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Netflix has revealed its 2025 slate of Japanese films and television series, with the streamer offering a rich mix of period series, action films and intriguing unscripted offerings.

The standout highlight from the lineup, and a potential breakout global hit, is the period series Last Samurai Standing. The series hails from filmmakers Michihito Fujii, Kento Yamaguchi and Toru Yamamoto and could appeal to fans of both FX’s Shogun and Netflix’s Squid Game with its survivalist premise and period setting. Junichi Okada leads the cast in this story that takes place at the tail end of the samurai era in Japan and is about 292 warriors who are invited to compete to the death for a cash prize. Last Samurai Standing is an adaptation of Shogo Imamura’s novel Ikusagami, which has already been adapted into a popular manga series.

‘Last Man Standing’

Hirokazu Koreeda’s Asura is among the streamer...

Nadine Labaki takes director prize for Capharnaüm.

The jury of the 12th Asia Pacific Screen Awards has awarded the best film prize to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters (Manbiki Kazoku), continuing the Palme d’Or winner’s dream run.

Full list of winners below

The film, which depicts a makeshift family living on the fringes of Japanese society, won the highest honour at the region’s film awards, which took place in Brisbane, Australia, tonight.

The best director prize went to Nadine Labaki for Capharnaüm (Lebanon).

Shoplifters’ win marks the first time that a Japanese film has won the best feature...

Thunderbird Releasing picks up Cannes main prize winner.

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s family drama Shoplifters, winner of Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or this year, has landed a UK distribution deal with Thunderbird Releasing.

Kore-eda’s seventh film to screen at Cannes beat Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War and Lee Chang-dong’s Burning to take the top honour from Cannes’ main competition this year.

Starring Sakura Ando and Mayu Matsuoka, the film tells the story of a shoplifting father-and-son duo and the little girl they take in from the street. Producers on the project are Kaoru Matsusaki,...

Japanese film “Shoplifters” been described as a surprise winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or. That may have more to do with the director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s steady output and six previous appearances in Cannes, rather than any slight against his latest humanist drama, which is both familiar and inventive.

Cannes jury president Cate Blanchett called it a difficult decision, but the right choice for Palme d’Or. “We were completely bowled over by ‘Shoplifters.’ How intermeshed the performances were with the directorial vision,” Blanchett said.

“In a long career of incredible peaks, Hirokazu Kore-eda has delivered one of his best works. ‘Shoplifters’ is an incredible story that deals with familial bonds in a way I’ve never seen before,” said Eamon Bowles, president of Magnolia Films, which grabbed North American rights to the film a day before the closing ceremony.

And the film scored highly with reviewers.

Magnolia Pictures has acquired North American rights to Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s new drama “Shoplifters” following its premiere this week in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, the company announced Friday.

Magnolia, which had previously released the director’s film “I Wish,” did not disclose terms of the deal.

The drama follows a father and son team of shoplifters who come across a little girl in the freezing cold. At first reluctant to shelter the girl, Osamu’s wife agrees to take care of her after learning of the hardships she faces. Although the family is poor, barely making enough money to survive through petty crime, they seem to live happily together until an unforeseen incident reveals hidden secrets, testing the bonds that unite them.

Also Read: 'Shoplifters' Cannes Review: Is the Seventh Time a Charm for Hirokazu Kore-eda?

TheWrap critic Ben Croll hailed “Shoplifters” as Kore-Eda’s “richest...

Magnolia Pictures has picked up North American rights to “Shoplifters,” the acclaimed new drama from Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, Variety has learned.

The film is in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and marks the director’s seventh time appearing at the prestigious French gathering for cinephiles. “Shoplifters” has garnered strong reviews for its humanist look at a family living on the margins. Variety’s Maggie Lee, for instance, wrote that Kore-eda “makes a mature and heart-wrenching return to his socially-conscious dramas,” while IndieWire’s David Ehrlich declared that “Shoplifters” is “the very best of the writer-director’s delicate, deceptive, and profoundly moving dramas about the forces that hold a family together (or don’t).”

The film follows a petty thief named Osamu who comes across a little girl who is struggling to survive in the freezing cold. He’s eventually able to convince his wife to take...

Exclusive: Legal thriller starring Masaharu Fukuyama due to hit screens in Japan in September.

Japan’s Gaga Corporation and Wild Bunch are re-teaming to jointly sell Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s upcoming legal thriller The Third Murder.

Popular Japanese singer and actor Masaharu Fukuyama reunites with Kore-eda to play a lawyer who takes on a complicated murder case that will shake his very belief in the law.

Fukuyama starred in Kore-eda’s 2013 Cannes Jury Prize winner Like Father, Like Son, playing a successful businessman faced with a tough decision on discovering the child he brought up as his own was swapped with his biological son at birth.

Gaga will represent Asian territories and Wild Bunch is handling the rest of the world.

The new deal extends a collaboration begun on Kore-eda’s 2011 film I Wish and continued on his subsequent films Like Father, Like Son, Our Little Sister and After The Storm.

Toho Co., Ltd...

Neil Armfield.s Holding the Man, Simon Stone.s The Daughter, Jeremy Sims. Last Cab to Darwin and Jen Peedom.s feature doc Sherpa will have their world premieres at the Sydney Film Festival.

The festival program unveiled today includes 33 world premieres (including 22 shorts) and 135 Australian premieres (with 18 shorts) among 251 titles from 68 countries.

Among the other premieres will be Daina Reid.s The Secret River, Ruby Entertainment's. ABC-tv miniseries starring Oliver Jackson Cohen and Sarah Snook, and three Oz docs, Marc Eberle.s The Cambodian Space Project — Not Easy Rock .n. Roll, Steve Thomas. Freedom Stories and Lisa Nicol.s Wide Open Sky.

Festival director Nashen Moodley boasted. this year.s event will be far larger than 2014's when 183 films from 47 countries were screened, including 15 world premieres. The expansion is possible in part due to the addition of two new screening venues in Newtown and Liverpool.

As previously announced, Brendan Cowell...