Oscar-Nominated: Best Foreign Language Film. “Master Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest film Shoplifters is about a family, but a very different kind. The impoverished Shibatas live in cluttered, cramped contentment in Tokyo; dad Osamu (Lily Franky) and young son Shota (Jyo Kairi) help out by stealing from grocery stores. When they find a tiny girl (Miyu Sasaki) shivering and neglected outside her parents’ home, they steal her, too; absorbing her into their household, which also includes mother Nobuyo (Sakura Ando), grandmother Hatsue (Kirin Kiki) and older sister Aki (Mayu Matsuoka).
“For much of its first half, Shoplifters feels like a loose, unconventional portrait of a happy family, as we watch little Yuri, pigtails flying, running after her new big brother, or Osamu and Shota gleefully chasing around together in an abandoned lot, or Osamu and Nobuyo enjoying a rainy afternoon together. That grubby home feels cozy, a shabby haven in a sometimes unwelcoming world, and there’s clearly love within its walls. But, as Kore-eda slowly and deliberately reveals to us, much of this isn’t quite what it seems, and by the wrenching late scenes of Shoplifters we’re asking a very big question: What, exactly, makes a family?” - Seattle Times