The 40 most popular japanese romance movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Your Name.
2016 · 1h 46m · JP
High schoolers Mitsuha and Taki are complete strangers living separate lives. But one night, they suddenly switch places. Mitsuha wakes up in Taki’s body, and he in hers. This bizarre occurrence continues to happen randomly, and the two must adjust their lives around each other.


Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc
2025 · 1h 40m · JP
In a brutal war between devils, hunters, and secret enemies, a mysterious girl named Reze has stepped into Denji's world, and he faces his deadliest battle yet, fueled by love in a world where survival knows no rules.


A Silent Voice: The Movie
2016 · 2h 9m · JP
Shouya Ishida starts bullying the new girl in class, Shouko Nishimiya, because she is deaf. But as the teasing continues, the rest of the class starts to turn on Shouya for his lack of compassion. When they leave elementary school, Shouko and Shouya do not speak to each other again... until an older, wiser Shouya, tormented by his past behaviour, decides he must see Shouko once more. He wants to atone for his sins, but is it already too late...?


In the Realm of the Senses
1976 · 1h 42m · JP
A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship.


Weathering with You
2019 · 1h 52m · JP
The summer of his high school freshman year, Hodaka runs away from his remote island home to Tokyo, and quickly finds himself pushed to his financial and personal limits. The weather is unusually gloomy and rainy every day, as if taking its cue from his life. After many days of solitude, he finally finds work as a freelance writer for a mysterious occult magazine. Then, one day, Hodaka meets Hina on a busy street corner. This bright and strong-willed girl possesses a strange and wonderful ability: the power to stop the rain and clear the sky.


Violet Evergarden: The Movie
2020 · 2h 20m · JP
As the world moves on from the war and technological advances bring changes to her life, Violet still hopes to see her lost commanding officer again.


The Quintessential Quintuplets Movie
2022 · 2h 16m · JP
When five lovely young girls who hate studying hire part-time tutor Futaro, he guides not only their education but also their hearts. Time spent has brought them all closer, with feelings growing within the girls and Futaro. As they finish their third year of high school and their last school festival approaches, they set their sights on what’s next. Is there a future with one of them and Futaro?


The Wind Rises
2013 · 2h 6m · JP
A lifelong love of flight inspires Japanese aviation engineer Jiro Horikoshi, whose storied career includes the creation of the A-6M World War II fighter plane.


Memoirs of a Geisha
2005 · 2h 26m · US
In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.


Love Letter
1995 · 1h 57m · JP
Hiroko attends the memorial service of her fiancé, Itsuki Fujii, who died in a mountain-climbing incident. Although Itsuki's mother says that their old house is gone, Hiroko records the address listed under his name in his yearbook and sends him a letter. Surprisingly, she receives a reply, and discovers it came from his old classmate, a girl who also happens to be called Itsuki Fujii.


The Last: Naruto the Movie
2014 · 1h 54m · JP
Two years after the events of the Fourth Great Ninja War, the moon that Hagoromo Otsutsuki created long ago to seal away the Gedo Statue begins to descend towards the world, threatening to become a meteor that would destroy everything on impact. Amidst this crisis, a direct descendant of Kaguya Otsutsuki named Toneri Otsutsuki attempts to kidnap Hinata Hyuga but ends up abducting her younger sister Hanabi. Naruto and his allies now mount a rescue mission before finding themselves embroiled in a final battle to decide the fate of everything.


I Want to Eat Your Pancreas
2018 · 1h 48m · JP
After his classmate and crush is diagnosed with a pancreatic disease, an average high schooler sets out to make the most of her final days.


Ocean Waves
1993 · 1h 12m · JP
At Kichijōji Station, Tokyo, Taku Morisaki glimpses a familiar woman on the platform opposite boarding a train. Later, her photo falls from a shelf as he exits his apartment before flying to Kōchi Prefecture. Picking it up, he looks at it briefly before leaving. As the aeroplane takes off, he narrates the events that brought her into his life...


The Twilight Samurai
2002 · 2h 9m · JP
Seibei Iguchi leads a difficult life as a low ranking samurai at the turn of the nineteenth century. A widower with a meager income, Seibei struggles to take care of his two daughters and senile mother. New prospects seem to open up when the beautiful Tomoe, a childhood friend, comes back into he and his daughters' life, but as the Japanese feudal system unravels, Seibei is still bound by the code of honor of the samurai and by his own sense of social precedence. How can he find a way to do what is best for those he loves?


5 Centimeters per Second
2007 · 1h 3m · JP
Three moments in Takaki's life: his relationship with Akari and their forced separation; his friendship with Kanae, who is secretly in love with him; the demands and disappointments of adulthood, an unhappy life in a cold city.


The Last 10 Years
2022 · 2h 4m · JP
Twenty-year-old Matsuri Takabayashi learns that she only has ten years to live due to an incurable disease. She decides to not dwell on her life and not to fall in love—until she meets a man named Kazuto Manabe at a school reunion.


Guinea Pig: Mermaid in the Manhole
1988 · 58m · JP
An artist dealing with the grief of his wife leaving him finds solace in painting the squalor of the sewer. He discovers a trapped mermaid, whom he brings home to heal. Her condition worsens, and she asks the artist to paint her before she dies.


Empire of Passion
1978 · 1h 45m · JP
A married woman and her lover murder her husband and dump his body into a well, but his ghost returns to haunt them as the local gossip intensifies.


Josee, the Tiger and the Fish
2020 · 1h 38m · JP
With dreams of diving abroad, Tsuneo gets a job assisting Josee, an artist whose imagination takes her far beyond her wheelchair. But when the tide turns against them, they push each other to places they never thought possible, and inspire a love fit for a storybook.


A Whisker Away
2020 · 1h 44m · JP
A peculiar girl transforms into a cat to catch her crush's attention. But before she realizes it, the line between human and animal starts to blur.


A Scene at the Sea
1991 · 1h 41m · JP
A deaf garbage collector happens upon a broken and discarded surfboard. The discovery plants in him dreams of becoming a surf champion. Encouraged by his also deaf girlfriend, he persists against all odds.


Urusei Yatsura: Remember My Love
1985 · 1h 33m · JP
The third film finds Ataru transformed into a pink hippopotamus, which sends Lum chasing after the wicked magician responsible, with catastrophic results. With Lum gone, her friends decide that there is no reason to remain, and so Tomobiki slowly returns to normal. The highlight of the film is a high speed chase scene with an angry Lum flying after the mysterious Ruu through the city at night and into a hall of mirrors (and illusion ). Ataru's true feelings for Lum are probably more obvious in this film than any of the others.


Dou kyu sei – Classmates
2016 · 1h 1m · JP
Rihito Sajo, an honor student with a perfect score on the entrance exam and Hikaru Kusakabe, in a band and popular among girls, would have never crossed paths. Until one day they started talking at the practice for their school’s upcoming chorus festival. After school, the two meet regularly, as Hikaru helps Rihito to improve his singing skills. While they listen to each other’s voice and harmonize, their hearts start to beat together.


The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes
2022 · 1h 23m · JP
Urashima Tunnel – Once you enter that tunnel, you can get whatever you want, but at a price. Kaoru Tohno, who seems to have an elusive personality and traumatic past, and Anzu Hanashiro, who is struggling to reconcile her ideal image and true-to-heart attitude, team up to investigate the Urashima Tunnel and get what they want. This is an unforgettable summer story of nostalgia and sprinting in a remote countryside.


The Garden of Words
2013 · 46m · JP
Takao, who is training to become a shoemaker, skipped school and is sketching shoes in a Japanese-style garden. He meets a mysterious woman, Yukino, who is older than him. Then, without arranging the times, the two start to see each other again and again, but only on rainy days. They deepen their relationship and open up to each other. But the end of the rainy season soon approaches.


Gold Kingdom and Water Kingdom
2023 · 1h 56m · JP
Once upon a time, there were two neighboring countries that did not get along. They bickered over trivial things day in and day out. Finally, they went to war over the issue of cleaning up dog feces. God intervened in a hurry and said to the chiefs of the two countries. Country A gives its most beautiful girl to Country B as a bride and Country B gives its wisest young man to Country A as a bridegroom. Then, the princess of country A, Saara, happens to meet a young man from country B...!


Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning
2021 · 2h 18m · JP
Before he was a protector, Kenshin was a fearsome assassin known as Battosai. But when he meets gentle Tomoe Yukishiro, a beautiful young woman who carries a huge burden in her heart, his life will change forever.


Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl
2019 · 1h 30m · JP
In Fujisawa, Sakuta Azusagawa is in his second year of high school. Blissful days with his girlfriend and upperclassman, Mai Sakurajima, are interrupted by the appearance of his first crush, Shoko Makinohara.


Urusei Yatsura: Lum the Forever
1986 · 1h 33m · JP
While performing in a student film, Ataru cuts down Tarozakura, a large, ancient cherry tree. Strange things begin to happen all across Tomobiki: a mountain appears out of nowhere, spring changes to winter, and Lum loses her powers, while those around her act as if she doesn't exist.


You, Like a Star
2026 · 2h 15m · JP
Kai Aono is a high school student. He transfers to a scenic island in the Seto Inland Sea from Kyoto. There, he meets high school student Akimi Inoue, who was born on the island and lives with her mother. They fall in love with each other, but they are forced to make a choice due to their own fates.


10DANCE
2025 · 2h 7m · JP
Two dancers, opposites in all but their art, agree to train together for a competition. At first, they clash, but soon become drawn to each other.


Drawing Closer
2024 · 1h 59m · JP
With only a year left to live, 17-year-old Akito finds new meaning in life by bringing joy to a terminally ill girl who has just six months remaining.


Millennium Actress
2002 · 1h 27m · JP
Documentary filmmaker Genya Tachibana has tracked down the legendary actress Chiyoko Fujiwara, who mysteriously vanished at the height of her career. When he presents her with a key she had lost and thought was gone forever, the filmmaker could not have imagined that it would not only unlock the long-held secrets of Chiyoko’s life... but also his own.


Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet
2021 · 1h 50m · JP
At the opening ceremony of the WSG (World Sports Games) Tokyo Games, a sports festival held once every four years, it is announced that the world's first vacuum superconducting maglev with a maximum speed of 1,000 kilometers per hour will open. While attracting attention from around the world, top executives of large companies are kidnapped from the party venue where WSG tournament sponsors gather. Conan moves toward a solution and eventually finds a connection with the WSG abduction case that occurred 15 years ago in Boston, USA.


The Dangers in My Heart: The Movie
2026 · 1h 41m · JP
Kyotaro Ichikawa is a painfully awkward middle school boy deep in the throes of eighth-grader syndrome, spending his days obsessed reading morbid books. His quiet, isolated world is suddenly turned upside down when Anna Yamada, the classroom star, unexpectedly steps into his life. And before he knows it, she is occupying his every day thoughts.


Five Pink Girls
1978 · 1h 34m · JP
A movie based on Saikaku Ihara’s “Five Women Who Loved Love”, which depicts women such as strippers and married women becoming hostesses in a pink salon.


Asleep
2015 · 1h 31m · JP
Terako is a young woman without a job. She has an affair with Iwanaga who is married. His wife is in a coma. One day, Terako's friend kills herself. After that, Terako sleeps all day long and wakes up only when Iwanaga calls her.


Scoutman
2001 · 1h 54m · JP
Young lovers Mari and Atsushi elope to the Big City that is Tokyo, unfortunately when they run out of money, both need to make some harsh choices. Mari stumbles upon selling ‘Party Tickets’ (for Swingers parties to be exact…), before being drawn into the sex industry to make ends meet. Meanwhile, Atsushi becomes a ‘Scout Man’ – effectively a recruitment agent for the sex industry (i.e. procuring young women for nude modelling, porn movies etc.). The consequences of their respective decisions will ultimately take it’s toll on their young lives.


Fireworks
2017 · 1h 30m · JP
Moshimo, Japan. The annual fireworks festival is about to take place and a group of schoolboys, arguing over whether they are round or flat when viewed from different angles, set out to find it out.


Love Exposure
2008 · 3h 57m · JP
The story of a teenage boy called Yu, who falls for Yoko, a girl he runs into while operating for the sake of sin as an upskirt photographer in an offshoot of the porn industry. His attempts to woo her are complicated by a spot of cross-dressing - which convinces Yoko that she is lesbian - dalliances with kung-fu and crime, and a constant struggle with the guilt that's a legacy of his Catholic upbringing.
Japanese cinema gave the world Kurosawa's samurai epics, Ozu's domestic dramas, Godzilla and the kaiju film, and the J-horror wave that Hollywood spent the 2000s remaking. It also sustains the most developed animation industry on earth.
Romance is the genre most shaped by its era's ideas about intimacy, which makes watching across decades a genuine education. It spans the screwball comedies, the sweeping melodramas, and the modern indie two-hander.