Movies Like Picaresque

If you liked Picaresque (2002), a movie directed by Hidehiro Ito, 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
River's Edge (2018)
★ 6.1/10
High schooler Haruna befriends loner Yamada, then is drawn into the tangled relationship between him, a model and the girl who loves him unreasonably.
2
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…
3
Battle Royale (2000)
★ 7.3/10
In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.
4
Asakusa Kid (2021)
★ 7/10
Before he hit it big, Takeshi Kitano got his start apprenticing with comedy legend Fukami of Asakusa. But as his star rises, his mentor's declines.
5
Maborosi (1995)
★ 7.5/10
A tragedy strikes a young woman's life without warning or reason. She continues living while searching for meaning in a lonely world.
6
The Asadas! (2020)
★ 7.3/10
Masashi is a photographer. He has his parents and an older brother Yukihiro. Through the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Masashi begins to take staged photos of his family.
7
Dolls (2002)
★ 7.5/10
Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose…
8
Colorful (2010)
★ 7.2/10
Upon reaching the train station to death, a dejected soul is informed that he is lucky and will have another chance at life. He is placed in the body of a 14-year-old boy named Kobayashi Makoto, who has just committed…
9
Asako I & II (2018)
★ 6.8/10
Asako lives in Osaka. She falls in love with Baku, a free-spirit. One day, Baku suddenly disappears. Two years later, Asako now lives in Tokyo and meets Ryohei. He looks just like Baku, but has a completely different…
10
Norwegian Wood (2010)
★ 6.4/10
Toru recalls his life in the 1960s, when his friend Kizuki killed himself and he grew close to Naoko, Kizuki's girlfriend, and another woman, the outgoing, lively Midori.
11
The Dry (2021)
★ 6.8/10
Aaron Falk returns to his drought-stricken hometown to attend a tragic funeral. But his return opens a decades-old wound - the unsolved death of a teenage girl.
12
An Actor's Revenge (1963)
★ 6.6/10
In Edo Japan, a kabuki actor seeks revenge against the three men who drove his parents to their deaths years ago.
13
Hachiko (1987)
★ 7.8/10
The tragic, true story about Hachikō, an Akita dog who was loyal to his master, Professor Ueno, even after Ueno's death.
14
Laplace's Witch (2018)
★ 6.2/10
An environmental analyst is asked by the police to determine if two deaths by hydrogen sulfide poisoning are an accident - or a murder. But when he meets a young woman at both sites, a scientific mystery begins.
15
The Castle of Sand (1974)
★ 7.3/10
Two detectives are tasked to investigate the murder of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a Tokyo rail yard.
16
Fukushima 50 (2020)
★ 6.5/10
Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi facility in Japan risk their lives and stay at the nuclear power plant to prevent total destruction after the region is devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
17
From Up on Poppy Hill (2011)
★ 7.5/10
Yokohama, 1963. Japan is picking itself up from the devastation of World War II and preparing to host the 1964 Olympics—and the mood is one of both optimism and conflict as the young generation struggles to throw off…
18
12 Suicidal Teens (2019)
★ 6.4/10
A group of boys and girls, twelve in total, gather at an abandoned hospital to die for various different reasons. There, they find the body of a dead boy. The group of twelve attempt to find the person who killed the…
19
Case Closed: The Crimson Love Letter (2017)
★ 6.5/10
Bombing case at Nichiuri TV in autumn. The Satsuki Cup, which crowns the winner of Japan's Hyakunin Isshu, is currently being filmed inside the facility. The incident results in a big commotion and, while the building…
20
Suspect X (2008)
★ 7.6/10
A male corpse is discovered with a smashed face and burned hands. Strangely, the cause of death is determined to be strangulation. When Detective Kaoru Utsumi attempts to corroborate the victim’s ex-wife’s alibi she…