Best movies like Big Bird in Japan

A musical adventure for the whole family!

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Big Bird in Japan Starring Caroll Spinney, Brian Muehl, Maiko Kawakami, Yôko Haruta, and more. If you liked Big Bird in Japan then you may also like: The Only Son, Record of a Tenement Gentleman, The Boy and the Beast, Café Lumière, Daytime Shooting Star and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

While visiting Japan, Big Bird wanders off from a guided tour bus in Tokyo, and is lost until a Japanese woman helps him get to where he needs to go. The woman, however, is hiding a secret.

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Know any good movies to watch like Big Bird in Japan 1988. With a similar plot or stoyline. Suggest it.

The Only Son

A silk factory worker is persuaded to support her son's education up to a college level despite their poverty. Many years later, she travels to Tokyo to visit her son.

Record of a Tenement Gentleman

An errant salaryman's son gets lost until a man from the Tokyo tenements brings him to vendor Tane, who's reluctant to let the kid board.

The Boy and the Beast

Kyuta, a boy living in Shibuya, and Kumatetsu, a lonesome beast from Jutengai, an imaginary world. One day, Kyuta forays into the imaginary world and, as he's looking for his way back, meets Kumatetsu who becomes his spirit guide. That encounter leads them to many adventures.

Café Lumière

Making her way through life by forming superficial relationships, Yoko keeps everyone at arm's length, whether it's her father and stepmother or Hajime, the owner of a small bookstore who could be the father of her unborn child. Yoko seems most at home when she's riding the train, speeding around the city with only her thoughts to entertain her.

Daytime Shooting Star

Fifteen-year-old country girl Suzume Yosano has to move to Tokyo to live with her uncle due to her father's transfer. She bumps into a mysterious man who ends up taking her to her uncle's place after she gets lost. Turns out, Suzume will be seeing him a lot more often once she starts school because... he's her homeroom teacher?!

Chupa

While visiting family in Mexico, a lonely boy befriends a mythical creature hiding on his grandfather's ranch and embarks on the adventure of a lifetime.

Tokyo Godfathers

On Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo discover a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents.

Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird

Big Bird is sent to live far from Sesame Street by a pesky social worker. Unhappy, Big Bird runs away from his foster home, prompting the rest of the Sesame Street gang to go on a cross-country journey to find him.

I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story

A documentary about Caroll Spinney who has been Sesame Street's Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since 1969. At 78-years-old, he has no intention of stopping.

Lost in Translation

Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.

Sweet Bean

The master of a dorayaki pastry store hires a 76-year-old woman whose talents attract customers from all over. But she's hiding a troubling secret. Life's joys are found in the little details, and no matter what may be weighing you down, everyone loves a good pastry.

Tokyo Fiancée

A Japanophile young Belgian woman in Tokyo falls into a whirlwind romance with a Francophile Japanese student, in this charming and tender tale of young love and cultural discovery.

Tokyo File 212

A Communist spy ring in Japan is hard at work trying to sabotage the American war effort during the Korean War, using kidnapping, murder and a disturbed former kamikaze pilot. A U.S. secret agent, posing as a reporter, is dispatched to Tokyo to put a stop to these nefarious activities.

Tokyo Twilight

Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

A lost cat, a giant talkative frog and a tsunami help a bank employee without ambition, his frustrated wife and a schizophrenic accountant to save Tokyo from an earthquake and find a meaning to their lives.

Bubble

In an abandoned Tokyo overrun by bubbles and gravitational abnormalities, one gifted young man has a fateful meeting with a mysterious girl.

Tokyo Idols

This exploration of Japan's fascination with girl bands and their music follows an aspiring pop singer and her fans, delving into the cultural obsession with young female sexuality and the growing disconnect between men and women in hypermodern societies.

Hospitalité

In this black comedy the lives of a timid small-time printer and his young wife are turned inside out by the arrival of a stranger who moves in and takes over their world. Set in a village-like outpost in the heart of Tokyo, this is a wry commentary on Japanese xenophobia. Kiki Sugino heads a spritely ensemble cast.

Midnight Bus

Middle-aged Riichi Takamiya drives the midnight bus between Tokyo and snow-swept Niigata, where he lives. Just as the relationship with his younger girlfriend is about to bloom, his emotionally desperate ex-wife suddenly reappears.

The Wings of the Kirin

A man's body is found under the statue of a winged kirin in the Nihombashi area of Tokyo. A suspect named Yashima has a car accident and falls unconscious while he is attempting to run away. Yashima's lover Kaori comes from Fukushima and tells detectives that he is absolutely not a criminal. Meanwhile, Detective Kyoichiro Kaga's (Hiroshi Abe) investigates and uncovers a point of contact between the dead body and Yashima. A hidden fact of the victim is revealed which even his children did not know about...

Fine, Totally Fine

Two listless friends and a clumsy girl try to make sense of their lives, and perhaps find love along the way.

Tokyo Park

Koji, a university student and budding photographer, is asked by a man to secretly take pictures of his wife Yurika. As a result, his relationships with a girl who visits his part-time workplace called Tominaga and his step-sister Misaki begin to change subtly.

The Woman Who Took the Local Paper

A man and a woman committed double suicide in Kanazawa City. Immediately after the incident, Yoshiko Shiota, a woman living in Tokyo, contacts the local newspaper of Kanazawa, saying she wants to read the novel serialized in it by Ryuji Sugimoto. How did this woman know the novel is serialized in the newspaper? And why does she want to start reading it in the middle of the story? Which article was she actually interested in? Sugimoto cannot help making his own investigations about Yoshiko, but the more he searches, the more astonishing facts come to light...

Tokyo Pop

A young rock singer is not appreciated by her band, and gets a postcard from Japan saying "wish you were here". She takes what little money she has including ex-boyfriend's rent money and goes to Tokyo. She has numerous cross-cultural adventures and ends up singing with a Japanese rock group looking for a gaijin gimmick.

Pineapple Tours

An anthology film consisting of three linked stories by different directors, all set on an Okinawan island. The first story, 'Aunt Reiko' concerns an opera singer who travels back to her home island to consult a spiritualist about the loss of her voice. The second story, 'Haruko & Hideyoshi' concerns an outsider to the island who is tricked into marrying an island girl after visiting the island god of fertility with her. The final story, 'Bomb Kids' concerns two kids in a punk band who set out to win (or steal) a large amount of money. Linking these stories is the ongoing search for an unexploded WWII bomb, a large model pineapple, and the possibility of a hotel development coming to the island...

Earthquake Bird

Tokyo, Japan, 1989. Lucy Fly, a foreigner who works as a translator, begins a passionate relationship with Teiji, a mysterious man obsessed with photography.

Seven Nights in Japan

Handsome Prince George arrives on board his ship in Japan. Youthful, immaculate in naval uniform and smiling broadly, he goes through the complicated formalities of being greeted by a host nation. But housed with the Ambassador and his family, the Prince finds the atmosphere stuffy and dull; he longs for freedom and, for once, rebels against his upbringing with all its constraints and responsibilities, escaping for a week of romance, and unexpected drama…

Mobile Detectives: The Movie 3

Kai, Mei, and Yui are high school students. The three girls are also detectives and they solve cases using their reasoning abilities. It's also a secret that these girls are detectives. One day, the three high school girls receive a call from Nanba Kazuhiro of the Metropolitan Police Department. A letter was received in which the writer threatened to kill the popular idol group Morning Musume. Kai, Mei, and Yui go to the Morning Musume concert to guard them. After the concert, Mei is with members of Morning Mutsume on the tour bus, but Mei suddenly disappears.

Secret Zone of Tokyo

The third installment of the "Night front line" series. An erotic entertainment action in which two young men come to Tokyo and meet face-to-face with a nocturnal organization that controls women with sex and violence.

Sesame Street

Big Bird and his Sesame Street friends are mysteriously expelled from their neighborhood, finding themselves in Manhattan. They team up with a plucky history show host Sally Hawthorne who’s on a quest to save her show and prove that Sesame Street actually exists, with obstacles created by the “evil” Mayor, with reasons of his own for keeping Sesame Street hidden from the world.

Sesame Street: The Magical Wand Chase

A playful bird snatches Abby's magic wand during a hot-air balloon ride leaving Elmo, Abby and friends on a colorful adventure.

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

Big Bird worries when Oscar tells him that if Santa Claus can't fit down the chimney on Christmas Eve, nobody would get presents.

Tokyo Trash Baby

Miyuki doesn't need to stalk the man she's crazy about, because he lives one floor down. He's Yoshinori, a not very successful long-haired musician. Miyuki, a coffee-shop waitress, nods when they pass on the stairs, but hasn't yet dared to strike up a conversation. Instead she slips out every night and helps herself to his trash.

Once Upon a Sesame Street Christmas

This holiday special goes back in time to show how Elmo's ancestors--not to mention those of Grover, Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster--helped transform "the most unfriendly street in town" into the bright, kind, music-filled place it is today.

Suicide Bus

A young girl named Mitsuki receives a ticket for a bus tour from her uncle. The tour appears to be normal (expect that everyone appears to be quite sombre), but Mitsuki learns its true purpose: the other passengers and the tour manager have a suicide pact to send the bus over a cliff so their families can collect the insurance money.

A Holiday in Tokyo

May Kawaguchi is a famous Japanese fashion designer. Returning to Tokyo from her home in New York, she travels incognito with a tour group, in hopes of having a quiet vacation without being noticed. But she is spotted and the press has a field-day with the returning celebrity. Her hopes of rest shattered, she agrees to put on a large-scale fashion show.

Hideko the Bus Conductor

Okoma, a witty young woman working as a conductor in an old, rickety bus in Kōfu, Yamanashi (rural Japan), has a creative idea that could avert the dwindling number of passengers when her job and the bus company itself are at stake.

Tales from the Tour Bus: Rock 'n' Roll on the Road

Rock legend and tour bus aficionado Rick Wakeman takes us on a time-travelling trip through the decades in this first-hand account of rockers on the road from the late 1950s to the 80s and beyond. It's a secret history of transport cafes, transit vans, B&Bs, sleepless roadies and of loved ones left at home or, on one occasion, by the roadside. Also audiences both good and bad, and the gigs themselves - from the early variety package to the head clubs, the stadiums, and the pubs.

To Tokyo

Challenged by her step-sister to return home, a young woman hiding from her past in a remote Japanese village is abducted into a fantastic wilderness and pursued by a monster, with only four nights to escape to Tokyo and face her demons.

Yakobana Ginza Shogo Hostess

It is difficult to stand out at a Ginza club where every hostess wants to be number one. It is competitive. One of them is a virgin and also just eighteen years old. She wants to become the number one hostess to help pay the bills for her family. She advertises herself as 'virginity for sale.' It is an auction and the prize goes to the highest bidder. She doesn't have hostess skills however. The club's manager was the number one hostess in all of Ginza and helps the younger woman.

Flame of My Love

A woman's struggle for equality in Japan in the 1880s. Eiko Hirayama leaves Okayama for Tokyo, where she helps the fledgling Liberal Party and falls in love with its leader Kentaro Omoi, just as the party is being disbanded by the government.

Lost Paradise in Tokyo

Mikio and his older brother Saneo, who is mentally handicapped, live together and have just buried their father. One day, Mikio hires a hooker named Marin for his brother. Marin is an underground singer who goes by the name Fala. A video producer who is filming Fala's documentary finds out about her double life, and proposes to film her and Saneo's sex life. Dreaming about leaving Tokyo with Saneo with a huge sum of money from the film, Mikio and Marin agree to the offer.

Don't Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

As the Metropolitan Museum of Art closes, Big Bird decides to leave his Sesame Street friends behind in search of Snuffy. Once locked inside for the night, educational hilarity ensues as Big Bird and Snuffy team up to help a small Egyptian boy solve a riddle - as the rest of the cast searches for their big, yellow friend.

Same Old, Same Old

Focusing on the lives (and a few deaths) of three filmmakers, Rikiya Imaizumi (Their Distance, Sad Tea) tackles weighty themes in this new ensemble drama set in Tokyo and Fukushima. Director Kajiwara, struggling to earn a living from film, gets an offer to do a music video. But it doesn’t go well and he finds himself in an unexpected situation. Actress Aoba witnesses her filmmaker boyfriend's suicide and decides to hide his body. Gardener Taro plans to close the family business he inherits from his father, but receives a phone call one night from the self-declared girlfriend of his estranged twin, Jiro.

Sayo

Nagisa lost her twin sister, Sayo, two years ago. Every day she prays at a local temple in Tokyo to speak to her sister. One night, on her way home, a strange taxi driver picks her up and takes her to another world, the land of the souls where she goes on a journey to reach out to her sister one last time.

ayumi hamasaki Rock'n'Roll Circus Tour FINAL ~7days Special~

A national tour to mobilize 40 million people "ayumi hamasaki ARENA TOUR 2010 ~ Rock'n'Roll Circus" successfully closed, the Ayumi Hamasaki and then held the finale in 10 performances "ayumi hamasaki Rock'n'Roll Circus Tour FINAL-7days Special" , the National Yoyogi Stadium in Tokyo for seven days to start performing. Ayumi Hamasaki music and dance, showing a world-class performances. Blu-ray Disc complete collection of 11 October 2010 the final day performances.

BUMP OF CHICKEN TOUR 2019 aurora ark TOKYO DOME

Rock sensation Bump of Chicken pulls out all the stops as they take the stage in the final performance of their highly successful 2019 aurora ark tour.

The Beautiful Beast

The classic Beauty and the Beast tale told with a twist! Isabelle is all beauty - on the outside. When she gets lost on a skiing vacation, she is helped by Jeremy, a man hiding from the world and his past. He's the first person to put Isabelle in her place, and Isabelle realizes she might be more beast than she wants to admit. Through Jeremy's influence she begins to change - and fall in love.

Roll Bus Roll: A Jeffrey Lewis Documentary

Roll Bus Roll casts an eye at the life and art of Jeffrey Lewis, one of the most prominent musicians associated with NYC's anti-folk scene. The film opens with an exploration of the anti-folk, offering a glimpse into the unique movement that challenges traditional folk conventions. Then the viewer follows Jeffrey on tour, across cities and continents.

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