Best movies like Follow the Light

Komaki is a thirty-something woman that has had it with her perpetually unemployed aspiring writer husband. Following the divorce, she moves back to her Tokyo-area hometown of Kyojima along with her young daughter, Non-chan. However, she has a difficult time making ends meet in big city Tokyo. Her solution? Take a chance and try opening her very own bento (lunch box) shop.

On a trip to the countryside to pick safflowers, a young Japanese woman recalls her life when she was ten years old.

Dr. Matthew Clark is the head of a state institution for intellectually disabled children. Jean Hansen, a former music teacher anxious to give her life some meaning, joins the staff of the hospital. Jean, who tries to shelter the children with her love, suspiciously regards Dr. Clark's stern training methods. She becomes emotionally involved with 12-year-old Reuben Widdicombe, who has been abandoned by his divorced parents.

As a pair of towers in Tokyo are being prepared for their grand opening, there is a series of murders of people connected to the towers. Conan suspects that the mysterious Syndicate may also be involved.

A ship runs aground on a mysterious atoll leading to an investigation by insurance representative Kusanagi, who discovers an ancient bead that he gives to his daughter Asagi. Meanwhile, ornithologist Nagamine investigates reports of a new species of large bird named Gyaos. As the Gyaos begin to attack, an ancient guardian with a bond to Asagi emerges.

The fictional world of Royston Vasey is facing apocalypse and the only way to avert disaster is for our nightmarish cast of characters to find a way into the real world and confront their creators. From present day Soho to the fictional film world of 17th Century Britain, the residents must overcome countless bizarre obstacles in their bid to return Royston Vasey to safety.

When their car crashes, 4 college kids seek help in Emeryville - a dilapidated village. New comers discover that place was once a ground for clinical experiments gone awry and plot an escape. They find themselves hunted by crazies.

Gulley Jimson is a boorish aging artist recently released from prison. A swindler in search of his next art project, he hunkers down in the penthouse of would-be patrons the Beeders while they go on an extended vacation; he paints a mural on their wall, pawns their valuables and, along with the sculptor Abel, inadvertently smashes a large hole in their floor. Jimson's next project is an even larger wall in an abandoned church.

A spell of time in the life of a family in rural Tochigi prefecture. Yoshiko is not an ordinary housewife, instead working on an animated film project. Uncle Ayano, a successful music producer, is looking to get his head together after living in Tokyo. Meanwhile, Sachiko is concerned with why she seems to be followed by a giant version of herself. As the lazy days pass by, each member of the family is followed in a series of episodic vignettes.

An aging widower fights family disapproval when he falls in love with a gangster's widow.

A world wide electrical outage occurs. Everything that requires electricity comes to a stop. Tokyo is nearly ruined. Yoshiyuki Suzuki decides to escape from Tokyo with his family.

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.

A sleazy chef is forced to face the truth about the man he has become and realizes that he has the chance to begin again.

Noboru runs a real-estate agency in a provicial Hokkaido mountain town. He is despised by the locals for his aggressive business practices. His daughter, Nana—a high school senior—bears the brunt of their anger; and yet, she resolves to stay after graduation, even though her father wants her to leave with him for Tokyo.

Two detectives are tasked to investigate the murder of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a Tokyo rail yard.

Tells of the childhood of two nine-year-old twins in a rural village in Japan after World War 2. Includes the boys relationships with their schoolteacher mother, civil servant father, elderly landlord, a rough new boy at the school, and three mysterious spirits in the form of old women.

Husband and wife Michiko and Takao move from their urban existence in Tokyo to the isolated, rural farming village where Takao grew up.

A high-schooler involved in turn-of-the-decade student movements works to escape his comfort zone and apply himself.

Summoned by an Indian princess, Tarzan travels to India where hundreds of wild elephants are in danger. A company is building a hydroelectric dam and the contractors have only a few weeks to finish the job. The building of the dam will flood the valley surrounded by mountains. There is one pass through which the elephant herd can escape but that is being closed. Tarzan comes up against an old nemesis, Bryce, the chief engineer. Bryce undertook a similar dam project in Africa and had a penchant for shooting elephants. It's up to Tarzan to organize the move before Bryce manages to close the pass.

After helping a pregnant girl escape from their reform school and facing the resulting punishment, a clique of delinquent girls eventually reunites a year later in Tokyo to face different challenges in the form of yakuza and… street vendors.

Even when you're fortunate enough to live in a place as beautiful as the country village of Asahigaoka, you should never turn down the chance to explore someplace else. So, when Suguru wins a free trip to Okinawa just as the summer vacation is coming to an end, the town's entire school… all 5 students and 1 teacher, plus the local candy shop owner… can hardly wait for their 3-day trip to begin! Between kayaking, swimming and meeting new people, there's always something fun happening, but the best part of all is that big city girl Hotaru and her new small-town friends all get to explore the wonders of Japan's famous vacation destination together. Prepare for the perfect trip as the whole gang boards the plane!

Set in the halls of Austen Middle School, a newly single middle-school teacher is covertly set up with a divorced dad after his daughter – one of her students – begins a matchmaking business for a school project she assigned her class.

In a Tokyo boarding house a group of students and recent graduates struggle to complete their studies and find jobs. Considered a lost film.

Hamaguchi wrote and directed this film as a graduation project for the students at ENBU Seminar (film and theater school in Tokyo) when he taught there. It is a three-part film: The first part is a documentary-style production of a play; Then the actual full stage production of the play; and the epilogue. Poetry and written words play the central role in the movie.

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.

Shy and smart College freshman, Stacey, falls for the charming grad student, Benjamin. Her whole world is changing and she just wants to have fun, hang with the girls, study. But it isn't long before Benjamin's abusive, narcissistic qualities begin to show. Can she save herself and get out before its too late.

A former athlete, Kōhei is a swimmer with a wife and child. One day his wife asks him to sign the divorce papers. From shock, he escapes to alcohol, finding himself one night in Tokyo’s gay district, Shinjuku Ni-chōme, where his fateful meeting awaits with Yūtaka, a beautiful twink. Yūtaka makes a living from live sex webcams with men, but his dream is to become an anime creator. Yūtaka however is tortured because he still hadn't come out to his father who collapsed from illness. Kōhei and Yūtaka both carry a cross. They hesitate but can't stop being drawn to each other as if they need each other. The two fall for each other, even at times hurting the other. Kōhei however begins to struggle about what it means "to love somebody" and questions his "sexuality", through his contacts with different personalities in the gay district. Meanwhile, Yūtaka encounters his gay ex Atsushi, and starts to realize he will never be able to be with Kōhei, who is gay-for-pay.

It's a man's world. Shimamura, an artist, comes to this snowbound town to rejuvenate himself. He connects with Komako, a geisha he met on a previous trip, and it seems like love. She's the foster daughter of a local family, almost engaged to the family's son Yukio, now dying of consumption. He's tended by his sister Yuko who's angry at Komako for abandoning her brother. Shimamura returns to Tokyo but promises he will be back soon. In anticipation of his return, Komako breaks with her patron and her family loses their home. Complications arise when Shimamura doesn't come back as promised. Then Komako discovers that he and Yuko knew each other in Tokyo. Can Komako escape destiny?

Summer in Closed Eyes is the journey of the girl named Ha (Summer), played by Phuong Anh Dao. The story begins when Ha is coming to the town of Higashikawa, Hokkaido, Japan to find her father (Cong Ninh). She explored the snow-capped region in summer, where her father lived for a long time and here she met the Japanese guy – Akira (Takafumi Akutsu)

A English aristocrat causes a scandal when she divorces her husband and runs off with a young American.

Shunzo is a popular greengrocer in a town near Tokyo. His life, and the lives of his wife Michi, and their two children, undergoes a dramatic change when he encounters Li, a poor college student from China.

Stuck in a fishing village in Hokkaido, Tadao's grand-daughter Haru is desperate to visit Tokyo, a trip Tadao is reluctant to make.

A high school girl and her bullying peers are terrorized by an escaped psychotic killer who is more than meets the eye. The Night Daddy Came Home! Tormented at high school, Emily Hanson’s only escape is drawing graphic sketches depicting a crazed masked killer on a bloody rampage. Except the deranged maniac is her father who snapped eight years ago and is now locked away in a mental institution where Emily’s bullying classmates taunt she should be too. On the anniversary of his massacre, the In Crowd throw a party while Emily babysits her mute little brother. Little does she know she’s in for a night of unrelenting terror and madness, forced to confront her demons once and for all.

Tora-san gets into an argument with his uncle and sets out on the road again. In Kyushu he meets a young woman named Keiko and the shy zoologist Saburō, and attempts to play matchmaker between the two when they all return to Tokyo.

Satsuki, a high school student living in the countryside, travels to Tokyo to find out the truth about the death of her sister Kiyomi, who has apparently been murdered by her own boyfriend.