Cinema of Japan
Cinema of Japan | |
---|---|
No. of screens | 3,648 (2021)[1] |
• Per capita | 2.8 per 100,000 (2017)[2] |
Main distributors | Toho Company (33.7%) Toei Company (10.5%)[3] |
Produced feature films (2021)[1] | |
Total | 490 |
Number of admissions (2021)[1] | |
Total | 114,818,000 |
Gross box office (2021)[1] | |
Total | ¥161.893 billion ($1.27 billion)[1] |
National films | ¥128.339 billion (79.3%) |
Cinema of Japan |
---|
List of Japanese films |
Pre-1910 |
1910s |
1920s |
1930s |
1940s |
1950s |
1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 |
1960s |
1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 |
1970s |
1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 |
1980s |
1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 |
1990s |
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 |
2000s |
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 |
2010s |
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 |
2020s |
2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 |
The cinema of Japan (日本映画, Nihon eiga), also known domestically as hōga (邦画, "domestic cinema"), has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world; as of 2021, it was the fourth largest by number of feature films produced.[4] In 2011, Japan produced 411 feature films that earned 54.9% of a box office total of US$2.338 billion.[5] Films have been produced in Japan since 1897, when the first foreign cameramen arrived.
During the 1950s, a period dubbed the "Golden Age of Japanese cinema", the
Japan's Big Four film studios are Toho, Toei, Shochiku and Kadokawa, which are the only members of the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (MPPAJ). The annual Japan Academy Film Prize hosted by the Nippon Academy-shō Association is considered to be the Japanese equivalent of the Academy Awards.
History
Early silent era
The
In 1898, some ghost films were made, such as the Shirō Asano shorts Bake Jizo (Jizo the Spook / 化け地蔵) and Shinin no sosei (Resurrection of a Corpse).[19] The first documentary, the short Geisha no teodori (芸者の手踊り), was made in June 1899. Tsunekichi Shibata made a number of early films, including Momijigari, an 1899 record of two famous actors performing a scene from a well-known kabuki play. Early films were influenced by traditional theater – for example, kabuki and bunraku.
20th century
At the dawn of the 20th century, theaters in Japan hired benshi, storytellers who sat next to the screen and narrated silent movies. They were descendants of kabuki jōruri, kōdan storytellers, theater barkers and other forms of oral storytelling.[20] Benshi could be accompanied by music like silent films from cinema of the West. With the advent of sound in the early 1930s, the benshi gradually declined.
In 1908,
The first Japanese film production studio was built in 1909 by the Yoshizawa Shōten company in Tokyo.[22]
The first female Japanese performer to appear in a film professionally was the dancer/actress
Among intellectuals, critiques of Japanese cinema grew in the 1910s and eventually developed into a movement that transformed Japanese film. Film criticism began with early film magazines such as Katsudō shashinkai (begun in 1909) and a full-length book written by
New studios established around 1920, such as
Japanese films gained popularity in the mid-1920s against foreign films, in part fueled by the popularity of
With the rise of left-wing political movements and labor unions at the end of the 1920s, there arose so-called
A later version of The Captain's Daughter directed by Namio Ochiai[30][circular reference] and Kenji Mizoguchi's 藤原義江のふるさと (Fujiwara Yoshie no furusato, known internationally as Hometown) were the two earliest talkie films. They used the Mina Talkie System with dialogue written on chalkboards and were immediate flops because Nikkatsu raised the admission prices fifty percent, leading them to temporarily abandon sound film.[31] The Japanese film industry later split into two groups; one retained the Mina Talkie System, while the other used the Eastphone Talkie System used to make Tojo Masaki's films.
The 1923 earthquake, the bombing of Tokyo during World War II, and the natural effects of time and Japan's humidity on flammable and unstable nitrate film have resulted in a great dearth of surviving films from this period.
Unlike in the West, silent films were still being produced in Japan well into the 1930s; as late as 1938, a third of Japanese films were silent.
Film criticism shared this vitality, with many film journals such as Kinema Junpo and newspapers printing detailed discussions of the cinema of the day, both at home and abroad. A cultured "impressionist" criticism pursued by critics such as Tadashi Iijima, Fuyuhiko Kitagawa, and Matsuo Kishi was dominant, but opposed by leftist critics such as Akira Iwasaki and Genjū Sasa who sought an ideological critique of films.[33]
The 1930s also saw increased government involvement in cinema, which was symbolized by the passing of the
Wartime movies
Because of World War II and the weak economy, unemployment became widespread in Japan, and the cinema industry suffered.
During this period, when Japan was expanding its Empire, the Japanese government saw cinema as a propaganda tool to show the glory and invincibility of the
kamishibai (紙芝居) or paper theater was a popular form of street entertainment, especially for the children. Kamishibai was offten used to tell stories of Buddhist deities and the history of some Buddhist temples. In 1920 it started out as normal storytelling for the children. But in about 1932 it started to lean more to a militaristic viewpoint.
Akira Kurosawa made his feature film debut with Sugata Sanshiro in 1943.
American occupation
After the
- infused with militarism;
- showing revenge as a legitimate motive;
- nationalistic;
- chauvinisticand anti-foreign;
- distorting historical facts;
- favoring racial or religious discrimination;
- portraying feudal loyalty or contempt of life as desirable and honorable;
- approving suicide either directly or indirectly;
- dealing with or approving the subjugation or degradation of women;
- depicting brutality, violence or evil as triumphant;
- anti-democratic;
- condoning the exploitation of children; or
- at variance with the spirit or letter of the Potsdam Declaration or any SCAP directive[38]
A major consequence of these restrictions was that the production of
Significant movies among them are,
The first movie released after the war was Soyokaze, directed by
The first collaborations between Akira Kurosawa and actor Toshiro Mifune were Drunken Angel in 1948 and Stray Dog in 1949. Yasujirō Ozu directed the critically and commercially successful Late Spring in 1949.
In the later half of the Occupation, the
Golden Age
The 1950s are widely considered the
War movies covering themes previously restricted by SCAP began to be produced, such as Hideo Sekigawa's "Listen to the Voices of the Sea" (1950), Tadashi Imai's "Himeyuri no Tô - Tower of the Lilies" (1953), Keisuke Kinoshita's "Twenty-Four Eyes" (1954) and "Kon Ichikawa's "The Burmese Harp" (1956). Works showcasing tragic and sentimental retrospectives of the war experience became a public phenomenon. Other films produced include Battleship Yamato (1953) and Eagle of the Pacific (1953). Under these circumstances, movies such as "Emperor Meiji and the Russo-Japanese War (明治天皇と日露大戦争)" (1957), where Kanjūrō Arashi played Emperor Meiji, also appeared. It was a situation that was unthinkable before the war, the commercialization of the Emperor who was supposed to be sacred and inviolable.
The period after the
The decade started with
The first Japanese film in
The year 1954 saw two of Japan's most influential films released. The first was the Kurosawa epic Seven Samurai, about a band of hired samurai who protect a helpless village from a rapacious gang of thieves. The same year, Kurosawa's friend and colleague Ishirō Honda directed the anti-nuclear monster-drama Godzilla, featuring award-winning effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. The latter film was first ever Japanese film to be given a wide release throughout the United States,[49] where it was heavily re-edited, and featured new footage with actor Raymond Burr for its distribution in 1956 as Godzilla, King of the Monsters!.[50] Although it was edited for its Western release, Godzilla became an international icon of Japan and spawned an entire subgenre of kaiju films,[51] as well as the longest-running film franchise in history.[52] Also in 1954, another Kurosawa film, Ikiru was in competition at the 4th Berlin International Film Festival.
In 1955,
Kenji Mizoguchi, who died in 1956, ended his career with a series of masterpieces including The Life of Oharu (1952), Ugetsu (1953) and Sansho the Bailiff (1954). He won the Silver Bear at the Venice Film Festival for Ugetsu. Mizoguchi's films often deal with the tragedies inflicted on women by Japanese society. Mikio Naruse made Repast (1950), Late Chrysanthemums (1954), The Sound of the Mountain (1954) and Floating Clouds (1955). Yasujirō Ozu began directing color films beginning with Equinox Flower (1958), and later Good Morning (1959) and Floating Weeds (1958), which was adapted from his earlier silent A Story of Floating Weeds (1934), and was shot by Rashomon and Sansho the Bailiff cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa.
The Blue Ribbon Awards were established in 1950. The first winner for Best Film was Until We Meet Again by Tadashi Imai.
The number of films produced, and the cinema audience reached a peak in the 1960s.
The huge level of activity of 1960s Japanese cinema also resulted in many classics. Akira Kurosawa directed the 1961 classic
Kon Ichikawa captured the watershed 1964 Olympics in his three-hour documentary Tokyo Olympiad (1965). Seijun Suzuki was fired by Nikkatsu for "making films that don't make any sense and don't make any money" after his surrealist yakuza flick Branded to Kill (1967).
The 1960s were the peak years of the
Teshigahara's
The 1970s saw the cinema audience drop due to the spread of television. Total audience declined from 1.2 billion in 1960 to 0.2 billion in 1980.[55] Film companies refused to hire top actors and directors, not even the companies' production skills to the television industry, thereby making the film companies losing money. [56]
Film companies fought back in various ways, such as the bigger budget films of
In 1976, the
Dodes'ka-den by Akira Kurosawa and Sandakan No. 8 by Kei Kumai were nominated to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The 1980s saw the decline of the major Japanese film studios and their associated chains of cinemas, with major studios
Of the older generation of directors, Akira Kurosawa directed
New directors who appeared in the 1980s include actor Juzo Itami, who directed his first film, The Funeral, in 1984, and achieved critical and box office success with Tampopo in 1985. Shinji Sōmai, an artistically inclined populist director who made films like the youth-focused Typhoon Club, and the critically acclaimed Roman porno Love Hotel among others. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who would generate international attention beginning in the mid-1990s, made his initial debut with pink films and genre horror.
During the 1980s, anime rose in popularity, with new animated movies released every summer and winter, often based upon popular anime television series. Mamoru Oshii released his landmark Angel's Egg in 1985. Hayao Miyazaki adapted his manga series Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind into a feature film of the same name in 1984. Katsuhiro Otomo followed suit by adapting his own manga Akira into a feature film of the same name in 1988.
Home video made possible the creation of a direct-to-video film industry.
Heisei period
Because of economic recessions, the number of movie theaters in Japan had been steadily decreasing since the 1960s. The number of cinemas were under 2,000 in 1993 than more than 7,000 in 1960.[56] The 1990s saw the reversal of this trend and the introduction of the multiplex in Japan. At the same time, the popularity of mini theaters continued.[57][58]
Kiyoshi Kurosawa gained international recognition following the release of
Hayao Miyazaki directed two mammoth box office and critical successes, Porco Rosso (1992) – which beat E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) as the highest-grossing film in Japan – and Princess Mononoke (1997), which also claimed the top box office spot until Titanic (1997).
Several new anime directors rose to widespread recognition, bringing with them notions of anime as not only entertainment, but modern art. Mamoru Oshii released the internationally acclaimed philosophical science fiction action film Ghost in the Shell in 1996. Satoshi Kon directed the award-winning psychological thriller Perfect Blue. Hideaki Anno also gained considerable recognition with The End of Evangelion in 1997.
In the beginning of 21st century, Japan has been referenced numerous times in popular culture, which was a relatively successful one for Japanese film industry. The country has appeared as a setting and topic multiple times in film, poetry, television, and music. The number of films being shown in Japan steadily increased, with about 821 films released in 2006. Films based on Japanese television series were especially popular during this period. Anime films now accounted for 60 percent of Japanese film production. The 1990s and 2000s are considered to be "Japanese Cinema's Second Golden Age", due to the immense popularity of anime, both within Japan and overseas.[43]
Although not a commercial success,
In anime,
Some Hollywood directors have turned to Tokyo as a backdrop for movies set in Japan. Post-war period examples include
Since February 2000, the Japan Film Commission Promotion Council was established. On November 16, 2001, the Japanese Foundation for the Promotion of the Arts laws were presented to the
Four films have so far received international recognition by being selected to compete in major film festivals: Caterpillar by Kōji Wakamatsu was in competition for the Golden Bear at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival and won the Silver Bear for Best Actress, Outrage by Takeshi Kitano was In Competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, Himizu by Sion Sono was in competition for the Golden Lion at the 68th Venice International Film Festival.
In March 2011, Japanese film and television industry was afflicted by the
In October 2011 (after fully reopening of Japanese film and television industry),
onto the international stage as producer.In 2018,
Reiwa period
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2023) |
The 2020 Japanese epic disaster drama film Fukushima 50, released on 6 March 2020, directed by Setsurō Wakamatsu and written by Yōichi Maekawa. The film is based on the book by Ryusho Kadota, titled On the Brink: The Inside Story of Fukushima Daiichi, and it is the first Japanese film to depict the disaster.
In early 2020, the Japanese film and television industry was afflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which greatly suffered due to health requirements. This gave the nation its worst day of film and television industry impacted by health crises since the end of World War II. From the first (of many) 'health lockdowns' until the end of September 2021, many Japanese studios were closed or reorganized to suit the legal requirements for spread prevention. This resulted in the suspension of filming for many movies. [citation needed]
In October 2020 (after the reopening film industry), a Japanese anime film
In October 2021, a Japanese drama-road film Drive My Car won Best Foreign Language Film at the 79th Golden Globe Awards and received the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards.[60][61]
Genres
- animated films
- Mecha: films featuring mecharobots
- Gendai-geki: films set in the present day, the opposite of jidaigeki
- Japanese horror: horror film
- science fiction film
- Japanese cyberpunk: cyberpunk films
- monster films
- Tokusatsu: films that make heavy use of special effects, usually involving costumed superheroes
- Jidaigeki: period film set during the Edo period (1603–1868) or earlier, the opposite of gendai-geki
- Samurai cinema: films featuring swordplay, also known as chanbara (an onomatopoeia describing the sound of swords clashing)
- ninjas
- pornographic films
- Shomingeki: realistic films about common working people
- left-leaningfilms
- gangster films about yakuzamobsters
Box office
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2015) |
Year | Gross (in billions of yen) |
Domestic share |
Admissions (in millions) |
Source(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
2009 | 206 | 57% | 169 | [62] |
2010 | 221 | 54% | 174 | [62] |
2011 | 181 | 55% | 144.73 | [63][64] |
2012 | 195.2 | 65.7% | 155.16 | [64][65] |
2013 | 194 | 60.6% | 156 | [66][67] |
2014 | 207 | 58% | 161 | [68][69] |
2015 | 217.119 | 55.4% | 166.63 | [1] |
See also
- Japan Academy Film Prize, hosted by the Nippon Academy-shō Association, is the Japanese equivalent of the Academy Awards.
- Japan Academy Prize
- List of highest-grossing Japanese films
- List of highest-grossing films in Japan
- List of highest-grossing non-English films
- List of Japanese actors
- List of Japanese actresses
- List of Japanese film directors
- List of Japanese films
- Cinema of the world
- History of cinema
- Genres:
- List of jidaigeki
- Samurai cinema
- Ninja
- Tokusatsu
- Genres:
- List of Japanese-language films
- List of Japanese movie studios
- List of Japanese submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film
- Nuberu bagu(The Japanese New Wave)
- Television in Japan
- Voice acting in Japan
- Godzilla
- Studio Ghibli
Notes
- ^ Previously, the category was called Best Foreign Language Film before being updated to Best International Feature Film in April 2019.[10][11]
- ^ Rashomon (1951), Gate of Hell (1954), Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1955), Departures (2008), and Drive My Car (2021).
References
- ^ a b c d e f "Statistics of Film Industry in Japan". Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
- ^ "Table 8: Cinema Infrastructure - Capacity". UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Archived from the original on November 5, 2013. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
- ^ "Table 6: Share of Top 3 distributors (Excel)". UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Archived from the original on December 24, 2018. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
- ^ "Top 50 countries ranked by number of feature films produced, 2005–2010". Screen Australia. Archived from the original on October 27, 2012. Retrieved July 14, 2012.
- ^ "Japanese Box Office Sales Fall 18% in 2011". Anime News Network. January 26, 2012. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
- ^ "The 100 Greatest Films of All Time | Sight & Sound". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on September 2, 2012. Retrieved January 13, 2021.
- ^ "Directors' 10 Greatest Films of All Time". Sight & Sound. British Film Institute. December 4, 2014. Archived from the original on August 3, 2012.
- ^ "Directors' Top 100". Sight & Sound. British Film Institute. 2012. Archived from the original on February 9, 2016.
- ^ "The 100 greatest foreign-language films". BBC Culture. October 29, 2018. Retrieved November 1, 2018.
- ^ "Academy announces rules for 92nd Oscars". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. April 23, 2019. Retrieved February 14, 2021.
- ^ "Academy Announces Rule Changes For 92nd Oscars". Forbes. Retrieved February 14, 2021.
- ^ "The Official Academy Awards Database". Retrieved August 4, 2021.
- ^ Tsukada, Yoshinobu (1980). Nihon eigashi no kenkyū: katsudō shashin torai zengo no jijō. Gendai Shokan.
- ^ McKernan, Luke. "Inabata Katsutaro". Who's Who of Victorian Cinema. Retrieved December 14, 2012.
- ISBN 4-00-000210-4.
- ISBN 978-4-916087-25-6.
- ^ Kusahara, Machiko (1999). "Utushi-e (Japanese Phantasmagoria)". Media Art Plaza. Archived from the original on 28 May 2010. Retrieved 29 December 2009.
- ISBN 978-0-8248-2993-3.
- ^ "Seek Japan | J-Horror: An Alternative Guide". Archived from the original on May 28, 2007. Retrieved June 8, 2007.
- ISBN 978-0-7734-6648-7.
- ^ "Who's Who in Japanese Silent Films". Matsuda Film Productions. Retrieved January 5, 2007.
- ISBN 978-0-8264-1790-9.
- ^ Cohen, Aaron M. "Tokuko Nagai Takaki: Japan's First Film Actress". Bright Lights Film Journal 30 (October 2000). Archived from the original on July 14, 2009. Retrieved January 5, 2007.
- ^ See Bernardi.
- ^ See Lamarre.
- ISBN 978-0-7864-3136-6.
- ^ See Gerow, A Page of Madness.
- ^ Nornes, Japanese Documentary Film, pp. 19–47.
- Japanese films of the 1920s
- ^ ja:大尉の娘 (戯曲)
- ^ Anderson and Richie, 77 (1960 Grove Press edition).
- ^ "The Transition to Sound in Japan", Freda Freiberg, Filmsound.org
- ISBN 978-0-19-973166-4. Retrieved April 27, 2018.
- ^ See Nornes, Japanese Documentary Film.
- ISBN 978-0-74869-632-1.
- ^ Hirano 1992, p. 6.
- ^ Richie 2005, p. 108.
- ^ Hirano 1992, p. 45.
- ISBN 9780231549486.
- ^ a b Yomota (2014), pp. 107, 109
- ^ 毎日映画コンクールとは (in Japanese). mainichi.jp.
- ISBN 978-0-67401-276-9.
- ^ a b Dave Kehr, Anime, Japanese Cinema's Second Golden Age, The New York Times, January 20, 2002.
- ^ "BFI | Sight & Sound | Top Ten Poll 2002". Archived from the original on December 22, 2002.
- ^ Ian Christie (August 7, 2017) [September 2012]. "The 50 Greatest Films of All Time". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on April 20, 2018. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
- ^ a b "2012 Directors' poll". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on August 3, 2012. Retrieved November 27, 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-691-01046-5., p.127.
- ^ "Tokyo File 212: Detail View". American Film Institute.
- ISBN 978-4-575-31156-3.
- ISBN 1-55022-348-8. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
- ^ Haddick, Alicia (January 14, 2021). "The History of Kaiju Part 1 – Godzilla (1954): Inspired By Greats, Defining A Genre". OTAQUEST. Archived from the original on August 5, 2021. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
- ^ "Jennifer Lawrence, Game of Thrones, Frozen among new entertainment record holders in Guinness World Records 2015 book". Guinness World Records. September 3, 2014. Archived from the original on December 6, 2016. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
- ^ "Japanese Cinema in the 1950s and 1960s". Archived from the original on October 12, 2020. Retrieved March 28, 2018.
- ^ Nornes, Abé Mark (2011). "Noriaki Tsuchimoto and the Reverse View Documentary". The Documentaries of Noriaki Tsuchimoto. Zakka Films. pp. 2–4.
- ^ Sato, Tadao (1982). Currents in Japanese Cinema. Kodansha. p. 244.
- ^ a b "Thwarted talent hampers Japan's new media age". Business Times. January 13, 1993.
- ^ a b c Masuda, Miki (June 10, 2015). "The Advent of "Mini Theater": The Diversification of International Films in Japan and a New Kind of Film Ephemera". Columbia University Libraries. Retrieved April 16, 2020.
- ^ "ミニシアターが日本映画界に与えてきた影響を考える "世界の多様さ"を教えてくれる存在を失わないために". Yahoo! Japan. April 16, 2020. Retrieved April 16, 2020.
- ^ "The 75th Academy Awards (2003)". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on November 28, 2017. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
- ^ "Japan's 'Drive My Car' wins Academy Award for best international film". March 28, 2022.
- ^ "Japan's 'Drive My Car' wins Golden Globe for best non-English film". The Japan Times. January 10, 2022. Retrieved February 8, 2022.
- ^ a b Patrick Frater (January 28, 2011). "Japanese box office climbs 7% in 2010". Film Business Asia. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
- ^ Patrick Frater (January 27, 2012). "Japanese BO plunges by 18%". Film Business Asia. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
- ^ screendaily.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
- variety.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
- ^ Kevin Ma (January 29, 2014). "Japan B.O. down 0.5% in 2013". Film Business Asia. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved January 30, 2014.
- ^ Gavin J. Blair (January 28, 2014). "Japan Box Office Drops Slightly in 2013". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
- ^ Gavin J. Blair (January 26, 2015). "Japan's Box Office Up 6.6 Percent to $1.75 billion in 2014". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
- variety.com. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
Bibliography
- Anderson, Joseph L.; Donald Richie (1982). The Japanese Film: Art and Industry (Expanded ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-00792-2.
- Baskett, Michael (2008). The Attractive Empire: Transnational Film Culture in Imperial Japan. Honolulu: ISBN 978-0-8248-3223-0.
- 無声映画鑑賞会 (2001). The Benshi-Japanese Silent Film Narrators. Tokyo: Urban Connections. ISBN 978-4-900849-51-8.
- Bernardi, Joanne (2001). Writing in Light: The Silent Scenario and the Japanese Pure Film Movement. ISBN 978-0-8143-2926-9.
- ISBN 0-87011-304-6.
- ISBN 978-0-691-00822-6. Available online at the Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan
- Bowyer, Justin, ed. (2004). The Cinema of Japan and Korea. Wallflower Press, London. ISBN 978-1-904764-11-3.
- ISBN 978-0-520-03605-5.
- Cazdyn, Eric (2002). The Flash of Capital: Film and Geopolitics in Japan. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-2912-1.
- ISBN 978-0-253-20469-1.
- Dym, Jeffrey A. (2003). Benshi, Japanese Silent Film Narrators, and Their Forgotten Narrative Art of Setsumei: A History of Japanese Silent Film Narration. ISBN 978-0-7734-6648-7. (review)
- Furuhata, Yuriko (2013). Cinema of Actuality: Japanese Avant-garde Filmmaking in the Season of Image Politics. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-5490-1.
- ISBN 978-1-929280-51-3.
- ISBN 978-0-520-25456-5.
- High, Peter B. (2003). The Imperial Screen. Wisconsin Studies in Film. The University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-18134-0.
- Hirano, Kyoko (1992). Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo: The Japanese Cinema under the Occupation, 1945–1952. ISBN 978-1-56098-157-2.
- ISBN 978-1-929280-32-2.
- Mellen, Joan (1976). The Waves At Genji's Door: Japan Through Its Cinema. Pantheon, New York. ISBN 978-0-394-49799-0.
- ISBN 978-0-8223-5422-2.
- ISBN 978-0-19-973166-4.
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- Nornes, Abé Mark (2003). Japanese Documentary Film: The Meiji Era through Hiroshima. Minneapolis: ISBN 978-0-8166-4045-4.
- Nornes, Abé Mark (2007). Forest of Pressure: Ogawa Shinsuke and Postwar Japanese Documentary. Minneapolis: ISBN 978-0-8166-4908-2.
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- ISBN 978-0-87011-815-9.
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External links
- Chronology of Japanese Cinema by Joaquín da Silva
- Toki Akihiro & Mizuguchi Kaoru (1996) A History of Early Cinema in Kyoto, Japan (1896–1912). Cinematographe and Inabata Katsutaro.
- Kato Mikiro (1996) A History of Movie Theaters and Audiences in Postwar Kyoto, the Capital of Japanese Cinema.
- Japanese Cinema Database, maintained by the Agency for Cultural Affairs (films after 1896, in Japanese)
- Japanese Film Database, maintained by UniJapan (in English, films after 2002)
- Kinema Junpo Database, maintained by Kinema Junpo (films after 1945, in Japanese)
- National Film Center Database Archived May 20, 2015, at the Wayback Machine (films in the national archive collection, in Japanese)
- Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (includes film database, box office statistics)
- Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese)
- JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film (Japan Society, New York)
- Kinema Club
- Midnight Eye
- Japanese Reference Materials for Studying Japanese Cinema at Yale University by Aaron Gerow
- Japanese Cinema to 1960 by Gregg Rickman
- Japanese Film Festival (Singapore)– An annual curated film program focusing on classic Japanese cinema and new currents, with regular guest directors and actors.