The Tokyo International Film Festival offers a once-a-year chance to see Japanese movies, both new and classic, with English subtitles. Getting tickets, however, especially for the films in the Competition and Special Screenings sections, may not be easy. With that caveat, here are my personal picks among the Japanese films this year:

Competition

All three of the Japanese films competing for the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix deserve to be in TIFF's highest-profile section, for different reasons.