Directing

Nobuhiko Obayashi

Born January 9, 1938 · Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan

Died April 10, 2020 · aged 82

Nobuhiko Obayashi (January 9, 1938 – April 10, 2020) was a Japanese director, screenwriter and editor of films and television advertisements who is well known for his surreal visual style. He began his career as a pioneering figure in Japanese experimental film during the 1960s before transitioning to directing more mainstream works such as television and feature films. Though he remains mostly un…

Known For

The Unspoiled Diamond

The Unspoiled Diamond · 1982

The Unspoiled Diamond

MovieRomanceDrama

A college student has an affair with a married, middle-aged teacher.

House

MovieComedyFantasy

Hoping to find a sense of connection to her late mother, Gorgeous takes a trip with her friends to visit her aunt's ancestral house in the countryside. The girls soon discover that there is more to the old house than meets the eye.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time · 1983

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

MovieScience FictionRomance

Kazuko Yoshiyama is a third-year junior-high-school student. One day, while cleaning the lab, she smells lavender and faints. From then on, she has the power to travel through time.

Song of Goodbye

Song of Goodbye · 2007

Song of Goodbye

It is the second work of the Oita trilogy of Obayashi . Following " Nigori Snow ", Ise Masazo draws a song written by composers and songwriter "Farewell of 22 years old " as a motif and draws a story of love that spans two generations of mother and daughter.

Why She Won't Marry

Why She Won't Marry · 1990

Why She Won't Marry

MovieRomanceDrama

A single mother uses marriage as a business, a way to make money and put food on the table. She regularly patronizes a bar, where she's friendly with the manager, unaware that not only is the man involved with her daughter but he secretly prefers the mother!

Samurai Kids

Samurai Kids · 1993

MovieAdventureFantasy

With the help of a six-inch-tall ancient samurai warrior, a lonely young environmentalist finds self-confidence and new companionship in protecting Japan's beautiful naturality from human mismanagement.

Golden Partners

Golden Partners · 1979

Golden Partners

A motorcycle cop and a freelance photographer, having learned the location of 1 billion yen's worth of the Imperial Navy's gold, team up to salvage it.

An Eater

An Eater · 1963

A meditation on eating people and quiet waitresses.

Movies

The Unspoiled Diamond

The Unspoiled Diamond · 1982

The Unspoiled Diamond

MovieRomanceDrama

A college student has an affair with a married, middle-aged teacher.

House

MovieComedyFantasy

Hoping to find a sense of connection to her late mother, Gorgeous takes a trip with her friends to visit her aunt's ancestral house in the countryside. The girls soon discover that there is more to the old house than meets the eye.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time · 1983

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

MovieScience FictionRomance

Kazuko Yoshiyama is a third-year junior-high-school student. One day, while cleaning the lab, she smells lavender and faints. From then on, she has the power to travel through time.

Song of Goodbye

Song of Goodbye · 2007

Song of Goodbye

It is the second work of the Oita trilogy of Obayashi . Following " Nigori Snow ", Ise Masazo draws a song written by composers and songwriter "Farewell of 22 years old " as a motif and draws a story of love that spans two generations of mother and daughter.

Why She Won't Marry

Why She Won't Marry · 1990

Why She Won't Marry

MovieRomanceDrama

A single mother uses marriage as a business, a way to make money and put food on the table. She regularly patronizes a bar, where she's friendly with the manager, unaware that not only is the man involved with her daughter but he secretly prefers the mother!

Samurai Kids

Samurai Kids · 1993

MovieAdventureFantasy

With the help of a six-inch-tall ancient samurai warrior, a lonely young environmentalist finds self-confidence and new companionship in protecting Japan's beautiful naturality from human mismanagement.

Golden Partners

Golden Partners · 1979

Golden Partners

A motorcycle cop and a freelance photographer, having learned the location of 1 billion yen's worth of the Imperial Navy's gold, team up to salvage it.

An Eater

An Eater · 1963

A meditation on eating people and quiet waitresses.

His Motorbike, Her Island

His Motorbike, Her Island · 1986

His Motorbike, Her Island

MovieRomanceDrama

Ko, a motorbike enthusiast from the city wandering the Japanese countryside, falls for the carefree local Miyo and teaches her how to ride. When Miyo proves herself a biker prodigy, Ko begins to fear she's destined to crash.

Lonely Heart

Lonely Heart · 1985

MovieRomanceComedy

Lonely and love-stricken high-school student Hiroki pursues a girl, but another one mysteriously appears in his life. Is she a figment of his psyche, or is she real?

Sada

On 17 May 1936–during a period of war, economic depression, public unease and growing militarism, a time of unrest and confusion when public opinion was, at best, unpredictable–Sada Abe killed and emasculated her lover. Condemned by the law, Sada finds herself lionised by the press and hailed as a 'saint' of love. Because hers was a crime of passion, the purity of her motivation elevates her from criminal to heroine.

The Discarnates

The Discarnates · 1988

The Discarnates

MovieFantasyDrama

A recently divorced writer is reunited with the ghosts of his parents who died when he was a boy. However, every time he sees them he loses more life energy. Now, he must choose between starting a new life or staying forever in the past.

Kenya Boy

Kenya Boy · 1984

MovieAnimationAdventure

An 11-year-old boy who goes to Africa with his father in 1941. Because he is Japanese, the father is detained by the British. The boy joins up with a beautiful native girl, and the adventure begins.

School in the Crosshairs

School in the Crosshairs · 1981

School in the Crosshairs

MovieFantasyScience Fiction

Mitamura Yuka is a normal, shy high school student. Except for the fact that she has psychic powers. When a new student with similar powers begins to show her skills, creating a force of psychic Nazi student enforcers, Yuka and her friends vow to stop her. But behind it all is a mysterious force that will put Yuka's powers to the ultimate test!

Four Sisters

Four Sisters · 1985

Four sisters with no consanguinity are living together since childhood. When facing misfortune and grievances in lives, they give support and encouragement to each other, even sacrifice oneself to help others.

Inside the Storm of Love

Inside the Storm of Love · 1978

Inside the Storm of Love

MovieThrillerCrime

Comedy-suspense thriller about a girl, who investigates her sister's mysterious death.

I Are You, You Am Me

I Are You, You Am Me · 1982

I Are You, You Am Me

MovieComedyDrama

9th-graders Kazuo and Kazumi take a tumble at a temple in a small seacoast town in Japan. Through supernatural intervention, their minds and bodies are switched, and the result is a touching and hilarious coming-of-age comedy as they attempt to survive the pressures of junior high school life.

Seven Weeks

Seven Weeks · 2014

Relatives gather from afar in wintery Ashibetsu upon the death of patriarch Mitsuo. A mysterious woman named Nobuko suddenly shows up. Her appearance gradually exposes wartime secrets and Mitsuo's unknown past.

Haruka, Nostalgia

Haruka, Nostalgia · 1993

Haruka, Nostalgia

Ayase Shinsuke, a popular writer of a series of girl novels, visits Otaru, the town he grew up in. He meets a strange boy who calls himself by the author's real name.

Making of 'Dreams'

Making of 'Dreams' · 1990

Making of 'Dreams'

MovieDocumentary

This 150-minute documentary, directed by Nobuhiko Ôbayashi on the set of Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, features behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with cast and crew.

The Mouse and His Child

The Mouse and His Child · 1977

The Mouse and His Child

MovieAnimationAdventure

A mouse and his child, the two parts of a single small wind-up toy, go on a quest to become "self-winding".

Bound for the Fields, the Mountains, and the Seacoast

Bound for the Fields, the Mountains, and the Seacoast · 1986

Bound for the Fields, the Mountains, and the Seacoast

MovieDramaComedy

During the fervently nationalist months leading up to World War II, a rebellious teenager is transferred to a new primary school in a small Inland Sea town. He vies with the school’s reigning bully, who takes a romantic interest in his older stepsister. When they learn she’s going to be sold to a brothel to pay off her father’s debts, they form an uneasy alliance to free her.

The Drifting Classroom

The Drifting Classroom · 1987

The Drifting Classroom

MovieScience FictionFantasy

An entire Japanese international grade school—and all within—are mysteriously transported to a foreboding desert wasteland. As the story unfolds, the diminishing student body weathers this apocalyptic crisis while searching for clues about their surroundings, and dealing with psychological breakdown and dangerous exterior forces.

Casting Blossoms to the Sky

Casting Blossoms to the Sky · 2012

Casting Blossoms to the Sky

MovieFantasyDrama

In the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, a journalist arrives in Nagaoka, a city decimated during a WWII air raid and by the 2004 Chūetsu earthquakes, to report on the disaster; there, she learns about the experiences of its inhabitants and stumbles upon a stage play written by an enigmatic student of her ex-boyfriend.