Nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 2024 Oscars, the highly anticipated return to fiction feature filmmaking from Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas, Wings of Desire) takes the seasoned writer-director to Tokyo to tell a story celebrating the hidden joys and minutiae of Japanese culture.

In a deeply moving performance that won the Best Actor award at Cannes 2023, Koji Yakusho (Babel, 13 Assassins) stars as Hirayama, a contemplative middle-aged man who lives a life of modesty and serenity, spending his days balancing his job as a dutiful caretaker of Tokyo’s numerous public toilets with his passion for music, literature and photography. As we join him on his structured daily routine, a series of unexpected encounters gradually begin to reveal a hidden past that lies behind his otherwise content and harmonious life.

Channelling Wenders’ affection for the work of Yasujiro Ozu, and combining a refreshingly unstereotypical depiction of the Japanese capital — particularly the experience of typically unappreciated service work — with a soundtrack of iconic hits from the 1960s and 1980s, this is a subtle, shimmering and ultimately life-affirming marvel that champions the meditative beauty of the everyday world around us. Japan’s entry for Best International Film at the 2024 Academy Awards.

In Japanese and English with English subtitles