Movies Like Happy Days of Mr. M

If you liked Happy Days of Mr. M (1979), a movie directed by Mikio Yamazaki, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
Millennium Actress (2002)
★ 7.9/10
Documentary filmmaker Genya Tachibana has tracked down the legendary actress Chiyoko Fujiwara, who mysteriously vanished at the height of her career. When he presents her with a key she had lost and thought was gone…
2
Dream Scenario (2023)
★ 6.6/10
Hapless family man Paul Matthews finds his life turned upside down when millions of strangers suddenly start seeing him in their dreams. But when his nighttime appearances take a nightmarish turn, Paul is forced to…
3
Ocean Waves (1993)
★ 6.4/10
At Kichijōji Station, Tokyo, Taku Morisaki glimpses a familiar woman on the platform opposite boarding a train. Later, her photo falls from a shelf as he exits his apartment before flying to Kōchi Prefecture. Picking…
4
Pompo the Cinephile (2021)
★ 7.2/10
Operating out of the movie capital "Nyallywood," Pompo has been shooting one B-grade entertainment flick after another that anyone would enjoy. One day, Pompo's "movie buff" assistant Gene spots a new script written by…
5
Gantz (2010)
★ 6.5/10
After trying to rescue a man on the subway tracks, two teens wake up in a room dominated by a mysterious black sphere that sends them to hunt down and kill aliens hiding on Earth.
6
Inuyasha the Movie 3: Swords of an Honorable Ruler (2003)
★ 7.7/10
Inuyasha and his brother, Sesshomaru, each inherited a sword from their father after his death. However, their father had a third sword, named Sounga, that he sealed away. Seven hundreds years after his death, Sounga…
7
The Garden of Words (2013)
★ 7.6/10
Takao, who is training to become a shoemaker, skipped school and is sketching shoes in a Japanese-style garden. He meets a mysterious woman, Yukino, who is older than him. Then, without arranging the times, the two…
8
Mushi-Shi: The Next Chapter - Drops of Bells (2015)
★ 8.3/10
On a warm summer day, a boy heard the sound of bells ringing, as if in celebration, in the mountain near his home. Several years later in that same mountain, the mushishi Ginko stumbles upon a young girl in a mountain…
9
Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974)
★ 7.5/10
A director faces creative block while working on his latest film – a reimagination of his adolescence growing up in a mountain village in rural Japan.
10
Paprika (2006)
★ 7.8/10
Dr. Atsuko Chiba is a research psychologist who uses a device called the DC Mini to enter her patients' dreams, wherein she adopts the alter-ego "Paprika". When the device is stolen, she must stop rogue elements from…
11
Tokyo Decadence (1992)
★ 6/10
A submissive hooker goes about her trade, suffering abuse at the hands of Japanese salarymen and Yakuza types. She's unhappy about her work, and is apparently trying to find some sort of appeasement for the fact that…
12
Radiance (2017)
★ 6.5/10
The story follows the social intercourse between a cameraman, Masaya, with a visual impairment, and Misako who disconnects from the world.
13
A Page of Madness (1926)
★ 7.3/10
An elderly man visits his mentally ill wife in a psychiatric hospital. Years earlier, she had tried to drown their child and then take her own life. Crushed by guilt and powerless to change what has happened, he…
14
Imprint (2006)
★ 6.8/10
An American journalist travels through 19th-century Japan to find the prostitute he fell in love with but instead learns of the physical and existential horror that befell her after he left.
15
Symbol (2009)
★ 6.7/10
A Japanese man in polka-dot pajamas wakes up in a room with no doors. Meanwhile, a middle-aged Mexican wrestler prepares for his most challenging match ever.
16
Samurai Rebellion (1967)
★ 8.2/10
The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped by the lord. Her husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to rescue her.
17
The Moment You Fall in Love (2016)
★ 7.5/10
Following Natsuki Enomoto's confession rehearsals with Yuu Setoguchi, their younger siblings Kotarou and Hina struggle to confess their own love. Despite a disastrous first meeting in middle school with her…
18
Chang Can Dunk (2023)
★ 6.7/10
Chang, a 16-year-old, Asian American, bets the high school basketball star that he can dunk by Homecoming. The bet leads 5' 8" Chang on a quest to learn to dunk—not only to impress his crush, Kristy, but to gain the…
19
Dreams (1990)
★ 7.7/10
Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on…
20
Female Yakuza Tale (1973)
★ 6.1/10
Ocho is accidentally captured by a drug trafficking cartel who use Chinese women to smuggle drugs into Japan by hiding it in their vaginas. She is tortured, and manages to escape, fighting both the male yakuzas and a…