Popular reviews

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  Review by #1 gizmo fan ★★★★½ 3

  "If they love you, this is what they do."

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★★½ 8

  Osamu and his wife Nobuyo can’t afford to have sex anymore. Middle-aged and marginally employed, the Shibata couple is crammed into a ramshackle apartment on the outskirts of Tokyo, along with a pre-teen son named Shota (Jyo Kairi), Nobuyo’s younger sister (Matsuoka Mayu), and the frail grandmother whose monthly pension keeps everything from falling apart. The musty hovel can hardly fit all of the life that’s stuffed inside of it; random boxes and old toys are scattered in every direction, as if everyone would rather live in the mess they’ve made than dare to remember all the things they’ve lost. Even if Osamu and Nobuyo had the time to screw around, there’d be nowhere for them to do it.

  But…

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  Review by Lucy ★★★★½

  AFI 2018: film #8

  “but sometimes it’s better to choose your own family”

  familiar and warm. the last act raises the stakes, but it’s the family dynamic that shines

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  Review by Jacob ★★★★★ 1

  "I don't know anything else to teach them."

  If you have the chance to see this, please do. Its kindness feels even greater on a second viewing. You can say so much about how people live through such a simple story.

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  Review by Karsten ★★★★½ 7

  I just....like....how could you not love this?

  
  BEST SCORE OF THE YEAR

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  Review by Jay D 's Watching ★★★★½ 13

  There's a scene about the midway of the film, where Sakura Ando is casually wearing a shirt with the quote 'Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed' while she talks to her sister in the kitchen-the camera doesn't particularly linger on the shirt or its caption, although the scene lasts long enough to give the viewer a chance to read it, but the more I think about it, the more central it is to the film--as are the dating booth scenes, and the scene where Ando's character compares burn scars with Lin and teaches her how to hug. This is a movie that really unfolds at its own pace--from the opening scenes…

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  Review by Hungkat ★★★★½ 9

  Shoplifters is like a single lonely cloud that blemishes the sky's bliss-blue complexion. Then dark clouds come to swallow all light in its path, like saddened eyes shedding heavy tears across the sky. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter filled with laughter as an effervescent river of life flows within a cramped, dilapidated apartment on the outskirts of Tokyo. In that little confined space, there is no pain for the outsiders but cheerful intimacy. They are strangers who do not share the same blood but are connected by their throbbing hearts. Kore-eda’s slice of life offers a tender insight into human values & bonding as it is able to bring a burning sensation to your eyes. Its quietest moments can fill up the…

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  Review by karen h. ★★★★★ 3

  i have never cried so much in my life

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  Review by Jim Cummings ★★★★★ 3

  It's so well-performed and filmed.
  It really has every little bit of life in it.
  Great set-up, great pay-off.
  It all becomes a bit sad and degrading in the end, but so does life.

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  Review by Hungkat ★★★★½ 4

  At first, it seems like humanity has been restored as we get covered under the warm blanket, during winter days, by some strangers who live near the side road. Then Kore-eda appears to deftly take every piece of us apart. He nimbly arranges and turns our hearts into punching bags before stealthily removing them from our chests forever. How do you survive through the second round, witnessing that long uninterrupted take again with Sakura Ando holding back and weeping for the children she tried to raise? Impossible.

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  Review by Wes ★★★★½ 3

  "If they really loved you, this is what they'd do..."

  *amy dunne voice* for valentines day i thought id get my heart ripped out

  so rare i get to see a film about found families that are genuinely built on the tiniest moments that solidify such a bond. effortlessly portrays how quickly the warm and the alarming moments of life intertwine. the Ozu comparisons are obviously there but this is a story you can feel was told deep within the directors bones, an entirely unique experience. if there's any film i can think of that deserves the Before Trilogy treatment of a sequel every 9 years, its this.

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  Review by Matt Singer ★★★★

  When you’re in a family, the easiest thing to steal...
  [David Caruso sunglasses emoticon]
  ...is your heart.