Sion Sono

A notorious criminal must break an evil curse in order to rescue an abducted girl who has mysteriously disappeared. (imdb)

A new and more contagious virus emerged after COVID-19 and forced Japan to live an even more severe self-restraint. During the time of COVID-19 it was necessary to maintain a social distance of 2 meters, with this new ferocious virus the distance had to be of at least 50 meters. Otomi was born inside his house and has never been outside. One day he hears a strange noise and leaves the house for the first time in his life. (imdb)

Nothing's as it seems when a charismatic conman and an aspiring film crew delve into the lives of two emotionally scarred women. (Netflix)

A film director, Tadashi Kobayashi, holds an audition for his new film project. Several unique actors and actresses apply for roles but most of them end up participating as extras.

A con man and a would-be filmmaking crew force themselves into the lives of two grief-scarred young women. But nothing is as it seems. (Netflix)

The Bastard and the Beautiful World is an omnibus film consisting of four episodes. (1) Fujiko is running as fast as she can, being chased after by a creepy masked man called Mad Dog. They meet ... (2) A mysterious relationship between a little girl, Utagui, who eats songs to live, and an artist who can't... (3) A married couple sets off on a journey to find the right arm of their dead son. They finally reached a beach in Okinawa... (imdb)

Japanese mini-series created by Sion Sono that tells the story of humanity battling against a vampire tribe.

On the verge of an apocalyptic global event, a clan of vampires lures a crowd of humans into a glamorous hotel in order to turn it into their own private blood farm. A rival family of vamps crashes the party and sparks a violent uprising, hoping to wipe their adversaries off the map for good. (imdb)

Based on the manga series "Shinjuku Swan Kabukicho Skauto Sabaibaru" by Ken Wakui (first published 2005 in Weekly Young Magazine). Tatsuhiko Shiratori (Gou Ayano) works as a scout, recruiting girls to work in the adult entertainment business. He movies to Yokohama from Shinjuku, Tokyo. He comes into conflict with Masaki Taki (Tadanobu Asano) who is the CEO of a scout company. (imdb)

Japan's oldest major movie studio asks a batch of venerable filmmakers to revive its high-brow soft-core Roman Porno series. (imdb)

Years ago Ryoichi believed he was on the road to rock stardom, but those dreams have faded and now he is a lowly clerk whose fellow employees see him as just a loser. Impulsively, he buys a pet turtle, which he names Pikadon, the Japanese word for atomic explosion. When he takes his new little friend to work, he is once again mocked, leading him to make another impulsive decision that he will instantly regret, but which will in turn lead to a bizarre series of unpredictable consequences.

Tatsuhiko joins a scouting agency, recruiting girls for the hostess clubs and brothels in Shinjuku's Kabukicho district, as a turf war breaks out against a competing agency. He crosses paths with the troubled women who enter the city's seedy underbelly. As the conflict heats up, so does the rivalry between Tatsuhiko and Hideyoshi, who appear to have some history between them.

A humanoid robot deliverywoman muses on the mystery of human nature as she drops off parcels around the galaxy. (TIFF)

Female highs school students, including Mitsuko, Keiko and Izumi, become the targets of ghosts with various appearances including a groom with a pig's face and female teacher with a machine gun. (KG)

I am psychic! You are psychic! Everyone is psychic... but still virgin! Full of laughs and through the eyes of a virgin teenager who wishes to become a hero by saving the world with his suddenly acquired psychic power. Based on the comic "Minna! Esper Dayo!" by Kiminori Wakasugi. (imdb)

A yakuza street-gang hip-hop musical epic from Sion Sono. In a futuristic, alternate-world Tokyo, the city is made up of ghetto slums and nightclub playgrounds where gangs of wayward youth rule the streets. The city is carved up into 'hoods, and the crossing of territorial lines quickly leads to riots and rumbles. On the turf ruled by the savage yakuza Big Buppa, the simmering tension is about to boil over into all-out war. (TIFF)

A renegade film crew becomes embroiled with a yakuza clan feud in this wild, perverse and blood-soaked orgy of outrageousness from cult director Sion Sono (Suicide Club). (tiff.net)

When a large earthquake strikes off the shore of Nagashima, the local nuclear power plant explodes, and in response the authorities set up a perimeter within which everyone must be evacuated. But families on both sides of this dividing line find themselves struggling with the consequences of the disaster, and with uncertainty about the level of risk posed by the radiation released by the explosion.

At fifteen, Sumida (Shôta Sometani) is left alone to manage the family's languishing boat-rental business and fend off his drunk and penniless father's bouts of violence. Sumida sees his simple dream for an ordinary future rapidly evapo­rating before his eyes. Sharing similarly humble but fading dreams is his classmate Keiko Chazawa (Fumi Nikaidou), who also happens to have a major crush on him, even though Sumida seems deeply annoyed by her presence. (MUBI)

Izumi is married to a famous romantic novelist but their life seems just a simple repetition without romance. One day, she decides to follow her desires and accepts to be a naked model that fakes sex in front of the camera. Soon she meets a mentor and starts selling her body to strangers but at home, she is still the wife she is supposed to be. One day a brutally murdered body is found in the love hotels district. The police tries to understand what happened. (MUBI)

Equal parts black humour and bloody dementia in this true crime portrait of a Japanese tropical fish dealer responsible for over forty murders. (imdb)

Shiro's struggle with his father's cancer and impending death leads to a realization that he must communicate his love and admiration for him before it's too late. A series of flashbacks reveals their relationship over time, and the trouble Shiro faced connecting to his strict father who was also his teacher and soccer coach. With a consuming secret of his own, Shiro, now in his late twenties and about to get engaged, must eventually learn how to share it with his loved ones. (Japan Society)

Koike Minami competes to win a competition to sing with Avril Lavigne in a concert in Tokyo.

Forced to confess his sins by his priest father, Yu devotes himself to wrongdoing and becomes a legend of sneak photography. Then he meets Yoko, and becomes involved with a mysterious religious cult... (filmex.net)

What if extensions carried the grudge of the individual to which the hair originally belonged and started attacking people wearing it at random? Customs agents discover a huge amount of human hair used as materials for 'hair extensions' along with the dead body of a young girl with a shaved head... (imdb)

Murakami and his girlfriend Mitsuko start a hot air balloon club, which attracts several members, each having their own reasons to join. However, the club doesn't last long and is quickly disbanded. 5 years later, each of the members receive notice that Murakami has died in a traffic accident. This prompts them to once again gather together to throw a party in Murakami's honor. (movie.goo.ne.jp (Translated))

School principal Ozawa Gozo rapes his daughter, Mitsuko, after she sees her parents having sex. Her mother Sayuri witness the event. Gozo now rapes both of them as he pleases, while his family is undermined by incest, suicide, and murder... (imdb)

Noriko's Dinner Table is Japanese filmmaker Sion Sono's semi-sequel to the 2001 cult hit "Suicide Club," a suspense classic concerning a mass suicide of 54 schoolgirls involved in a disturbing cult. (Two Boots Pioneer Theater)

Bored with his boring and typical Japanese life, Shin becomes fixated on one of the most crime-ridden places on Earth, the fictional New York City area known as Hazard.. After being robbed he meets two Japanese criminals who decide to take him in and together the three of them survive by continuing to commit crimes and scamming people out of their money. Eventually they cross the wrong person and local cops get involved, leading to a drawn-out police chase. (nipponcinema.com/trailers/hazard/ (shortened))

Low-profile theater troop actor Mutsugoro Suzuki begins an oneiric journey back to his hometown, marked by his quest to find the one responsible of infecting him with a STD. (imdb)

Two girls and their partners want to visit their father to celebrate Father's Day. However, instead of happy meeting, they will be forced to experience inexplicable things.

A detective is trying to find the cause of a string of suicides. (imdb)

A color-blind man decides to have an operation to cure his vision. (imdb)

While butoh master Akaji Maro is in rehearsal and fashion designer Shinichiro Arakawa preparing for the Paris collection, filmmaker Sion Sono begins a movie about a high school girl who falls in love... with a restaurant cook she's never even talked to. Soon the artists' works come together in a race to help the girl's love.

Seigi no Tatsujin Nyotai Tsubo saguri was directed by Sono in 2000, two years before he shot to international attention with Suicide Circle. He has since referred to it as his straight pink film in some interviews. (KG)

A coming of age story about a teenage girl who lives in the Wind Village in Yamagata Prefecture.

An assassin goes on the road after taking his revenge. Along the way, he meets a young gay couple. Filmed entirely without dialogue.

Keiko Suzuki is a lonely waitress in Tokyo. Her father passes away of cancer and she becomes obsessed with the passage of time. And so, three weeks before her 22nd birthday, she decides to record this period of time in the most accurate way possible, regardless of how lonely or banal this record ends up being. (imdb)

In an alternate history 1997, Tokyo is a gangland war zone, divided between feuding factions from the Chinese Baihubang and the Japanese Kamikaze. The Kamikaze prowl the streets in a campaign bus, spewing vitriol from a loudspeaker; their leader is a bald lunatic whose only abiding passion is for a severed pig's head he keeps in a plastic bag. The hyperactive narrator tells us that ancient race hatred is the war's driving force. (japansociety.org)

Vagina And Virgin is more an experimental work from which you may have an idea how Sono thinks about the relationship of vagina and virgin.

A quiet killer is looking for a room. The real state agent, shy and expressionless, guides him through Tokyo, towards the ruins the decadent economy has left behind, in hopes of finding The Room. (imdb)

Under-achievers Shiro and Keita are on their own since their peers had all left for university three years earlier. Passing the entrance exam is the main problem. Shiro, however, is more interested in finishing a super-8 movie they had begun in secondary school than studying. But Keita feels more pressure on him to pass, and can't share Shiro's enthusiasm. To further complicate Keita's life, he hears that Kyoko, his ex-girlfriend, is coming back for a visit from her studies in Tokyo. (PTP)

A world-class marathon becomes the clashes between the women's and a men's dormitory. Armed with toy machineguns and pistols, the young people challenge each other.

Shot in Super-8 and divided in two parts, the film shows some moments from the life of a young university student, who lives with his family in a house in the outskirts.

A few moments of their love story are retraced, before returning to the gloomy desperation of the young man, who walks into the darkness of a night illuminated by neon signs and goes into a long monologue of love, directed at the girl.

This is the highly experimental first film by the then 22-year-old Sono. The title means "I am Sono Sion!" Shot on 8mm, it is a free-wheeling, intimate, poetic cinematic journal in which the artist contemplates his life as he approaches his birthday. The film clearly reveals the experimental roots of a director whose subsequent work has made him a cult figure both inside and outside Japan. (KG)

Accompanied by the insistent shrilling of an alarm clock and by two love songs, a young man struggles to wake up.