Monster (2023)
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda Run Time: 126 min. Rating: PG-13 Release Year: 2023
Starring: Eita Nagayama, Hinata Hiiragi, Sakura Ando, Soya Kurokawa, Yūko Tanaka
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
About the film:
Winner of the Queer Palm and Best Screenplay (Yuji Sakamoto) at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
After a mother discovers that a teacher’s bullying is behind her young son’s sudden strange behavior, she storms into his school demanding an explanation. Continually left without satisfactory answers—and with an increasingly distressed child—she furiously escalates her concerns to the school board and the media. But as the story unfolds through the multilayered perspectives of mother, teacher, and child, the real truth gradually emerges—and proves much more complex than anyone could have expected.
“Another striking piece of work from a master, a movie that’s so carefully calibrated that you get lost in these characters, forgetting they’re performers…”
—Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
About the filmmaker:
Hirokazu Kore-Eda is an internationally acclaimed Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor. He began his career in television and has since directed more than a dozen feature films, including Nobody Knows (2004), Still Walking (2008), After the Storm (2016), The Truth (2019), and his award-winning first foray into Korean cinema, Broker (2023). He won the Jury Prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival for Like Father, Like Son, and the Palme d’Or in 2018 for Shoplifters, which went on to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
See our upcoming films