Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month
Plan 75
Faced with a rapidly ageing population, a government in near-future Japan rolls out an unsettling agenda.
Director: Chie Hayakawa
Overview
In a near-future world, the Japanese government introduces a measure to combat an ageing population. Participants who have passed the age of 75 will receive remuneration for signing up to a euthanasia programme. Michi, a 78-year-old hotel maid, faces intense loneliness when let go from her job and sees the scheme as a solution. Hiromu, a Plan 75 recruitment agent, feels conflicted when a family member signs up to the scheme. While Maria, a Filipino care-worker, takes a job in one of the Plan 75 mass crematoriums.
Chie Hayakawa’s slow-burn dystopian feature debut was developed from her earlier short film within the Ten Years Japan anthology, executive produced by Hirokazu Kore-eda. It’s a devastating yet life-affirming work that digs deep into its personal stories, offering a stinging critique of how we view and care for our older generation.
Related
Orphée Orphée
Drama 1950 96 mins Director: Jean Cocteau
Magical retelling of the Orpheus myth by poet, playwright, artist and filmmaker Jean Cocteau.
Air Doll Air Doll
Drama 2009 116 mins Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
A life-size blow-up doll comes to life and falls in love with a video store clerk in Kore-eda Hirokazu’s haunting, melancholy meditation on urban alienation.
Floating Skyscrapers Floating Skyscrapers
Drama 2013 89 mins Director: Tomasz Wasilewski
Hailed as ‘Poland’s first LGBT film’, Tomasz Wasilewski’s striking drama follows a champion swimmer whose gay relationship causes ripples.
Sweet Sue Sweet Sue
Comedy 2022 100 mins Director: Leo Leigh
A shameless woman finds her new lover’s son wants to divide them in this cringe comic drama starring Maggie O’Neill.
El Sur El Sur
Drama 1983 94 mins Director: Víctor Erice
Victor Erice’s second masterpiece, following The Spirit of the Beehive, is a rarely seen meditation on memory, deception and Spain’s 20th-century history.
20,000 Species of Bees 20,000 Species of Bees
Drama 2023 128 mins Director: Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren
Sofía Otero ignites this warm, rich Spanish drama woven from a child’s probing question: who am I?
Woman of the Dunes Woman of the Dunes
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1964 147 mins Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
Hiroshi Teshigahara's mystifying, serene and provocative fable about an entomologist who becomes trapped in a young widow’s desert shack.
Onibaba Onibaba
Horror 1964 102 mins Director: Kaneto Shindo
Stylish, symbolic and erotically charged Japanese horror in which the fortunes of a murderous mother-and-daughter team are upended by a strangely masked samurai.
Maborosi Maborosi
Drama 1995 109 mins Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Koreeda’s first fiction feature is an exquisite meditation on loss, loneliness, uncertainty, and coming to terms with the past.
Boiling Point Boiling Point
Crime 1990 97 mins Director: Takeshi Kitano
A young baseball player becomes mixed up with a psychotic yakuza, in Takeshi Kitano's hilarious and twisted crime tale.
Violent Cop Violent Cop
Crime 1989 103 mins Director: Takeshi Kitano
In his brutal directorial debut, ‘Beat' Takeshi Kitano plays a renegade cop who frequently resorts to violence and unethical methods to get results.
Tony Takitani Tony Takitani
Drama 2004 76 mins Director: Jun Ichikawa
Award-winning film adapted from Haruki Murakami’s New Yorker tale of solitude and obsession.
La Belle et la Bête La Belle et la Bête
Fantasy 1946 95 mins Director: Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau’s ravishingly restored 1946 film is a cinematic classic. “Five stars. [This] magical exploration of the fairytale is a compelling and bizarre masterpiece” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Orphée Orphée
Drama 1950 96 mins Director: Jean Cocteau
Magical retelling of the Orpheus myth by poet, playwright, artist and filmmaker Jean Cocteau.
Air Doll Air Doll
Drama 2009 116 mins Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
A life-size blow-up doll comes to life and falls in love with a video store clerk in Kore-eda Hirokazu’s haunting, melancholy meditation on urban alienation.
Floating Skyscrapers Floating Skyscrapers
Drama 2013 89 mins Director: Tomasz Wasilewski
Hailed as ‘Poland’s first LGBT film’, Tomasz Wasilewski’s striking drama follows a champion swimmer whose gay relationship causes ripples.
Sweet Sue Sweet Sue
Comedy 2022 100 mins Director: Leo Leigh
A shameless woman finds her new lover’s son wants to divide them in this cringe comic drama starring Maggie O’Neill.
Bande à part Bande à part
Crime 1964 95 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Godard's playful tribute to the Hollywood pulp crime movies of the 1940s, executed with typically Gallic cool.