Paula Tobias, a Holocaust survivor who has suffered the ultimate personal tragedy of losing her spouse and children during the Nazi occupation of World War II. Now re-married and living in America during the late 1960's with husband David, they build a new life together with sons Ben and Jake. One evening, Paula receives a phone call which assures her that her son, Alec, is actually alive and in New York. This brings up painful memories from the past for everyone involved, including Ben and Jake, who force their father to talk about the Holocaust. Paula rushes to New York only to find that it was a mistake - Alec was never found. She falls into a dramatic depression, as the family confronts their fears and tries to stay together.
Toma lives in a small riverside town with his brutish father and his father's girlfriend. Witnessing his father's predilections for abuse, Toma becomes anxious that he will have inherited those urges.
In the 1930s, middle-aged museum curator Tauno Saarinen yearns for a young beautiful maid and writes a lengthy confession about his feelings which he gives his wife Elisabet to read. Elisabet shows the writings to her husband's sister Naimi, an art critic who tries to reconcile with her ex-husband despite a spiteful mother-in-law. Meanwhile, things gets worse between Tauno and Elisabet when the young maid, seduced by Tauno, becomes pregnant. Based on a novel by Helvi Hämäläinen, first published in 1941 but partly censored until 1995 because allegedly based on true incidents involving well-known people.
Kazu works at "Funiculi Funicula" cafe. There is a mysterious rumour that if a customer takes a specific seat at the cafe, that customer can travel back to a time of their choice.
Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, "Rashomon" is perhaps the finest film ever to investigate the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of camera and flashbacks, Kurosawa reveals the complexities of human nature as four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.
Kenji and Aya spend their summer days in a Hotel. While she is doing her own thing, he tries to work on his novel. But then a few strange hotel guest arouse the curiosity of the couple...
In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.
While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins an affair with a neighbor who survived the war, Hachi. The mother disapproves and, when she can't steal Hachi for herself, tries to scare her daughter-in-law with a mysterious mask from a dead samurai.
A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.
Returning 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.
Kanji 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.
Set in the year 2020, Shiori Genbo runs the large corporation Funtom. Shiori is also a descendant of prestigious noble family Phantomhive of England. As a descendant of the noble family Phantomhive, Shiori solves difficult cases which are ordered by the queen. In order to take revenge, Shiori makes a deal with Butler Sebastian. Their deal involves Butler Sebastian protecting Shiori until her revenge is fulfilled and then Sebastian will consume her spirit.
A mother raises her six children and one by one lets them go out into the world. Their failures and successes fill her life, but she grows lonely without them. Then when one of the children has a surprise to announce, they all return home to be with their mother.
A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.
A married couple is terrorized by a series of videotapes planted on their front porch.
A fading southern belle moves in with her sister in New Orleans where her ferocious brother-in-law takes stabs at her sanity.
A family loaded with quirky, colorful characters piles into an old van and road trips to California for little Olive to compete in a beauty pageant.
In 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.
A family living on a farm finds mysterious crop circles in their fields which suggests something more frightening to come.
Humiliated and down on his luck, a superintendent turns his life around when he decides to write a book.