It’s a foolish endeavour to try to determine the best film, year by year, of any filmmaking nation, let alone one with so extraordinary a cinematic history as Japan. We’re foolish, too, if we think we can have a true grasp on a nation’s cinema from our crow’s nest on the other side of the globe, where so much of what we’ve been able to see has been funnelled through gatekeepers. Festival programme
![The best Japanese films – one per year](https://cdn-ak-scissors.b.st-hatena.com/image/square/31aab17fd7f3509e51c29719c443787ffacb20e5/height=288;version=1;width=512/https%3A%2F%2Fcore-cms.bfi.org.uk%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Fresponsive%2Fpublic%2F2020-08%2Fshoplifters-2018-group-shot.jpeg%2F1200x630-cropped%2Fshoplifters-2018-group-shot.jpeg)