Ends Thursday!

Kore-eda’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner is a heartrending glimpse into an often invisible segment of Japanese society: those struggling to stay afloat in the face of crushing poverty. On the margins of Tokyo, a most unusual “family”—a collection of societal castoffs united by their shared outsiderhood and fierce loyalty to one another—survives by petty stealing and grifting. When they welcome into their fold a young girl who’s been abused by her parents, they risk exposing themselves to the authorities and upending their tenuous, below-the-radar existence. The director’s latest masterful, richly observed human drama makes the quietly radical case that it is love—not blood—that defines a family. An NYFF56 selection. A Magnolia Pictures release.


Listen to The Film Comment Podcast‘s discussion of families in film and Shoplifters. Plus, read Aliza Ma’s feature on the film in the Nov-Dec 2018 issue.