説
2019 · 642 votes
34Movie8.0ActionDramaShakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons.
35Movie8.0DramaIn a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.
36Movie8.0FantasyDramaIn 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady Wakasa, as well as Tobei's desire to become a samurai, run the risk of destroying both themselves and their wives, Miyagi and Ohama.
37Movie8.0DramaActionIn feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains.
38Movie8.0AnimeAnimationThe summer of his high school freshman year, Hodaka runs away from his remote island home to Tokyo, and quickly finds himself pushed to his financial and personal limits. The weather is unusually gloomy and rainy every day, as if taking its cue from his life. After many days of solitude, he finally finds work as a freelance writer for a mysterious occult magazine. Then, one day, Hodaka meets Hina on a busy street corner. This bright and strong-willed girl possesses a strange and wonderful ability: the power to stop the rain and clear the sky.
39Movie8.0AnimeAdventureA young boy and a girl with a magic crystal must race against pirates and foreign agents in a search for a legendary floating castle.
40Movie8.0AnimeActionEarth is peaceful following the Tournament of Power. Realizing that the universes still hold many more strong people yet to see, Goku spends all his days training to reach even greater heights. Then one day, Goku and Vegeta are faced by a Saiyan called 'Broly' who they've never seen before. The Saiyans were supposed to have been almost completely wiped out in the destruction of Planet Vegeta, so what's this one doing on Earth? This encounter between the three Saiyans who have followed completely different destinies turns into a stupendous battle, with even Frieza (back from Hell) getting caught up in the mix.
41Movie7.9AnimeAnimationShizuku lives a simple life, dominated by her love for stories and writing. One day she notices that all the library books she has have been previously checked out by the same person: "Seiji Amasawa."
42Movie7.9AnimeAdventureAfter a global war, the seaside kingdom known as the Valley of the Wind remains one of the last strongholds on Earth untouched by a poisonous jungle and the powerful insects that guard it. Led by the courageous Princess Nausicaä, the people of the Valley engage in an epic struggle to restore the bond between humanity and Earth.
43Movie7.9AnimeAnimationA secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath that only two teenagers and a group of psychics can stop.
AKIRA
1988 · 5K votes
44Movie7.9MysteryThrillerAfter an outburst at school involving her son, a concerned single mother demands answers, triggering a sequence of deepening suspicion and turmoil.
45Movie7.9AnimeActionIn the year 2029, the barriers of our world have been broken down by the net and by cybernetics, but this brings new vulnerability to humans in the form of brain-hacking. When a highly-wanted hacker known as 'The Puppetmaster' begins involving them in politics, Section 9, a group of cybernetically enhanced cops, are called in to investigate and stop the Puppetmaster.
46Movie7.9DramaActionIn this companion piece and sequel to "Yojimbo," jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a proper samurai on its ear.
47Movie7.9AnimeAnimationJapan, 1943, during World War II. Young Suzu leaves her village near Hiroshima to marry and live with her in-laws in Kure, a military harbor. Her creativity to overcome deprivation quickly makes her indispensable at home. Inhabited by an ancestral wisdom, Suzu impregnates the simple gestures of everyday life with poetry and beauty. The many hardships, the loss of loved ones, the frequent air raids of the enemy, nothing alters her enthusiasm…
48Movie7.9AnimeAnimationOn Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo discover a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents.
49Movie7.9DramaHistoryReturning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.
50Movie7.9AnimeAnimationUpon being sent to live with relatives in the countryside due to an illness, an emotionally distant adolescent girl becomes obsessed with an abandoned mansion and infatuated with a girl who lives there - a girl who may or may not be real.