Movies by Tanie Kitabayashi

My Neighbor Totoro

My Neighbor Totoro

Two sisters move to the country with their father in order to be closer to their hospitalized mother, and discover the surrounding trees are inhabited by Totoros, magical spirits of the forest. When the youngest runs away from home, the older sister seeks help from the spirits to find her.

Odd Obsession

Odd Obsession

A middle-aged husband of a younger woman finds her youth intimidating to the point that he cannot become aroused. His solution involves the introduction of his daughter's lover to his wife.

Letter from the Mountain

Letter from the Mountain

Husband and wife Michiko and Takao move from their urban existence in Tokyo to the isolated, rural farming village where Takao grew up.

Writhing Tongue

Writhing Tongue

Masako, a five-year-old girl living, gets a scratch on her finger. After that, she suffered horrible spasms. The doctor checks on her and arrives at the conclusion that she has tetanus. Her parents have to bear the sufferings of their child. The once peaceful family has changed completely.

Love: Starting on a Journey

Love: Starting on a Journey

A girl suffering from an incurable disease get in a coma, while her boyfriend visit her to the hospital, she visits the beyond.

The Shadow of Fear

The Shadow of Fear

In the backstreets of Ginza, the boss of a hairdressing salon is found dead, killed by strangulation. The detective on the case soon hears rumors about the murder.

The Sun's Burial

The Sun's Burial

In Osaka's slum, youths without futures engage in pilfering, assault and robbery, prostitution, and the buying and selling of identity cards and of blood. Alliances constantly shift. Tatsu and Takeshi, friends since boyhood, reluctantly join Shin's gang. Shin's an upstart and moves his gang often to avoid the local kingpin. Hanoko is a young woman with ambitions: first she's in the blood business with her father, then she joins forces with Shin. She soon breaks off that partnership, even though she's taken the sensitive Takeshi under her win...

The Human Bullet

The Human Bullet

A soldier has been in the Japanese military for the entirety of WWII, and in that time, his dedication to the army has never faltered. However, as the war draws to a close, his commanding officers become increasingly desperate and push their men to ever more absurd extremes. The ridiculousness of the orders from above peak when the hero of the story is assigned to drive a one-man submarine straight into the hull of an enemy battleship.

Rainbow Kids

Rainbow Kids

A wealthy matriarch is kidnapped by a gang of three. She is insulted by the amount of money they propose to demand as ransom, and a strange interchange of roles takes place.

Kobayashi Takiji

Kobayashi Takiji

A tribute to proletarian author Takiji Kobayashi (1903-1933)

Journey to the North

Journey to the North

Winter holidays at the university. Eikichi visits a city in the north of the country, the hometown of Yuko, a classmate for whom he has feelings. However, Yuko, having returned home, has just become engaged to a local young man, and the sudden appearance of Eikichi makes others worry that their good relationship will be spoiled. An epic about pure love, which tells the story of a man who leaves his beloved woman, praying for her happiness. Adapted from the novel "Kiri no Naka no Shojo" Yojiro Ishizaka.

Patience Has An End

Patience Has An End

Young coal miner Takeda leaves Kyushu in search of a better job in Tokyo, only to fall into the lucrative yet dangerous life of a yakuza.

Our Town

Our Town

In 1906, after finishing a tough migrant job in the Philippines, Takichi has returned to Japan. He starts to work as a rickshaw driver, but his lover had died of an illness, leaving a baby girl, Hatsue. Hatsue grows up beautifully and falls in love with Shintaro. But Takichi objects to their relationship...

A Lonely Woman in a Lonely Land

A Lonely Woman in a Lonely Land

Onna Hitori Daichi wo Yuku (A Lonely Woman in a Lonely Land, Kinuta Production, 1953) was the second feature film directed by Kamei Fumio, who is known as a master of documentary films, and followed his “Haha Nareba Onna Nareba(Become a Mother, Become a Woman)” (1952).

Thousand Cranes

Thousand Cranes

The entangled relations between the son of a seductive tea-ceremony teacher and the women in his father's life. Based on the novel by Kawabata Yasunari.

限りなき情熱

限りなき情熱

Is it the sin of a woman's heart that casts ripples unexpectedly among peaceful people? In the bustling streets of dazzling colors, where revelry abounds, a tale of love and chivalry blossoms into a beautiful flower of emotion.

Dolls floating down the river

Dolls floating down the river

A touching story of pure love and tears between a boy and a girl, drawn by the innocent duo of Chieko Baisho and Shinichiro Mikami, based on "Nagashi bina", which absorbed the customs of the Tottori region.

Marriageable Age

Marriageable Age

Yoshimura's 48th film is the contemporary story of a well-to-do family showing the frailties and failings of the class, the egotism, and the complete lack of consideration under polite and superficially perfect manners.

Blood and Sea

Blood and Sea

The Nami family lives in a quiet fishing village at the tip of the Shima Peninsula overlooking Ago Bay. The family of four consists of her grandmother, Tom, who is in her sixties, her mother, Kura, and older sister, Saki, all women. Toma, despite her advanced age, is still the best diver in the village, Nami has grown up to be an excellent diver too. However, her older sister Saki was born with a mental disorder and no one in the village wants to do business with her. Nami, on the other hand, is very popular among the boys of the village, sh...