A young boy climbs up a tree and into a waiting cloud, which takes him on a whirling adventure in the sky.

Translated by Dianne Ooka.

"If you could choose only one memory to hold on to for eternity, what would it be? That's the question at the heart of Hirokazu Kore-eda's revelatory international breakthrough, a bittersweet fantasia in which the recently deceased find themselves in a limbo where they must select a single cherished moment from their life to be recreated on film for them to take into the next world. After Life's high-concept premise is grounded in Kore-eda's documentary-like...

It follows Osamu Tomita, Japan's reigning king of ramen, as he reveals every single step of his obsessive approach to creating the perfect bowl of noodles. He is relentless in his search for the highest-quality ingredients, as are his competitors. This delicious documentary also profiles five other notable ramen shops, each with its own philosophy and flavor, which exemplify different aspects of the ramen world.

Osaka elegy: Telephone company employee Ayako agrees to enter into an affair with her married boss, after he promises to support her and her father but setting her off on an apparently irreversible downward spiral. Sisters of the Gion: Two geisha sisters - one modern-minded, the other staunchly traditional - disagree over how to deal with the men controlling their lives and livelihoods. An early work by Kenji Mizoguchi featuring his favored theme...

Depressed and in debt following the death of his wife, Santoshi tells his young daughter he has found a way out. Pointing to the reward note, he vows to find the infamous serial killer "No Name" claiming he saw the man in the flesh a few days earlier. Kaeda cannot believe her aloof, goofy father. But when he goes missing without a trace, she starts fearing the worst and begins looking for him.

In the late feudal era of Japan, a young ninja is operating undercover in the court of an aging lord during a peaceful era of Japan that is on the brink of change. After the lord challenges his lazy samurais to a punishing marathon to toughen them up, the ninja finds his loyalties put to the test. Facing impossible odds, this unusual band of characters is running a race to win or die.

A perfect song that hits at just the right moment, the play of sunlight through leaves, a fleeting moment of human connection in a vast metropolis: the wonders of everyday life come into breathtaking focus in this profoundly moving film by Wim Wenders. In a radiant, Cannes-award-winning performance of few words but extraordinary expressiveness, Koji Yakusho plays a public-toilet cleaner in Tokyo whose rich inner world is gradually revealed through...

After a long and unsuccessful struggle to get pregnant, Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a child. Over the next six years, the middle-class couple and their young son Asato settle into a comfortable, albeit routine, life. The family's orderly existence is shattered by the arrival of Hikari, a young woman claiming to be Asato's biological mother, demanding his return. As tensions mount, Satoko grows more and more emboldened to defend her family....