Best movies like Life Back Then
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Kyohei Nagashima (Masaki Okada) has shut away the world. During his high school days he was the target of bullying and experienced horrifying moments. Now as a young adult Kyohei takes a new job. He works for a company that specializes in cleaning out the homes of recently deceased individuals. With his new job Kyohei meets co-worker Yuki (Nana Eikura). Yuki has also experienced a traumatizing event as a teen and has also shut herself away from the world. These two young people form a bond as they go through the homes of the recently departed people. They gradually open up to each other and in the process to the world. Yet, their fragile psyches may or may not be ready for such changes.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 142
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 131 min
Plot tags: sincere, captivating, road movie, crying, learning
Best tv shows and movies like Life Back Then (2011):
Similar in 79%
The Land of Rain Trees (2015)
Plot Summary:
Nobuyuki Sakisaka (Yuta Tamamori) is a salaryman. When he was in middle school student, he read light novel "Fairy Game”. He still has that light novel, because he was so shocked by the ending. One day, Nobuyuki Sakisaka browses the internet and comes across the blog "Rein Tsuri no Kuni.” He learns that the blog writer, Rika Hitomi (Mariya Nishiuchi), also was shocked by the ending in light novel "Fairy Game." Nobuyuki and Rika soon begin to exchange emails. Nobuyuki wants to meet Rika, but she refuses due to her secret.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 82
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration:
Plot tags: crying
Similar in 83%
The Tale of Iya (2013)
Plot Summary:
It was summer when a stranger from Tokyo arrived at “Iya”, where the riches of nature still abound. This young man, named Kudo, was willing to live his new, self-sufficient life. He was exhausted by city life, and believed this beautiful land would give him some rest. On the contrary, the reality was not as easy as he thought. There was a confliction between a local construction company and a group of nature conservationists. Farmers are trying to save their harvests from harmful animals such as deer and monkeys. People are fighting for their own purposes: to get their job, to save the environment, or to survive.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 363
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 169 min
Plot tags: silent, exciting, touching, captivating, contemplative, silent film
Similar in 85%
Harmonium (2016)
Plot Summary:
Toshio hires Yasaka to work in his workshop. But then this old acquaintance, who has just been released from prison, begins to meddle in Toshio’s family life….
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan, France
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, suspense, disturbing, crying, detective
Similar in 82%
Voices in the Wind (2020)
Plot Summary:
In her search for answers, 17-year-old Haru sets out on a long journey across the country to the town where, in 2011, the devastating tsunami swept away her brother and parents. This road trip takes the young woman, who is still haunted by her loss, from Hiroshima to Tokyo and Fukushima and all the way to Ōtsuchi, where her family home once stood. On the way she encounters other people, other stories, other lives and other losses. Landscapes and faces. The journey ends in the middle of a garden in full bloom among the scarred surroundings of her coastal hometown.. In it stands a telephone box which, even though it is no longer connected, is used to speak to those who cannot be reached any other way.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 428
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 139 min
Plot tags: independent film, road movie, crying, intercultural, inter cultural
Similar in 77%
The Travelling Cat Chronicles (2018)
Plot Summary:
Nana is the cutest girl. She is also smart and aware of her talents. She has paws and purrs. Her father Satoru cannot take of her anymore and must give her up. He searches for someone to take care of Nana and begins visiting people who may be good candidates. As Nana and her father take trips in their car Satoru meets old friends, meets new friends and his own story unfurls in the process.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 527
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, crying
Similar in 77%
Someone (2016)
Plot Summary:
5 university students gather to exchange information on their job search activities. They encourage each other and post their thoughts & worries on Twitter, but behind that they have a lot on their minds. Takuto Ninomiya observes those around him. His roommate Kotaro Kamiya has a bright personality and communicates well with others. Mizuki Tanabe is Kotaro Kamiya’s ex-girlfriend. Takuto Ninomiya has feelings for his roommate's ex-girlfriend. Rika Kobayakawa is determined to land a job. Takayoshi Miyamoto is critical of job-seeking activities, but he later tries to get a job.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 743
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Halfway (2009)
Plot Summary:
In this high school romance Hiro is dismayed to learn her new love Shu will be going away to college in Tokyo. She asks him not to go.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 442
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Japan
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: romantic, crying
Similar in 87%
Pieta in the Toilet (2015)
Plot Summary:
Hiroshi (Yojiro Noda) has given up on his dreams of becoming a painter and works part-time cleaning office windows. He learns that he has only 3 months left to live. During his last summer, high school student Mai (Hana Sugisaki) appears. Hiroshi becomes attracted to her.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 294
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, touching, captivating, disturbing, atmospheric
Similar in 89%
Clover (2014)
Plot Summary:
Saya Suzuki (Emi Takei) is an ordinary employee working at a hotel. She falls in love with her elite boss Susumu Tsuge (Tadayoshi Okura). Through their romance, Saya Suzuki grows as a person.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 245
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Japan
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: romantic, captivating, shoujo, entertaining
Similar in 80%
The 8-Year Engagement (2017)
Plot Summary:
Hisashi and Mai are a happy couple in their 20s who are engaged to be married. But three months before their wedding, Mai becomes seriously ill. Her heart stops momentarily, and she falls into a deep coma. Hisashi visits Mai at the hospital every day before work. With no idea if or when she will ever awake, Mai’s parents encourage Hisashi to find someone else, but he refuses to give up and continues to pray for her recovery. As if his prayers are answered, Mai begins to regain consciousness several years later, and even utters a few words. But tragically, she has suffered brain damage and has no memory of Hisashi.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Japan
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: romantic, touching, sincere, serious, romantic drama, crying, humorous, fun
Similar in 88%
Perfect World (2018)
Plot Summary:
Tsugumi Kawana (Hana Sugisaki) works at an interior design company. She happens to meet her first love Itsuki Ayukawa (Takanori Iwata) from her high school days. He is now an architect and in a wheelchair because of an accident. --asianwiki.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 167
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Japan
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: sincere, captivating, crying
Similar in 85%
The Ravine of Goodbye (2013)
Plot Summary:
In a valley, with a dense growth of trees, a baby is killed. The baby's mother Satomi is arrested as the prime suspect. The police also learn that Satomi is involved in a romantic relationship with her next door neighbor Ozaki. The information was provided by the neighbor's lover Kanako. Meanwhile, magazine reporter Watanabe, who is covering the story, discovers the shocking fact that Ozaki was involved in a rape case 15 years ago. Even more shocking, the victim in the rape case is Kanako.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 496
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, captivating, realistic, romantic, sexy, crying, detective, juvenile
Similar in 77%
Before We Vanish (2017)
Plot Summary:
Narumi is on bad terms with her husband Shinji when one day, Shinji goes missing. He comes back a couple of days later, but seems like a totally different person, and is now gentle and tender. He goes for a walk every day. Meanwhile, Journalist Sakurai covers the story of a family that was brutally murdered, when an unexplained phenomenon takes place. Shinji Kase tells his wife that he came to Earth to invade.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Japan
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, captivating, contemplative, realistic, road movie, detective
Similar in 84%
Chronicle of My Mother (2011)
Plot Summary:
Best-selling novelist Kosaku Igami has made a career out of using his family as fodder for his novels, much to their dismay. When his mother, the spirited family matriarch, is diagnosed with dementia, Igami must come to terms with the toll his own behavior has taken on his increasingly distant family and resolve his own long-simmering resentments. Evocative of classic Ozu, this gorgeously wrought epic family portrait explores the tenderness and trappings of familial bonds. (Chicago International Film Festival).
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 482
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: sincere, captivating, semi autobiographical, crying, entertaining
Similar in 76%
We Were There: First Love (2012)
Plot Summary:
"We Were There" follows the 10 year romance between Motoharu Yano (Toma Ikuta) & Nanami Takahashi (Yuriko Yoshitaka). During their high school days, Motoharu Yano was the most popular boy in school, but can't get over the death of his girlfriend from a car crash. Nanami Takahashi falls in love with Motoharu Yano and must deal with his inability to let go of the past.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 694
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Japan
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: touching, sentimental, sincere, romantic, serious, shoujo, anime
Similar in 86%
Happy Hour (2015)
Plot Summary:
Jun, Akari, Sakurako and Fumi truly believe that they can confide in each other. But one day, at a party, Jun confesses that she is seeking a divorce from her husband and this information seems to upset the other three. They follow her trial as she attempts to win her case against her husband’s will.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 317 min
Plot tags: exciting, sentimental, sexy, feel good, captivating, melancholic, independent film, romantic drama, sexual, psychotronic
Similar in 75%
Make a Bow and Kiss (2017)
Plot Summary:
Based on the comic book by Yakko Kaga.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 175
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Japan
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: light, romantic, sweet, captivating, crying, whimsical
Similar in 88%
Neighboring Sakuko (2013)
Plot Summary:
3 years on from hospitalité, Kiki Sugino and Koji Fukada are back again with this socially-conscious film about a 18-year-old girl in-between adolescence and adulthood who spends a summer in a valley and enjoys romance. Sakuko, a 18-year-old girl studying for her university entrance exams, decides to accompany her aunt Mikie on a trip to a seaside town. There she befriends Takashi, a refugee from Fukushima who has dropped out of high school and works at a motel run by Ukichi, a friend of Mikie. In-between childhood and adulthood, Sakuko starts to understand the difficulties of becoming an adult.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 449
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan, USA
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, captivating, sincere, sentimental, feel good, serious
Similar in 82%
A Story of Yonosuke (2012)
Plot Summary:
The year is 1987 and Japan is just reaching the peak of its economic success. Eighteen-year old Yonosuke Yokomichi arrives in Tokyo from Nagasaki. Ordinary in every way possible, he lives in a suburb far from the excitement of the big city and commutes to a university in the center of Tokyo.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 160 min
Plot tags: psychological, realistic, tense, captivating, independent film, crying
Similar in 87%
Her Love Boils Bathwater (2016)
Plot Summary:
A terminally ill single mother is determined to reconcile her splintered family.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: psychological, sentimental, sincere, captivating, melancholic, disturbing, inspirational, comedy drama, crying, detective
Similar in 78%
Sweet Bean (2015)
Plot Summary:
Sentaro runs a small bakery that serves dorayaki pastries filled with sweet red bean paste (“an”). When an old lady, Tokue, offers to help in the kitchen he reluctantly accepts. She will soon prove to have magic in her hands….
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan, France, Germany
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: culinary, sincere, thought provoking, touching, melancholic, motivational, sad, tear jerker, poignant, art house
Similar in 88%
Hot Gimmick: Girl Meets Boy (2019)
Plot Summary:
A quiet teen's life is shaken up when she's forced to be her arrogant neighbor's slave. He loves her, but they both have a lot to learn about trust.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 574
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 79%
Love & Pop (1998)
Plot Summary:
Pretty Tokyo teen Hiromi Yoshii (Asumi Miwa) and her girlfriends struggle with rivalries, clothes and boyfriends, just like any other high school clique. But out for kicks and blind to the consequences, the girls of Love & Pop hide a dirty little secret. From phone booths and street corners, in department stores and restaurants, the girls practice enjo-kosai or "compensated dating" -- arranging liaisons with older men drawn to their evident nubile charms and schoolgirl uniform innocence.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: disturbing, offbeat, serious, realistic, witty, sexual, sexy
Similar in 88%
About the Pink Sky (2011)
Plot Summary:
High school student Izumi Kawashima, whose daily routine is rating newspaper articles, finds a wallet containing a large sum of cash. Instead of returning the wallet to its owner, Izumi decides to lend a substantial portion of the money to a middle-aged male acquaintance. She eventually returns the wallet to its owner, a wealthy high-school boy named Koki, who notices the missing money, and as compensation, asks Izumi to do something for his friend - to create a newspaper that brings happiness to its reader.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 198
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, serious, realistic, offbeat, sexy, hot
Similar in 88%
Dear Friends (2007)
Plot Summary:
High school student Rina has a bad attitude and thinks that friends are something that you use when you need them. She doesn't have any real relationships and is not even on good terms with her parents. Rina is the clubbing queen and could get any guy she wants with her stunning looks. One day, Rina suddenly collapses and her world falls apart. She finds out that she has cancer. The only one who starts to support her is her classmate Maki. Maki tells that they were friends in primary school even though Rina doesn't remember. Maki wants to get close to Rina and help her like Rina had helped Maki when she had hard times.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 438
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: captivating, sexy
Similar in 77%
Love My Life (2006)
Plot Summary:
Ichiko and Eri are two beautiful Japanese university students who are in a lesbian relationship. Ichiko comes out to her father who tells her he is also gay and her mother was a lesbian. Her best friend is gay too, though he has a female who is after him. Their liaison is very intense, but Eri suggests a temporary separation so she can concentrate on her law studies. The break from their affair is difficult for Ichiko to deal with. But Eri soon sorts out her priorities.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 910
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: emotional, touching, serious, realistic, sexual, psychological, sexy, captivating, queer cinema
Similar in 88%
Tokyo Sonata (2008)
Plot Summary:
Ryûhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) is keeping a secret from his wife, Megumi (Kyôko Koizumi), and his two teenage sons. Even though he leaves the house every day, he's not really going to work. He's going to an employment office. He recently lost his job due to outsourcing, but is determined to find another position, all while supporting an old friend who is also out of work. But when Megumi accidentally finds out Ryûhei's secret and doesn't tell him, her trust in him, and their marriage, suffers.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan, Netherlands, Hong Kong
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: lyrical, talky, stylized, touching, serious, psychological, realistic, disturbing, poignant, atmospheric
Similar in 88%
Paradise Kiss (2011)
Plot Summary:
Hyasaka Yukari only wants one thing: to enter the college that her mom wants. One day, she meets an extravagant group that loves fashion. They were searching for a model and Yukari fits their ideal model. From now Yukari will know the world of fashion and modeling, and what she really wants.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: sentimental, romantic, shoujo, captivating, anime, realistic, crying, hot
Similar in 85%
Tokyo Family (2013)
Plot Summary:
In this film director Yoji Yamada bows down before his teacher and role model. Yamada was assistant director on Yazujirō Ozu’s Tōkyō monogatari, a moving family portrait set after the Second World War. In his remake, Yamada has made very few departures from Ozu’s masterpiece in order to update the story of ageing couple Shukichi and Tomiko to present day Japan. Once again, the pair decides to leave their quiet lives in the country to pay a visit to their children and grandchildren in Tokyo. Once there, they discover that neither their oldest son, a doctor named Koichi, nor their eldest daughter Shigeko - who runs a beauty parlour - has time for them: both are too busy attending to their everyday concerns. Even the youngest son went his own way. The old couple feel lonely and bewildered in the fast-paced metropolis.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 146 min
Plot tags: realistic, sincere, touching, emotional, psychological, captivating, sentimental, serious, crying
Similar in 86%
A Gentle Breeze in the Village (2007)
Plot Summary:
Based on a popular manga, the film is a tender coming-of-age love story set deep in Japan's countryside. When eighth grade cool guy Hiromi transfers from Tokyo to a small elementary/middle school with only six kids enrolled, wholesome and honest Soyo becomes enthralled with his sophisticated world.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags: sincere, captivating, disturbing, romantic