Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema

The third film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series is Woman in the Dunes, a film about an entomologist on a casual field trip that finds himself lured into a nightmarish existence—trapped in a sand dune with a mysterious woman and forced into a Sisyphean task of survival. What begins as a bizarre circumstance becomes a harrowing philosophical inquiry into time, identity, and the illusion of freedom. Based on the novel by Kōbō Abe, and brought to life by Hiroshi Teshigahara’s stark, surreal direction and Torū Takemitsu’s haunting score, Woman in the Dunes is a landmark of Japan’s 1960s avant-garde cinema. Nominated for two Academy Awards and winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, it’s both a psychological thriller and a profound existential riddle. Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century! All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles!

Closing out the July portion of our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series is Onibaba, a visceral, hypnotic tale set in Japan’s medieval past, where two women—an older mother and her young daughter-in-law—live in isolation, killing lost samurai and trading their armor for food. But when a mysterious mask enters their world, desire, jealousy, and supernatural terror take root. Shot in striking black and white, Shindo’s film blurs the lines between eroticism and horror, realism and folklore. Tall reeds sway ominously, the wind howls, and the mask—once worn to intimidate—becomes a symbol of inner torment and karmic consequence. It’s one of the most iconic and unsettling films of Japanese cinema. Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century! All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles!

Kicking off the August portion of our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series is Kwaidan, director Masaki Kobayashi's fascinating meditation on memory, regret, and the delicate boundary between the living and the dead. Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup. Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century! All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles!

Equal parts Spaghetti Western, French New Wave, and hard-boiled noir,  A Colt Is My Passport is the next film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series. It's a lean, moody crime film that oozes cool. Joe Shishido (with his famously surgically enhanced cheeks) stars as a stoic gun-for-hire navigating a botched assassination, double-crosses, and a bloody standoff at the edge of town. With stark black-and-white cinematography, stylized action, and a jazzy score, the film plays like a fusion of Jean-Pierre Melville and Sergio Leone, all filtered through the lens of late-’60s Japanese cynicism. It represents the turn in Japanese cinema from introspective postwar realism to a new wave of genre experimentation and rebellion. Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century! All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles!

Based on the real-life story of serial murderer Akira Nishiguchi, Vengeance Is Mine is the next film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series! The story follows Iwao Enokizu, a charming drifter and remorseless killer who leaves a trail of death and deception across Japan. But this is not a crime thriller—it’s a forensic excavation of a man’s broken psyche and a nation’s suppressed demons. Director Shohei Imamura—known for his fascination with society’s underbelly—eschews sensationalism for something more disturbing: a portrait of evil not as anomaly, but as a product of postwar dislocation, generational trauma, and cultural repression. This is Japan far removed from the poetics of Ozu or the mythic ghosts of Kobayashi. Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century! All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles!

Closing our the August portion of our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series is Demon Pond! The story follows a Tokyo academic that stumbles into a remote village with a strange obsession: the locals ring a bell daily to prevent a mythical dragon from rising from the nearby pond and flooding the region. What begins as eccentricity becomes uncanny, as the boundaries between folklore and madness begin to blur. Adapted from Kyōka Izumi’s 1913 play and reimagined with a theatrical, dreamlike visual language by New Wave master Masahiro Shinoda, this is a ghost story told in the language of myth and ritual. Part parable, part fever dream, Demon Pond is less about monsters and more about what it means to believe—and what it costs to stop. Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century! All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles!

Tampopo is like no other film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema—or in movie history, really. This deliriously inventive comedy follows a widowed ramen shop owner who, with the help of a mysterious trucker (a stoic parody of Clint Eastwood), sets out to create the perfect bowl of noodles. Along the way, we meet an ensemble of eccentric characters whose lives revolve—sometimes absurdly, sometimes erotically—around food. Billed as the first “ramen western,” Tampopo is both a genre spoof and a soulful tribute to Japanese cuisine and community. It’s a movie about perfection, pleasure, and the strange, spiritual rituals we attach to what we eat. Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century! All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles!

The next film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series is Kiyoshi Kurosawa's heart-pounding thriller Cure. A detective investigates a string of grisly murders—each victim killed in the same ritualistic manner, each murderer caught at the scene, unable to explain why they did it. The only connection? A mysterious drifter who seems to erase people’s memories—and unlock something buried deep inside them. With icy precision and a creeping sense of dread, Cure is not just a murder mystery—it’s a meditation on identity and unraveling. Shot in long, haunting takes and drained colors, the film moves like a fog over post-economic-boom Japan: quiet and uncertain. Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century! All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles!

The penultimate film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series is Isao Takahata's Grave Of The Fireflies! In the final days of World War II, two siblings—teenaged Seita and his little sister Setsuko—struggle to survive in firebombed Kobe after losing their home, their parents, and eventually, their place in a society that has collapsed around them. What follows is not just a war story, but a story of love, resilience, and unbearable loss. Rendered with breathtaking beauty by the legendary animators at Studio Ghibli, Grave of the Fireflies is often called one of the greatest animated films ever made. It is also one of the most emotionally shattering anti-war films of any kind—haunting not because of spectacle, but because of its heartbreaking truth. Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century! All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles!

The final film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series is Hirokazu Kore-eda's 1998 masterwork After Life! In After Life, the recently deceased arrive at a waystation between this world and the next. Their task? To choose a single memory from their lives to take with them into eternity. A small team of counselors helps each soul re-create that memory on film, allowing them to move on—leaving everything else behind. With a mix of actors and real interviews, After Life blurs the line between fiction and documentary, imagination and memory. The result is a quietly transcendent film that contemplates the meaning of life not through grand events, but through small, deeply human moments. Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century! All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles!