Back سينما اليابان Arabic Cine de Xapón AST Кінематограф Японіі Byelorussian Японско кино Bulgarian জাপানের চলচ্চিত্র Bengali/Bangla Cinema del Japó Catalan سینەمای ژاپۆن CKB Japonská kinematografie Czech Japanischer Film German Ιαπωνικός κινηματογράφος Greek

Cinema of Japan

Cinema of Japan
No. of screens3,653 (2023)[1]
 • Per capita2.8 per 100,000 (2017)[2]
Main distributorsToho Company (33.7%)
Toei Company (10.5%)[3]
Produced feature films (2021)[1]
Total490
Number of admissions (2021)[1]
Total114,818,000
Gross box office (2021)[1]
Total¥161.893 billion ($1.27 billion)[1]
National films¥128.339 billion (79.3%)

The cinema of Japan (日本映画, Nihon eiga), also known domestically as hōga (邦画, "domestic cinema"), has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world; as of 2021, it was the fourth largest by number of feature films produced.[4] In 2011, Japan produced 411 feature films that earned 54.9% of a box office total of US$2.338 billion.[5] Films have been produced in Japan since 1897.

During the 1950s, a period dubbed the "Golden Age of Japanese cinema", the jidaigeki films of Akira Kurosawa as well as the science fiction films of Ishirō Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya gained Japanese cinema international praise and made these directors universally renown and highly influential. Some of the Japanese films of this period are now rated some of the greatest of all time: Tokyo Story (1953) ranked number three in Sight & Sound critics' list of the 100 greatest films of all time[6] and also topped the 2012 Sight & Sound directors' poll of The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time, dethroning Citizen Kane,[7][8] while Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) was voted the greatest foreign-language film of all time in BBC's 2018 poll of 209 critics in 43 countries.[9] Japan has also won the Academy Award for the Best International Feature Film[nb 1] five times,[nb 2] more than any other Asian country.[12]

Japan's Big Four film studios are Toho, Toei, Shochiku and Kadokawa, which are the only members of the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (MPPAJ). The annual Japan Academy Film Prize hosted by the Nippon Academy-shō Association is considered to be the Japanese equivalent of the Academy Awards.

  1. ^ a b c d e "Statistics of Film Industry in Japan". Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
  2. ^ "Table 8: Cinema Infrastructure - Capacity". UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Archived from the original on November 5, 2013. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
  3. ^ "Table 6: Share of Top 3 distributors (Excel)". UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Archived from the original on December 24, 2018. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
  4. ^ "Top 50 countries ranked by number of feature films produced, 2005–2010". Screen Australia. Archived from the original on October 27, 2012. Retrieved July 14, 2012.
  5. ^ "Japanese Box Office Sales Fall 18% in 2011". Anime News Network. January 26, 2012. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
  6. ^ "The 100 Greatest Films of All Time | Sight & Sound". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on September 2, 2012. Retrieved January 13, 2021.
  7. ^ "Directors' 10 Greatest Films of All Time". Sight & Sound. British Film Institute. December 4, 2014. Archived from the original on August 3, 2012.
  8. ^ "Directors' Top 100". Sight & Sound. British Film Institute. 2012. Archived from the original on February 9, 2016.
  9. ^ "The 100 greatest foreign-language films". BBC Culture. October 29, 2018. Retrieved November 1, 2018.
  10. ^ "Academy announces rules for 92nd Oscars". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. April 23, 2019. Retrieved February 14, 2021.
  11. ^ "Academy Announces Rule Changes For 92nd Oscars". Forbes. Retrieved February 14, 2021.
  12. ^ "The Official Academy Awards Database". Retrieved August 4, 2021.


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