Best movies like Ikiru

In a vibrant city pulsating with rhythm and movement, an elderly man and his young-at-heart wife rekindle their youthful passion for life and each other on one magical night.

After learning that his terminally ill wife has six months to live, a man welcomes the support of his best friend who moves into their home to help out.

On a cold Monday morning, a group of counselors clock in at an old-fashioned social services office. Their task is to interview the recently deceased, record their personal details, then, over the course of the week, assist them in choosing a single memory to keep for eternity.

In this belated sequel to 'The Decline of the American Empire', middle-aged Montreal college professor, Remy, learns that he is dying of liver cancer. His ex-wife, Louise, asks their estranged son, Sebastian, a successful businessman living in London, to come home. Sebastian makes the impossible happen, using his contacts and disrupting the Canadian healthcare system in every way possible to help his father fight his terminal illness to the bitter end, while reuniting some of Remy's old friends, including Pierre, Alain, Dominique, Diane, and Claude, who return to see their friend before he passes on.

A terminally ill mother invites her family to their country house for one final gathering, but tensions quickly boil over between her two daughters.

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

Corporate billionaire Edward Cole and working class mechanic Carter Chambers are worlds apart. At a crossroads in their lives, they share a hospital room and discover they have two things in common: a desire to spend the time they have left doing everything they ever wanted to do and an unrealized need to come to terms with who they are. Together they embark on the road trip of a lifetime, becoming friends along the way and learning to live life to the fullest, with insight and humor.

An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

The young Harold lives in his own world of suicide-attempts and funeral visits to avoid the misery of his current family and home environment. Harold meets an 80-year-old woman named Maude who also lives in her own world yet one in which she is having the time of her life. When the two opposites meet they realize that their differences don’t matter and they become best friends and love each other.

While searching for his fiancee Ritsuko, Sakutarou rediscovers through flashbacks the void deep within him caused by the events from his high school days.

A young widow discovers that her late husband has left her 10 messages intended to help ease her pain and start a new life.

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 start to see each other again and again, but only on rainy days. They deepen their relationship and open up to each other. But the end of the rainy season soon approaches.

Life's questions are 'answered' in a series of outrageous vignettes, beginning with a staid London insurance company which transforms before our eyes into a pirate ship. Then there's the National Health doctors who try to claim a healthy liver from a still-living donor. The world's most voracious glutton brings the art of vomiting to new heights before his spectacular demise.

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.

A headstrong Chinese-American woman returns to China when her beloved grandmother is given a terminal diagnosis. Billi struggles with her family's decision to keep grandma in the dark about her own illness as they all stage an impromptu wedding to see grandma one last time.

Ryosuke lives in a small house in Toshima, Tokyo. Since his wife died, he has adjusted to living alone. He used to teach at a university and he now works as a translator. Meanwhile, Ryosuke has one child, Yuriko. She is married to Shigeyuki, who works as a teacher. Yuriko and Shigeyuki live in Azumino, Nagano Prefecture. One day, Yuriko visits her father Ryosuke without advance notice. Ryosuke is surprised by her sudden visit. Yuriko doesn't give any reason for the visit. Ryosuke only learns that Yuriko isn't sure how long she will stay. They haven't talked as father and daughter in a long time. They begin to live together in a nervous, but warm atmosphere.

An obsessed scholar attempts to withdraw from the world but finds personal ties drawing him back into the family he had left behind, in this novelistic, beautifully modulated drama from acclaimed Québécois filmmaker Bernard Émond.

London, 1953. Mr. Williams, a veteran civil servant, is an important cog within the city's bureaucracy as it struggles to rebuild in the aftermath of World War II. Buried under paperwork at the office and lonely at home, his life has long felt empty and meaningless. Then a devastating medical diagnosis forces him to take stock, and to try and grasp some fulfilment before it passes permanently beyond reach.

Ryosuke has a bright future. He just opened a successful restaurant and hopes to tie the knot soon with his alluring girlfriend. But then his father declares he has pancreatic cancer and his betrothed vanishes without a trace. In his father’s belongings, he discovers a secret diary, which starts with an ominous sentence: “Without remorse, I take a life …” Ryosuke is completely spellbound and reads on, discovering that the document is actually the confession of a murderer.

Shiro's struggle with his father's cancer and impending death leads to a realization that he must communicate his love and admiration for him before it's too late. A series of flashbacks reveals their relationship over time, and the trouble Shiro faced connecting to his strict father who was also his teacher and soccer coach. With a consuming secret of his own, Shiro, now in his late twenties and about to get engaged, must eventually learn how to share the pain of it with his loved ones.

Kyohei Nagashima (Masaki Okada) has shut away the world. During his high school days he was the target of bullying and experienced horrifying moments. Now as a young adult Kyohei takes a new job. He works for a company that specializes in cleaning out the homes of recently deceased individuals. With his new job Kyohei meets co-worker Yuki (Nana Eikura). Yuki has also experienced a traumatizing event as a teen and has also shut herself away from the world. These two young people form a bond as they go through the homes of the recently departed people. They gradually open up to each other and in the process to the world. Yet, their fragile psyches may or may not be ready for such changes ...

Arthur is a grumpy pensioner who can't understand why his wife Marion would want to embarrass herself singing silly songs with her unconventional local choir. But choir director Elizabeth sees something special in the reluctant Arthur and refuses to give up on him. As she coaxes him out of his shell, Arthur realizes that it is never too late to change.

The story of Singe and Kate, a couple from North Somerset, whose lives were turned upside down when Kate was diagnosed with an incurable breast cancer. Over her last few days, she created her list: writing her thoughts and memories down, to help the man she loved create the best life possible for their two sons, after she was gone.

Henry Harper is a successful novelist who has it all. But after surviving a recent trauma he finds himself haunted by a dream that terrifies him. Convinced that the only way to understand what the dream means is to write his way through it, Henry decides to go to a remote second home to begin work on his next novel, a thriller. While on his way there he encounters a strangely familiar drifter who confronts him with information that threatens to turn everything he knows to be true, upside down. Written by producer

An unemployed ex-office worker searching for work floats a fragile line of sanity as she struggles to find friendship and companionship. Her tenuous grasp on reality further fluctuates when a man whom she met in a restaurant and started an affair with is called to go to India for an assignment. The final straw occurs when she is evicted and moves into a sleazy hotel. She then starts seeking casual sex in unorthodox locations just to have human contact.

Hiroshi has given up on his dreams of becoming a painter and works part-time cleaning office windows. He learns that he has only 3 months left to live. During his last summer, high school student Mai appears. Hiroshi becomes attracted to her.

An alcoholic civil servant wakes up under a cherry tree in Tokyo next to a bar hostess with whom he's impulsively made a suicide pact. Though he's now changed his mind, he agrees to travel with her to Hokkaido, her preferred site for ending it all.

Nana is 19 and lives in a corner of Tokyo. Her birth mother and Marin, a girl the same age who she loves, were the only people she could trust. Nana confronts them in her yearning for love, but the world does not give it to her. With her whole life ahead of her, Nana struggles, suffers, and begins a search for the true meaning of love.

Nijima, a white-collar worker, finds the man responsible for his young daughter's murder. He tortures and interrogates the man, who maintains his innocence, before killing and burying him. He returns to his ordinary life feeling listless and hollow, until he encounters a man that introduces himself as an old friend. The man offers Nijima a new job, and subsequently introduces Nijima to his band of hired killers.

Craig, a fiercely determined New Brunswick farmer, sets out to build a more suitable house for his ailing wife, Irene, despite their children's concerns. As he starts building, he is blindsided by the bureaucratic codes and officials. As Irene becomes increasingly ill, Craig fights back. Based on a true story.

It was a pre-destined love and marriage for Sonoko and Tetsuo. They tied the knot and became husband and wife no questions asked. All is well then. Well, perhaps not. Each holds a secret that even the binds of matrimony cannot untie. Sonoko does not know that Tetsuo makes sex dolls or Dutch wives. Sonoko has a secret too. She is about to tell Tetsuo what she has been hiding. Their marriage is already sexless. Will they make it?

Suffering from a terminal illness, a young loner decides to make big decisions for the little time that he has left while coping with the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Yasutake Shingo is a newspaper reporter whose only redeeming feature is his earnestness. He meets Matsunaga Chie, who attends a music college, and they start dating. Each day becomes all the more bright and enjoyable for Shingo because of the lively Chie. She loves to laugh, sing and eat. After one and a half years, Chie is employed as a music teacher. One day, Shingo is informed that Chie has breast cancer. After thinking about it, he decides to share a lifetime with her and proposes. His proposal gives her the courage to undergo surgery which she had been mulling over. One day, Chie starts to teach 5-year-old Hana the “important things in life” such as laundry, cleaning and cooking. She thinks that even if she is no longer around, her daughter and husband will be able to live.

In a suburb north of Tokyo that seems to be secluded from the world’s madness and malice, Yusuke Mizuhara works as a lifeguard at a swimming pool. With no family, friends or love, his life is lonely and monotonous. One day, he goes to another pool as a replacement guard with his unpopular co-worker Koji Shirasaki…

Kasumi is in the midst of an affair with Ishiyama, one of her husband's clients. When Kasumi and her family visit Ishiyama's villa in Hokkaido, she plans to abandon them to be with Ishiyama. The next morning, her daughter Yuka disappears, which throws Kasumi's life into turmoil. Years later, Yuka remains missing, and Kasumi journeys back to Hokkaido with Utsumi, a terminally-ill former detective, and tries to follow any leads she can.