Monster (2023 film)

Monster
Theatrical release poster
Kanji	怪物
Revised Hepburn	Kaibutsu
Directed by	Hirokazu Kore-eda
Written by	Yuji Sakamoto
Produced by	Hirokazu Kore-eda Minami Ichikawa Kenji Yamada Megumi Banse Taichi Itō Hijiri Taguchi [ja]
Starring	Sakura Andō Eita Nagayama Sōya Kurokawa Hinata Hiiragi Yūko Tanaka
Cinematography	Ryuto Kondo[1]
Edited by	Hirokazu Kore-eda
Music by	Ryuichi Sakamoto
Production companies	Gaga Toho Fuji Television Network AOI Pro Bun-Buku
Distributed by	Gaga Toho
Release dates	17 May 2023 (2023-05-17) (Cannes) 2 June 2023 (2023-06-02) (Japan)
Running time	125 minutes[2]
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Box office	US$21.9 million[3]

Monster (Japanese: 怪物, romanized: Kaibutsu) is a 2023 Japanese psychological dramatic mystery thriller film directed, co-produced, and edited by Hirokazu Kore-eda from a screenplay written by Yuji Sakamoto.^[4] It stars Sakura Andō as a mother who confronts a teacher after noticing disturbing changes in her son's behavior.^[5] The film marks the first time Kore-eda has directed a film he did not write himself since Maborosi (1995). The film was the last scoring project by Ryuichi Sakamoto (no relation to Yuji Sakamoto), who died two months before its release; the film is dedicated to his memory.^[6]

Monster had its world premiere at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on 17 May 2023, where it competed for the Palme d'Or and was honored with the Queer Palm as well as the Best Screenplay award. The film was released in Japan on 2 June 2023. It received widespread critical acclaim with special praise for its screenplay, direction, acting, editing and musical score and appeared in many lists of top ten year's best.