This visually lush but sometimes ponderously slowfilm is a poetic saga of love and loss.
Maborosi(幻の光)
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Japan · 1995
1h 50m
Director Hirokazu Kore-eda
Starring 江角真纪子, Takashi Naitō, Tadanobu Asano, Gohki Kashiyama
Genre Drama
Add to Watchlist
Please login to add films to your watchlist.
A young woman's husband apparently commits suicide without warning or reason, leaving behind his wife and infant. Yumiko remarries and moves from Osaka to a small fishing village, yet continues to search for meaning in a lonely world.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
San Francisco Chronicle by Edward Guthmann
Kore-eda weaves these images and others, building a multilayered fugue that contemplates death, asks if mourning ever truly ends and addresses the ephemeral nature of love, family and home. Everything we value and use to define and frame our lives, he suggests, is always at risk.
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
Maborosi is a worthwhile movie experience not because it ventures into virgin territory, but because its presentation is so precise and unique.
Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov
The concept of loss, and the sorrow that shadows it, is not what you'd call an uncommon theme in films, but rarely is it handled with such uncommon eloquence as it is in Maborosi.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Maborosi is one of those valuable films where you have to actively place yourself in the character's mind. There are times when we do not know what she is thinking, but we are inspired with an active sympathy. We want to understand. Well, so does she.
The 33-year-old Koreeda, who began his career in documentary, has a gift for observing life as it's lived, accumulating simple, seemingly banal scenes into an unforgettable reflection on the frustration and helplessness of trying to explain the ineffable.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
A pictorial tone poem of astonishing visual intensity and emotional depth.
Users who liked this film also liked
Dead Alive
(Braindead)
A young man tries to contain a zombie outbreak caused by a Sumatran rat-monkey.
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- New Zealand • 1992
- Director Peter Jackson
- Cast Timothy Balme, Diana Peñalver, Elizabeth Moody, Ian Watkin, Brenda Kendall, Stuart Devenie
- Genre Comedy, Horror
- Available on No streaming locations found.
A Judgement in Stone
(La Cérémonie)
Subservience can be deadly.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- France, Germany • 1995
- Director Claude Chabrol
- Cast Sandrine Bonnaire, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Jacqueline Bisset, Virginie Ledoyen, Valentin Merlet
- Genre Drama, Thriller
- Available on Criterion Channel
Yi Yi
(一一)
Each member of a family in Taipei asks hard questions about life's meaning as they face everyday dilemmas.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Taiwan, Japan • 2000
- Director Edward Yang
- Cast Wu Nien-Jen, Elaine Jin, Issei Ogata, Kelly Lee, Jonathan Chang, Hsi-Sheng Chen
- Genre Drama, Romance
- Available on Criterion Channel, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, YouTube
Akitsu Springs
(秋津温泉)
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1962
- Director Yoshishige Yoshida
- Cast Mariko Okada, Hiroyuki Nagato, Sō Yamamura, Jūkichi Uno, Eijirô Tôno, Fukuko Sayo
- Genre Romance, Drama
- Available on No streaming locations found.
The Munekata Sisters
(宗方姉妹)
A young woman tries to reunite her sister, now stuck in an unhappy marriage, with a former lover.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1950
- Director Yasujirō Ozu
- Cast Kinuyo Tanaka, Hideko Takamine, Ken Uehara, Sanae Takasugi, Chishū Ryū, Sō Yamamura
- Genre Drama
- Available on Criterion Channel
Afghan Breakdown
(Афганский излом)
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Russia, Italy • 1991
- Director Vladimir Bortko
- Cast Michele Placido, Tatyana Dogileva, Mikhail Zhigalov, Aleksey Serebryakov, Nina Ruslanova
- Genre War, Drama, Action
- Available on No streaming locations found.
A Simple Life
(桃姐)
Companionship is imperishable.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Hong Kong • 2011
- Director Ann Hui
- Cast Andy Lau, Deannie Yip, Fuli Wang, Paul Chun Pui, Leung Tin, Hui Siu-ying
- Genre Drama
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Laurence Anyways
What does it take to live life to the fullest?
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Canada (Quebec), France • 2012
- Director Xavier Dolan
- Cast Melvil Poupaud, Suzanne Clément, Nathalie Baye, Monia Chokri, Yves Jacques, Anne Dorval
- Genre Drama, Romance
- Available on Kanopy
My Secret Cache
(ひみつの花園)
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1997
- Director Shinobu Yaguchi
- Cast Naomi Nishida, Go Riju, Kazue Tsunogae, Shinobu Tsuruta, Noriko Tanaka, Takako Katou
- Genre Comedy, Crime
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Haru
((ハル))
Two young individuals meet online and become interested in each other after e-mailing everyday.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1996
- Director Yoshimitsu Morita
- Cast Eri Fukatsu, Seiyo Uchino, Naho Toda, Kazufumi Miyazawa, Kôtarô Takeshita, Masaharu Tsuruku
- Genre Drama, Romance
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Shin Godzilla
(シン・ゴジラ)
A god incarnate. A city doomed.
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 2016
- Director Hideaki Anno
- Cast Hiroki Hasegawa, Yutaka Takenouchi, Satomi Ishihara, Kengo Kora, Satoru Matsuo, Mikako Ichikawa
- Genre Action, Science Fiction
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Harmonium
(淵に立つ)
There's something off-key in this household...
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan, France • 2016
- Director Kōji Fukada
- Cast Tadanobu Asano, Mariko Tsutsui, Takahiro Miura, Kanji Furutachi, Momone Shinokawa
- Genre Thriller
- Available on Film Movement Plus, Apple TV, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, Kanopy, Hoopla
Yakiniku Dragon
(용길이네 곱창집)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 2018
- Director Wishing Chong
- Cast Yoko Maki, Mao Inoue, Yo Oizumi, Nanami Sakuraba, Ryohei Otani, Shinpei Ooe
- Genre Drama
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Inukai san chi no inu
(犬飼さんちの犬)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 2011
- Director Toru Kamei
- Cast Fumiyo Kohinata, Chiharu, Haruka Kinami, Tetsuhiro Ikeda, Eri Tokunaga, Denden
- Genre Comedy
- Available on No streaming locations found.
I'm Still Here
(Ainda Estou Aqui)
When Eunice’s husband, congressman Rubens Paiva, goes missing, Eunice must reinvent herself as an activist.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Brazil, France • 2024
- Director Walter Salles
- Cast Fernanda Torres, Fernanda Montenegro
- Genre Drama, Thriller
- Available on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Amazon Video, YouTube