#1
Your Name
A Tokyo boy and a country girl wake up in each other's bodies and slowly realize the connection between them is bigger than puberty.
Watch on: Crunchyroll, Prime Video
Editorial List
Best Japanese Films Streaming Now
From slice-of-life masters to genre-bending auteurs — Japanese cinema online.
This list is curated by the DramaSeek editorial desk and ranks 15 titles. Each entry below is a real, fully reviewed drama or film with its own dedicated page — synopsis, cast, ratings, and where-to-watch information. Inclusion isn't decided by audience rating alone: we factor in cultural footprint, craft, rewatchability, and contribution to the genre.
If you're new to the category, start at #1 and work your way down. If you're a returning fan, scan the list for titles you haven't yet caught. For broader recommendations beyond this list, see our long-form drama discovery handbook.
#2
Departures
A laid-off cellist takes a job at a small-town funeral parlor preparing the dead.
Watch on: Hulu
#3
Shoplifters
A makeshift Tokyo family takes in a small girl they find shivering on a balcony.
Watch on: Hulu, Prime Video
#4
Still Walking
A Japanese family gathers for the anniversary of the eldest son's drowning.
Watch on: Hulu
#5
Suzume
A teenage girl and a cursed young man race across Japan closing the doors that release earthquakes.
Watch on: Crunchyroll, Prime Video
#6
Like Father, Like Son
A successful Tokyo architect learns that the boy he's raised for six years is not his biological son.
Watch on: Hulu
#7
Drive My Car
Two years after his wife's death, a stage actor agrees to direct a multilingual production of Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima.
Watch on: Hulu, Prime Video
#8
Confessions
A middle-school teacher delivers her resignation address — and reveals which two of her students killed her daughter.
Watch on: Tubi
#9
Weathering with You
A runaway teenager in Tokyo meets a girl who can summon sunshine in a city of endless rain.
Watch on: Crunchyroll, Prime Video
#10
The Boy and the Heron
A boy grieving his mother follows a talking heron into a hidden world.
Watch on: Hulu
#11
After the Storm
A failed novelist now working as a private detective tries to spend a typhoon night with his ex-wife and their son.
Watch on: Hulu
#12
A Family
A young man taken in by a yakuza family in 1999 watches the world reorder itself around him over twenty years.
Watch on: Netflix
#13
The Third Murder
A high-priced defense attorney slowly loses certainty about whether his client really committed the murder.
Watch on: Hulu
#14
Outrage
A ruthless yakuza foot soldier rises and rises through a brutal interlocking war.
Watch on: Hulu
#15
Shin Godzilla
A bureaucratic government meeting is interrupted by Godzilla's emergence from Tokyo Bay.
Watch on: Hulu, Prime Video
How we rank these titles
DramaSeek's editorial lists are not pure aggregations of user scores — those are useful but tend to flatten cultural context. We factor in the show's audience reception, its place within the genre's history, and how it stands up to a rewatch. We also weight more heavily for titles that are still legally streaming in major regions, since this is a where-to-watch guide first and an archive second.
The list above is updated as new titles enter the catalogue and as streaming-rights deals shift. Bookmark it and check back periodically for the current state of the field.