Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda has risen to prominence in recent years, especially with the release of his movie Shoplifters. The director began working in the 1990s, pursuing a career that began with a childhood fascination with the movies and how they made him feel. He began with documentaries after graduating from a college in Japan, but then decided to pivot and become a director. He would create some of the biggest movies in Japan that were not anime, a testament to the power of his vision and storytelling.
Kore-eda’s career and global success have marked him as one of the most distinguished directors to come out of Japan in recent years. Almost all of his movies are in the Japanese language and feature uniquely Japanese families, contexts, and situations, making them subtle indicators of the state of society at that moment. In 2022, his movie Broker, which is in Korean and stars Song Kang-ho, made waves at film festivals. These are his best movies, ranked.
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8 Air Doll
Asmik Ace Entertainment
Air Doll is adapted from a Japanese Manga and stars Korean actress Bae Doona in the leading role. She portrays a blow-up sex doll that manages to gain a human consciousness somehow. In the process of quote-unquote becoming more human, she falls in love with an employee at a video store. As she decides to pursue a romance with the game store’s employee, her owner finds out that she is not exactly a doll anymore, leading to some complications.
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7 Our Little Sister
Fuji Television Network
6 Still Walking
Bandai Visual Company
In Still Walking, a grieving family reunites to celebrate the life and death of the eldest son. 12 years before the movie’s events, he drowned in an attempt to save the life of another boy in the water. Although an extensive amount of time has passed, leaving the family in different situations than when he died, some regrets and haunts remain with them. Still Walking tries to navigate that territory delicately and with care.
5 After Life
Engine Film
Released in 1998, After Life was Kore-eda’s most popular work to date at that time, leading him to international acclaim. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was distributed all over the world. In the movie, a purgatory exists where social workers greet the newly deceased, asking them to identify their happiest memory to take to the afterlife. As one specific individual comes to the station between life and death, one of the workers realizes he has a connection to him.
4 Like Father, Like Son
Like Father, Like Son won the Jury Prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival due to its moving story and performances. An overworked but successful father neglects his family due to his work, but finds out upon returning home one day that his son is not his son. He was switched at birth with another boy, and the couple must now decide if they want to keep the boy they raised as their son. When they decide to exchange the children, everything they knew and loved begins to fall apart.
3 Broker
CJ E&M
Released in 2022, Broker is Kore-eda’s attempt to make a movie in South Korea with Korean actors. Song Kang-ho, Gang Dong-won, and Bae Doona lead an all-star cast in a moving tale about an ongoing issue in Korean society. As babies are dropped off at church doorsteps by single mothers, two men decide to make a business off of selling these babies on the black market. Things don’t go as planned when one of the mothers comes back looking for her baby, causing her to join them on the journey to find her child a new set of parents.
2 After the Storm
Fuji Television
In After the Storm, a former novelist gambles away all of his money, leading to a sticky situation where he cannot even afford child support anymore. He is at odds with his mother and sister, whom he suspects are funneling money between them and not giving him any, and he wishes to get back together with his ex-wife. She does not want to do so, though, and amid a typhoon, he tries to piece back his life together before it is too late.
1 Shoplifters
GAGA Pictures
At the core of many of Kore-eda’s best films are family stories, and Shoplifters does just that. It took home the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival (via The Guardian), and went on to receive worldwide acclaim for its subject matter and content. A family resorts to shoplifting to make ends meet, as they live a life full of poverty in Japan. When they find out a young girl in the neighborhood is being abused, they kindly bring her into their household and teach her the tricks of the trade. Moving and deeply important in today’s world, Shoplifters is a movie all must eventually watch.
