Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2018, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s new film Shoplifters is a subtle and moving drama about the forces holding a struggling family together. Osamu (Lily Franky), his wife Nobuyu (Sakura Andô) and grandma Hatsue (Kirin Kiki) head the Shibatas, a family living just above the poverty line. When Osamu and his son Shota (Kairi Jyo) take in what appear to be an abandoned little girl, Yuri (Miyu Sasaki), the seams of this brittle and unconventional family begin to unravel.

Shoplifters is a brilliant and nuanced moral inquiry. Tender, compassionate but also enduringly humorous, Koreeda unfolds a drama which is profoundly moving. In the process conspicuously revealing a Japan rarely seen.

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda 121 minutes, Japan, 2018,