Best movies like Midnight Bus

The summer of his high school freshman year, Hodaka runs away from his remote island home to Tokyo, and quickly finds himself pushed to his financial and personal limits. The weather is unusually gloomy and rainy every day, as if taking its cue from his life. After many days of solitude, he finally finds work as a freelance writer for a mysterious occult magazine. Then, one day, Hodaka meets Hina on a busy street corner. This bright and strong-willed girl possesses a strange and wonderful ability: the power to stop the rain and clear the sky.

A small town is terrorized by an unknown stranger who kidnaps and abuses little girls. When her only child is kidnapped right in front of her, the school bus driver begins the desperate chase to catch the criminal.

Nobuyuki Sakisaka (Yuta Tamamori) is a salaryman. When he was in middle school student, he read light novel "Fairy Game”. He still has that light novel, because he was so shocked by the ending. One day, Nobuyuki Sakisaka browses the internet and comes across the blog "Rein Tsuri no Kuni.” He learns that the blog writer, Rika Hitomi (Mariya Nishiuchi), also was shocked by the ending in light novel "Fairy Game." Nobuyuki and Rika soon begin to exchange emails. Nobuyuki wants to meet Rika, but she refuses due to her secret.

Natsume Mochizuki works as a teen model in Tokyo, but she learns that she has to move to her father's hometown of Ukigumo. She is in a desperate situation because she can't do the things she wants to do in Ukigumo. One day, she meets Koichiro Hasegawa. He is the successor of the Hasegawa family. His family is wealthy and is respected in the area. Natsume Mochizuki and Koichiro Hasegawa become attracted to each other, but something changes their fate.

Revered sushi chef Jiro Ono strives for perfection in his work, while his eldest son, Yoshikazu, has trouble living up to his father's legacy.

Two high schoolers find hope as they fight to save an old wartime era clubhouse from destruction during the preparations for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

A divorcee is surprised to learn her ex-husband has suddenly remarried a much younger woman; and even more surprised to discover her dark and treacherous past.

Light Yagami finds the "Death Note," a notebook with the power to kill, and decides to create a Utopia by killing the world's criminals, and soon the world's greatest detective, "L," is hired to find the mysterious murderer. An all out battle between the two greatest minds on earth begins and the winner will control the world.

Based on a popular manga, the film is a tender coming-of-age love story set deep in Japan's countryside. When eighth grade cool guy Hiromi transfers from Tokyo to a small elementary/middle school with only six kids enrolled, wholesome and honest Soyo becomes enthralled with his sophisticated world.

Murakami Naoki is the most intelligent student at his high school, but he can't stop obsessing over a girl named Mizuno Haruka. He finally asks her out, and to his surprise, she accepts. After several months of a loving yet obviously doomed romance, it comes time for them to take the entrance exams for Tokyo University. What will happen to their relationship if only one of them is accepted?

After trying to rescue a man on the subway tracks, two teens wake up in a room dominated by a mysterious black sphere that sends them to hunt down and kill aliens hiding on Earth.

Two sets of parents divorce and marry each other, while their children Miki and Yuu are caught in the middle and start falling for each other.

Meiko Inoue is a recent college grad working as an office lady in a job she hates. Her boyfriend Taneda is permanently crashing at her apartment because his job as a freelance illustrator doesn't pay enough for rent. And her parents in the country keep sending her boxes of veggies that just rot in her fridge. Straddling the line between her years as a student and the rest of her life, Meiko struggles with the feeling that she's just not cut out to be a part of the real world.

A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.

Mr. Omura, a teacher, leads a group of male students in an outdoor drill. One slight, comic young man, Shinji Okajima, has no shirt under his jacket; he scratches at fleas and makes faces behind Omura's back. Jump ahead several years, Shinji is married with three children. He sells insurance, and on the company's annual bonus day, he protests when an older worker is fired. Shinji loses his own job as a result, and he and his wife must find ways to cope. Lassitude, pride, the demands and needs of young children, and relationships from bygone school days all play a part in the outcome of their struggle.

A young Mexican/American learns about life both inside and out of the ring when he takes up boxing.

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.

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

Sonia is a jingle writer who's always dreamt of a big and exciting life. Surprised by a sudden proposal and subsequent ultimatum from her easy-going boyfriend, Chris, Sonia has to decide whether she'll join the ranks of her married friends or take a leap and pursue her fantasies. A whimsical romantic comedy that's raunchy and yet gentle, 'It Had To Be You' explores the choices women face today while satirizing cultural expectations of gender and romance.

Tamako graduated from a university in Tokyo, but she now lives with her father back in Kofu. Tamako doesn't help her father or tries to get a job. She spends her time just eating and sleeping throughout the four seasons of the year.

Suzuki Sora is a cheerful country girl from the small town of Bie. She made a promise to her father, and following this promise applies and is accepted for a magic intership in Tokyo, where she will face the life in a big city. While training to get better with her magic, she meets a mysterious boy also practicing to become a mage. While he can not use magic that well and he seems distant and cold at first, Sora’s fate intertwines with his and the two are thrown together, learning a lot of new things about life and each other.

The students of Suzuran High compete for the King of School title. An ex-graduate yakuza is sent to kill the son of a criminal group, but he can't make himself do it as he reminds him of his youth.

A Documentary on Nakamura brothers.

An unemployed man learns that his ex-girlfriend was murdered. He suddenly finds himself travelling through time to his middle school years and has chance to change the future and save the girl. He aims to rise to the top of the most brutal delinquent gang.

Susannah and Jesse Stanton divorced two years prior with three children. When Susannah starts dating a lawyer, the children decide to find someone for their father, sending a letter to a popular magazine called Alaskan Love. He receives a large number of responses, but the children later feel that his perfect match is Susannah, and they try to arrange a plan to bring them together.

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.

AT HOME WITH THE WEBBERS explores what happens when a typical American family is turned into a hot, new, totally uncensored TV show. Viewers get hooked on the real-life soap, while the Webbers grapple with their unexpected fame.

To spite his girlfriend, the owner of a successful bus company, an auto racer goes to work for her rival.

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.

Ten year old Jared Marshall's life crumbled down after his parents' divorce a year ago. Not only does his dad put his job first since, mother uproots him from Iowa by moving in with her ma so she can take a job in California. When Jared's class writes letters to US troops in Bosnia from the nearest base, kindhearted Sergeant First Class Vince Carerra, who grew up fatherless and got divorced because his wife wasn't faithful while he was on tour of duty, takes to the kid and starts a correspondence with 'fatherly' advice. Once his unit returns to Fort Sebastian, Vince calls on Jared's home, warmly welcomed. Vince becomes Jared's personal baseball coach and after some Cupid encouragement, his mother's boyfriend, but on an understanding not to commit because he's likely to be redeployed.

A famous mommy blogger faces an empty nest as her daughter prepares to go away to college. When she turns to her blog for advice, she finds herself on the attack by a reader who has conflicting opinions. While she deals with him online, offline she finally meets a great single dad and sparks start to fly. What she doesn’t know is that the confrontational reader and the adorable single dad are, in fact, the same person.

We Were There follows the 10 year romance between Motoharu Yano & Nanami Takahashi. During their high school days, Motoharu Yano was the most popular boy in school, but can't get over the death of his girlfriend from a car crash. Nanami Takahashi falls in love with Motoharu Yano and must deal with his inability to let go of the past.

Tetsumu, an introverted youth, realizes he has a natural ability of communicating with elephants. This prompts him to leave for Chiang Mai in Thailand to become Japan's first elephant trainer. Having found his place in the world, Tetsumu develops into a strong, confident young man. He returns to Japan with the dream of building a green "paradise" for his ivory-tusked friends. Meanwhile, he starts a career as an elephant trainer for touring shows. He meets Emi, a woman seven years his senior and falls in love.

An American woman is stranded in Tokyo after breaking up with her boyfriend. Searching for direction in life, she trains to be a râmen chef under a tyrannical Japanese master.

A Himalayan legend of a love struggling against the inevitability of death, an astonishing tale spanning from the early 19th century mountain existence, to hectic, bustling modern day Tokyo.

After graduating high school, Hiromi moves from the coastal town of Niigata to Tokyo in the hopes of becoming a famous actress. Her dream seemingly comes true as a manager scouts her off the street. He recruits her as a model but it's actually to be a "nude" model. It's not exactly what Hiromi was looking for, but she can't turn down the opportunity. As her career dwindles, the manager coerces her to make the jump to AV and Hiromi gains a new identity as Mihiro.

A restaurant opens at midnight. Both the menu offerings and personality of the owner draw a series of flawed patrons including Tamako, whose boyfriend has passed away, live-in worker Michiru, and ruckus-raising Kenzo.

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.

Moritaka Mashiro doesn't want to follow in the path of his uncle who worked as a manga artist, but ultimately died because of exhaustion. Moritaka Mashiro figures he will graduate from school and work at an office. Things change though when falls in love with a girl at school. The girl, who hopes to become a voice actress, tells Moritaka they can marry, but only after they both achieve their dreams. Moritaka then teams up with fellow classmate Akito Takagi to publish their first manga.

Hirayama seems utterly content with his simple life as a cleaner of toilets in Tokyo. Outside of his very structured everyday routine he enjoys his passion for music and for books. And he loves trees and takes photos of them. A series of unexpected encounters gradually reveal more of his past.

British Air Marshal Hardie is attending a party in Hong Kong when he hears of a dream, told by a pilot, in which Hardie's flight to Tokyo on a small Dakota propeller plane crashes on a Japanese beach. Hardie dismisses the dream as pure fantasy, but while he is flying to Tokyo the next day, circumstances start changing to align with the pilot's vivid vision, and it looks like the dream disaster may become a reality.

The Master’s late-night diner welcomes a woman troubled by funeral fans, an elderly scam victim, and a noodle delivery man struggling with love.

The eldest daughter of a rural family Mon returns home from Tokyo pregnant after an affair with a college student Kobata, which causes a scandal that will threaten the marriage prospects of the younger sister San, in her cash-strapped family. The ill-tempered eldest brother Inokichi decides to take on the role of disciplinarian, with harrowing results.

When her sister suddenly vanishes, a young girl sets out to find her, desperately searching the internet for clues. Joining her is an ex-CIA agent, who uncovers fragments of online chats the missing girl had with a softcore pornographer.

Yumi moves into her boyfriend's Tokyo apartment but on the night of the move, he is called away for business in New York. The couple communicates over Skype and over the course of four nights, their relationship descends into an abyss of mistrust and lies. Yumi believes there's a ghost in the room haunting her as her only connection to the outside world is Taka on the other side of the world. Taka believes she's slowly going crazy right in front of his eyes. The story concludes with a shocking twist that will haunt both of them forever.

Won Jury's Special Award at the Turin International Film Festival of Young Cinema 1993

Gabby Ferrar moves to the town of Bright Shore, Massachusetts to open a restaurant after a stint as a sous chef in New York. Upon arrival, she encounters Caleb Delaney, a single father who runs his own restaurant and coaches the girls’ softball team. Both restaurants will compete in the Taste of Summer Food Festival hosted in Bright Shore. During the course of the summer, Gabby finds joy in running her own restaurant as she rediscovers her passion and gets to know Caleb.

When chef Hank makes a deal with frozen food executive Maggie to save his restaurant, their unexpected attraction complicates matters, leaving Maggie conflicted: Does she choose her allegiance to her cut-throat boss or does she partner - both in work and in love - with Hank?

University student Nozomi tries to get a job. Back in her hometown, she was lazy, but now Nozomi is used to the quicker pace of Tokyo. Nozomi is also experiencing problems with her boyfriend Kameyama, who seems to be travelling at a different speed in life and work. Meanwhile, Saeko works very hard in the advertising field and she is faithful to her boyfriend Tomoya. Yet, on their first year anniversary, Saeko hear's woman's voice on Tomoya's cellphone. Based on the anthology manga of the same name.

In January 1946 a British military transport plane departs from Shanghai on its to Tokyo, Japan. During the flight the airplane makes an emergency landing on Sado Island. The residents on the island have heard stereotypes of the British soldiers and have mixed feelings about the their new "guest." Nevertheless, for the next 40 days the islanders take care of the crew members until the plane can take off once again. This includes Chiyoko Morimoto who is the daughter of the inn owner where some of the British crew members stay.