Dolls soon becomes overloaded with symbolism, and consequently suffocates the audience.
Dolls(ドールズ)
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Japan · 2002
1h 54m
Director Takeshi Kitano
Starring Miho Kanno, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tatsuya Mihashi, Chieko Matsubara
Genre Drama, Romance
Add to Watchlist
Please login to add films to your watchlist.
An exploration of three love stories, bound together by their mutual heartache, tragedies, and vices. At the forefront is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, two lovers engaged to be married broken apart by Matsumoto's parents. But it soon becomes evident that they cannot be kept apart after Sawako has a breakdown and ends up in a psychiatric hospital.
We hate to say it, but we can't find anywhere to view this film.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Los Angeles Times by Carina Chocano
The movie's pace is appropriate to its mood, which is crisp, melancholy and gently cruel.
Despite an excessively meandering final act, the drama's three intertwined stories have a cumulative impact, their affecting sadness matched by meticulously composed visual poetry.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
As an exception to the norm, Kitano doesn't appear this time, confining himself merely to writing, directing, and editing.
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
Whether this measured exercise in romantic melancholy moves you to tears or bores you to them is probably a matter of personal susceptibility to the sting of bitter regret for love lost.
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
Dolls risks the bank on symbology as gaudy as teen anime and as heavy as a stone temple.
New York Daily News by Robert Dominguez
Rife with beautiful imagery and loads of symbolism, though none of the stories is particularly compelling on its own.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
With some staggeringly beautiful photography of cherry blossoms and scarlet autumn leaves, Dolls is so enthralled with its own cinematography that it can't bear to edit itself, and during the autumn and winter segments of the bound beggars' journey, it almost reaches a standstill.
Lush and poetic, Dolls proves once again that Kitano is one of the world's most original filmmakers.
Users who liked this film also liked
Zatoichi
(座頭市)
His sword made him a hero...his courage made him a legend.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 2003
- Director Takeshi Kitano
- Cast Takeshi Kitano, Tadanobu Asano, Michiyo Ookusu, Gadarukanaru Taka, Daigorō Tachibana, Yûko Daike
- Genre Adventure, Drama, Action
- Available on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, YouTube, Pluto TV
The Element of Crime
(Forbrydelsens Element)
A detective resorts to the controversial techniques of his disgraced former mentor in order to catch a serial killer.
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Denmark • 1984
- Director Lars von Trier
- Cast Michael Elphick, Esmond Knight, Me Me Lai, Jerold Wells, Ahmed El Shenawi, Janos Hersko
- Genre Crime, Drama, Science Fiction
- Available on MUBI, MUBI Amazon Channel
Shall We Dance?
(Shall We ダンス?)
- ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1996
- Director Masayuki Suo
- Cast Kōji Yakusho, Tamiyo Kusakari, Naoto Takenaka, Eri Watanabe, Akira Emoto, Yuu Tokui
- Genre Music, Comedy, Drama, Romance
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Achilles and the Tortoise
(アキレスと亀)
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 2008
- Director Takeshi Kitano
- Cast Takeshi Kitano, Kanako Higuchi, Yurei Yanagi, Kumiko Aso, Akira Nakao, Mariko Tsutsui
- Genre Comedy, Drama
- Available on No streaming locations found.
The Twilight Samurai
(たそがれ清兵衛)
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 2002
- Director Yoji Yamada
- Cast Hiroyuki Sanada, Rie Miyazawa, Nenji Kobayashi, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Kanako Fukaura, Hiroshi Kanbe
- Genre Drama, Romance, History
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Katyn
(Katyń)
A historical drama on the 1940 Katyn massacre, a mass execution of Polish POWs by Soviet authorities.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Poland • 2007
- Director Andrzej Wajda
- Cast Andrzej Chyra, Maja Ostaszewska, Artur Żmijewski, Danuta Stenka, Jan Englert, Magdalena Cielecka
- Genre Drama, History, War
- Available on Amazon Video
Suddenly, Last Summer
A mentally disturbed girl trying to recall the truth behind her cousin's mysterious death last summer.
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- United Kingdom, United States • 1959
- Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz
- Cast Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, Albert Dekker, Mercedes McCambridge, Gary Raymond
- Genre Drama, Mystery, Thriller
- Available on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, YouTube
The Cremator
(Spalovač mrtvol)
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Czechoslovakia • 1969
- Director Juraj Herz
- Cast Rudolf Hrušínský, Vlasta Chramostová, Jana Stehnová, Miloš Vognič, Ilja Prachař, Zora Božinová
- Genre Comedy, Horror, Drama
- Available on Criterion Channel, Apple TV
The Last Man on Earth
A doctor-turned-vampire hunter fights for survival in a changed world. But nothing is as it seems…
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Italy, United States • 1964
- Director Ubaldo Ragona, Sidney Salkow
- Cast Vincent Price, Franca Bettoia, Emma Danieli, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Umberto Raho
- Genre Horror, Science Fiction
- Available on Amazon Prime Video, Fandor Amazon Channel, fuboTV, FlixFling, Cultpix, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, ScreenPix Apple TV Channel, Apple TV, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, Crackle, Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, Shout! Factory TV, Freevee, Cineverse, DistroTV, Hoopla, Plex, Public Domain Movies, Popflick, Plex Channel, JustWatchTV
A Scene at the Sea
(あの夏、いちばん静かな海。)
A deaf garbage man takes up surfing, empowering him to become one with the sea and the surfing community.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1991
- Director Takeshi Kitano
- Cast Claude Maki, Hiroko Oshima, Sabu Kawahara, Toshizo Fujiwara, Susumu Terajima, Katsuya Koiso
- Genre Drama, Romance, Comedy
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Good Morning, Night
(Buongiorno, notte)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Italy • 2003
- Director Marco Bellocchio
- Cast Maya Sansa, Luigi Lo Cascio, Roberto Herlitzka, Paolo Briguglia, Pier Giorgio Bellocchio, Giovanni Calcagno
- Genre Drama, History
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Made in Hong Kong
(香港製造)
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Hong Kong • 1997
- Director Fruit Chan
- Cast Sam Lee, Neiky Yim Hui Chi, Wenders Li, Carol Lam, Doris Chow, Chan Sang
- Genre Crime, Drama, Romance, Comedy
- Available on Metrograph, Kino Film Collection, Amazon Video
Don 2
The King is Back
- ✭ ✭
- India, Germany • 2011
- Director Farhan Akhtar
- Cast Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Boman Irani, Kunal Kapoor, Nawab Shah, Om Puri
- Genre Action, Thriller
- Available on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix basic with Ads, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
The Wind Will Carry Us
(باد ما را خواهد برد)
A city man has more to learn than he thinks from the townspeople where his dying relative lives.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Iran, France • 1999
- Director Abbas Kiarostami
- Cast Behzad Dorani, Noghre Asadi, Roushan Karam Elmi, Bahman Ghobadi, Shahpour Ghobadi, Reihan Heidari
- Genre Drama
- Available on Fandango At Home, Amazon Video
Rain
(باران)
An unlikely kinship is found between two workers on a building site in Tehran.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Iran • 2001
- Director Majid Majidi
- Cast Hossein Abedini, Zahra Bahrami, Mohammad Amir Naji, Hossein Mahjoub, Abbas Rahimi, Gholam Ali Bakhshi
- Genre Drama, Romance
- Available on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, YouTube, Hoopla
Sayonara Midori-chan
(さよならみどりちゃん)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 2005
- Director Tomoyuki Furumaya
- Cast Sayuri Oyamada, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Mari Hoshino, Mayuko Iwasa, Toshinobu Matsuo, Taigo Fujisawa
- Genre Romance
- Available on No streaming locations found.
The Sword Stained with Royal Blood
(碧血劍)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Hong Kong • 1981
- Director Chang Cheh
- Cast Philip Kwok Chun-Fung, Candy Wen Xue-Er, Ching Li, Lung Tien-Hsiang, Chiang Sheng, Wong Lik
- Genre Action, Drama
- Available on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Shout! Factory TV
Ryuzo and the Seven Henchmen
(龍三と七人の子分たち)
Are You old men?
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 2015
- Director Takeshi Kitano
- Cast Tatsuya Fuji, Masaomi Kondo, Akira Nakao, Tôru Shinagawa, Ben Hiura, Ryôta Nakanishi
- Genre Comedy, Action
- Available on No streaming locations found.