Koreeda en streaming: siete movies para mirar a la familia de otra manera

Por ahora no inventaron el botón de pausa emocional (aunque a veces uno wishes que existiera). Hirokazu KoreedaFilmography

Hirokazu Koreeda lleva tres décadas discussing family relationships, absence and memory through cinema. His films are available on streaming platforms and, whether one starts with his feature debut or ends with the film that won the Palme d'Or, the same fundamental question is always present: how do people continue living together after loss, rupture or unexpected reunion?

The quiet filmography

Maborosi (1995), his fiction feature debut, is a restrained story about grief and everything that branches out from it. There are no dramatic fireworks here. Instead, there are silences that carry weight, careful observation and emotions that emerge without being pushed to the limit.

After Life (1998) takes that same sensitivity toward a more conceptual terrain. Recently deceased people must choose a single memory to take to the afterlife, while a group recreates those memories in cinematic form. The film combines the everyday mechanics of bureaucracy with an unusual and touching reflection on memory and death.

The international breakthrough arrived with Nobody Knows (2004), a coming-of-age story inspired by real events about four siblings abandoned in a Tokyo apartment. Yûya Yagira won the best actor award at Cannes at just fourteen years old, becoming the youngest winner in that category.

Still Walking (2008) returns to a more domestic scale. A traditionally structured family gathers to commemorate the death of an older son. Everyday dialogue and the pauses between characters reveal what remains unsaid across the years, and also what family continuity can hide.

Like Father, Like Son (2013) turns the family question into an extreme situation: two families discover that their children were switched at birth at the hospital. What should they do with lives already built around the wrong assumptions? The film won the Jury Prize at Cannes.

Our Little Sister (2015) follows three sisters who receive a visit from a fifteen-year-old half-sister after the death of the father who had abandoned them. The warmth between the four characters treats trauma without exaggerating it, which is precisely one of Koreeda's most effective strengths.

Shoplifters (2018), the Palme d'Or winner at Cannes, completes this exploration of chosen families. A group of people without blood ties lives on the margins of Tokyo, and the film shows how affection and care can form a family when legal definitions, accidents and social judgments say something else.

• Maborosi (1995): grief as a quiet, observant feature debut.
• After Life (1998): memory and death, with an unusual procedural twist.
• Nobody Knows (2004): the acclaimed coming-of-age story starring Yûya Yagira.
• Still Walking (2008): family grief, daily dialogue and everything left unsaid.
• Like Father, Like Son (2013): the family crisis caused by an accidental switch at birth.
• Our Little Sister (2015): four sisters, an unexpected arrival and a carefully handled trauma.
• Shopliffers (2018): the Palme d'Or winner about family beyond blood ties.

“La pregunta que recorre esta filmografía no es solo qué hacen las familias, sino cómo se construyen, se rompen y se reconfiguran cuando la vida les cambia el plan.”Ana Paula Gribaudo, Cultura y espectáculos

My recommendation is simple: start with Maborosi if you have never seen Koreeda, and do not watch it with the urgency of a notification. Then move toward Nobody Knows and Shopliffers. The rest can wait; these filmmakers know that, and so should we.