RadianceMovies like Radiance
- Key Features:
- Blindness, Cameraman, Human connection, Empathy, Communication, Intimacy, Emotional distance, Personal growth, Self-discovery, Relationships
- Tone:
- poetic, restrained, serious
- Target Audience:
- Fans of art house cinema, Viewers interested in character-driven stories, Those who appreciate subtle and introspective films
- Emotional Arc:
- Isolation → Connection
Radiance

The story follows the social intercourse between a cameraman, Masaya, with a visual impairment, and Misako who disconnects from the world.
Radiance
Teo has a good job, a fiancee, a lover, no intention to assume any responsibility in his life. Meeting Emma, a blind woman, will upset his convictions.

A blind teacher breaks the rules to help a female student rediscover the pleasures of life.

With dreams of diving abroad, Tsuneo gets a job assisting Josee, an artist whose imagination takes her far beyond her wheelchair. But when the tide turns against them, they push each other to places they never thought possible, and inspire a love fit for a storybook.

19-year-old Tomek whiles away his lonely life by spying on his opposite neighbour Magda through binoculars. She's an artist in her mid-thirties, and appears to have everything - not least a constant stream of men at her beck and call. But when the two finally meet, they discover that they have a lot more in common than appeared at first sight...

Taeko and her husband, Jirō, are living a peaceful existence with her young son, Keita, when a tragic accident brings the boy's long-lost father, Park, back into her life. To cope with the pain and guilt, Taeko throws herself into helping this deaf and homeless man.

A part-time employee in a mahjong parlour runs across a young woman, who is unable to walk, in baby carriage. He becomes friends with the woman and begins to feel enamoured with her.

Martin, a young blind photographer, is divided between his friendship with restaurant worker Andy and the exclusive love that Celia—who is terribly jealous of this new friendship—has for him.

A novelist is blinded in a car crash that killed his wife and several years later rediscovers his passion for life and writing when he embarks on an affair with the neglected wife of an indicted businessman.

Follows the life of a young woman who has become reserved and indifferent to the world as a result of her chronic illness deformed hand and quietly portrays the unconventional, yet endearing relationship between mother and daughter as well as the development of Min-ah as she is befriended by the high spirited and carefree photographer Young-jae who moves into their apartment complex.

With only a year left to live, 17-year-old Akito finds new meaning in life by bringing joy to a terminally ill girl who has just six months remaining.

An old man and a young woman meet in Tokyo. She knows nothing about him, he thinks he knows her. He welcomes her into his home, she offers him her body. But the web that is woven between them in the space of twenty four hours bears no relation to the circumstances of their encounter.

Louise, a widow with two children, almost crushes a stranger with her car. She takes care of him, even if he's not really wounded. It turns out that he has mental disorders and that they can help each other much more than they thought.

A university professor gradually succumbing to blindness is entranced by an obsessive love, in this modern-day adaptation of a classic Korean fairy tale.

A tragedy strikes a young woman's life without warning or reason. She continues living while searching for meaning in a lonely world.

A married woman with a lovely daughter lives a carefree life, until she meets her ex-lover at a friend’s wedding. They haven’t seen each other in ten years, but they begin an affair.

Jaakko and Sirpa have never met face to face, but talk on the phone every day. When Jaakko hears news about Sirpa's declining health, he decides to go meet her in another city. It's not the easiest decision, because he's blind and paralyzed from the chest down - and he has to make the journey alone. To get there, Jaakko must rely on the help of five strangers. What could go wrong?

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 reclusive illustrator falls in love with a young woman who addictively shops for clothing.

After an attack renders her blind, Ellen withdraws from the world to recover. But soon she plunges into paranoia, unable to convince anyone that her assailant has returned to terrorize her by hiding in plain sight.

A look at the relationship between a young blind samurai and his wife, who will make a sacrifice in order to defend her husband's honor.

A blind sculptor kidnaps an artists' model and imprisons her in his warehouse studio – a shadowland of perverse monuments to the female form. Here a deranged passion play of sensual and sexual obsession is acted out in world where sight is replaced by touch.

Asako lives in Osaka. She falls in love with Baku, a free-spirit. One day, Baku suddenly disappears. Two years later, Asako now lives in Tokyo and meets Ryohei. He looks just like Baku, but has a completely different personality.

A blind man has an operation to regain his sight at the urging of his girlfriend and must deal with the changes to his life.

In a distinctly contemporary Tokyo that looks backwards to the city’s disappearing past, Yoko is a writer investigating the life of a modernist composer of the 1930s. She is pregnant by a man she does not want to marry and has found a kindred spirit in a used bookstore owner who aids her research.

Vincent has an extraordinary ability: his strength and reflexes increase tenfold when in contact with water. To make full use of this gift, he settles in a region with many lakes and rivers, which is isolated enough to allow him to live a peaceful life. Then, one day, during an aquatic escapade, he encounters Lucie.

Amateur photographer Makoto and the homely but endearing Shizuru meet during their university entrance ceremony and become instant friends. Shy by nature, Makoto finds himself opening up around Shizuru, who is secretly in love with him.

A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship.

A hearing-impaired woman with dreams of becoming a professional boxer due to the pandemic is threatened closure of her boxing club and the illness of its ageing president, who has been her biggest supporter, push her to the limit.

Abandoned after coming out, Shun befriends Mio just before he has to move. Years later, Mio returns with a confession. How will Shun feel?

Two strangers have dropped their kids off at a pickup area for a children's camp in Helsinki, Finland. A spark of mutual interest is ignited between the man and woman.

At 2 Ela lost her ability of seeing and hearing because of a severe illness. And then she became a total disappointment of her family due to her untamed behaviors. But everything changed after an unorthodox teacher stepped into their lives to educate Ela while healing himself.

A disillusioned filmmaker has an encounter with a young woman who has a ritual of repeating "Tomorrow is my birthday" everyday. He tries to communicate with her through his video camera.

A down-and-out businessman travels to a seaside town, where he meets a woman with unusual sexual powers.

Film chronicles a decade in the life of a young physics student whose absolute faith in the primacy of rationality and science is shaken by tragedy and affairs of the heart.

Young-seok, who feels overwhelmed and lonely in what should be his glorious youth, meets a woman who introduces herself as Josée, and they share a once-in-a-lifetime romance.

Sandy, a geologist, finds herself stuck on a field trip to the Pilbara desert with a Japanese man she finds inscrutable, annoying and decidedly arrogant. Hiromitsu's view of her is not much better. Things go from bad to worse when they become stranded in one of the most remote regions on Earth.

Adam, a lonely man with Asperger's Syndrome, develops a relationship with his upstairs neighbor, Beth.

Ichi is a blind entertainer that travels the countryside with her traditional Japanese guitar and walking stick. She’s in search for the kind man that brought her up as a child, but because of her beauty she encounters problems every step of the way. Fortunately for Ichi, she is also a gifted swordswoman and carries a lethal blade within her walking stick.

Racial integration is Elena's profession and passion, not only filling her working day as a cultural mediator assisting immigrants, but spilling over into her home life as well. All too often her husband Carlo must attend charity events where he feels distinctly out of place. During one of these evenings, Carlo meets Nadine, a beautiful black woman.

A blind man who regains his vision finds himself becoming metaphorically blinded by his obsession for the superficial.

Three moments in Takaki's life: his relationship with Akari and their forced separation; his friendship with Kanae, who is secretly in love with him; the demands and disappointments of adulthood, an unhappy life in a cold city.

Four women in their thirties reevaluate their relationships, both shared and private, after a startling revelation concerning one's marriage forces each of them to ask one of life's biggest questions: "Am I who I want to be?"

Silvia is a novice violinist, and Alessio is a construction worker. At first glance, it's impossible to imagine two more incompatible people. But from their very first meeting, a mysterious force seems to draw them to each other, causing their life plans to crumble.

The heartwarming tale of Barfi, a charming deaf-mute young man from 1970s Darjeeling, and two unalike women who can't help but fall for him.

A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.

These intertwining stories about romance and separation follow a firefighter who can't find the right time to propose, a shy theme park worker who falls for an artist, an estranged mother and son, and a man seeking to regain his lost love.

Aya Okamura has been working for two years and has begun living on her own for a job opportunity. With her mother working overseas as a doctor, her father is now living alone with the family's longtime pet cat Mii-san. One night, Aya returns from a long day at work, and as she rests on her bed, she reminiscences about the times the family had together. She remembers the sadness she felt when her mom went overseas, and the solace she felt when her father brought home Mii-san to give her comfort. Then, she receives a phone call.

A former boxer turned parking lot attendant finds hope in the love of the blind telemarketer who walks into his booth one day.

Akira works as a lawyer. One day, he meets with his former client Rie, who asks Akira to perform a background check on her late husband Daisuke.

Handsome but backward gardener Tim Melville has a new woman in his life. She is Mary, his widowed employer, a woman who had given up on love until she had found Tim. At first they are friends. But soon they become lovers, as Mary, drawn to Tim's innocence and magnetism, begins to teach him all about life - and love.

Once upon a time there was Louise and her friend, the magician. But his last trick left a bitter taste in her mouth. He disappeared in a curtain of smoke… never to appear again. This is too much for the young woman. Devastated by endless grief, Louise is sent to a psychiatric asylum, resigned to the idea that she will swallow pills till the end of her days. Yet nine months later she gives birth to a child who is likely to have a big problem for his future class pictures, since he’s invisible. But Louise doesn’t care. He’s her angel and, wanting to protect him from this cruel world, she decides to keep his existence a secret. Years later, Louise’s angel has grown up. He even managed to find a girlfriend; Madeleine. The two become inseparable, for Madeleine never judges him. And for good reason: she’s blind.

Two high school students form an intense connection as they navigate the challenges of discovering and expressing their truest selves.

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.

After decades apart, childhood friends Nora and Hae Sung are reunited in New York for one fateful weekend as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life.

Comic tale of a cynical TV star's slow-combustion romance with a young paraplegic.

Sam receives a call from Emily, a near blind woman who is running from her murderous ex in the woods. Can she survive using Sam as her eyes via video call?

Unable to see, hear, or speak after a childhood illness, a young woman grows up prone to violent outbursts until an eccentric tutor changes her life.

Hisashi and Mai are a happy couple in their 20s who are engaged to be married. But three months before their wedding, Mai becomes seriously ill. Her heart stops momentarily, and she falls into a deep coma. Hisashi visits Mai at the hospital every day before work. With no idea if or when she will ever awake, Mai’s parents encourage Hisashi to find someone else, but he refuses to give up and continues to pray for her recovery. As if his prayers are answered, Mai begins to regain consciousness several years later, and even utters a few words. But tragically, she has suffered brain damage and has no memory of Hisashi.

Having recently lost her sight, Ingrid retreats to the safety of her home—a place where she can feel in control, alone with her husband and her thoughts. After a while, Ingrid starts to feel the presence of her husband in the flat when he is supposed to be at work. At the same time, her lonely neighbor who has grown tired of even the most extreme pornography shifts his attention to a woman across the street. Ingrid knows about this but her real problems lie within, not beyond the walls of her apartment, and her deepest fears and repressed fantasies soon take over.

After being thrown away from home, pregnant high school dropout Maria meets Matthew, a highly educated and extremely moody electronics repairman. The two begin an unusual romance built on their sense of mutual admiration and trust.

Kurumi’s heart was broken by the sudden death of her boyfriend in a tragic airplane accident. By melding futuristic technology with the binary equivalent of human emotion, a brilliant scientist created an ultra-lifelike robotic surrogate to take Hal’s place – and lure Kurumi from her shroud of solitude.

A young man awakens in the hospital after an accident wipes his memory. Fascinated by a textbook full of drawings of dissections, Hiroshi is drawn to medical school. There he catches the eye of a fellow student, but it's another who becomes his obsession: the dead woman on the cadaver table.

Mizuki's husband Yusuke has been missing for three years. He suddenly comes back home as a ghost and asks Mizuki to go on a trip with him. Their trip consists of visiting the people that helped Yusuke on his previous travel.

War widow Reiko rebuilds and runs the grocery shop in the house of her husband's family. Many years later, their business is threatened by a newly built supermarket and Reiko's in-laws plan to convert their small shop into a supermarket, to her detriment.

On the third anniversary of a cult's failed chemical attack on Tokyo and their subsequent mass suicide, family members of those affected gather at the cult's former base on the shores of a lake to observe the anniversary of their loved ones' deaths.

A middle-aged woman leaves her partner and drifts back to her ex-husband, while the lives of her middle class friends intersect with her own.

Akira Tachibana is a soft-spoken high school student who used to be a part of the track and field club. Working part-time at a restaurant, she finds herself inexplicably falling in love with her manager, a divorced 45-year-old man.

Yuma, a 23-year-old comic book artist with profound cerebral palsy, has been emotionally stunted by her well-meaning but overprotective mother. As she begins to seek independence and sexual awakening on her own terms, she discovers an unexpected path to love and forgiveness.

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.

A deaf garbage collector happens upon a broken and discarded surfboard. The discovery plants in him dreams of becoming a surf champion. Encouraged by his also deaf girlfriend, he persists against all odds.

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

The relationship between Ed, a married astronomer and Amy, his lover, who spend their years apart, is based only on phone calls and texts. One day Amy begins noticing something strange in Ed's messages.

Oki, a film student, gets involved in two relationships as she navigates the advances of a fellow student and grapples with her feelings for her much older professor.

On a Tokyo dump’s shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who “drives” an imaginary trolley, a homeless father and son designing a dream house, a young woman brutalized at home, drunks, schemers, and saints of small kindnesses. Kurosawa crafts a ragged mosaic of hardship, fantasy, and flickers of grace that keep people moving forward.

A blind witness and a runaway help the police find the suspect in a hit and run until the culprit realizes that they are close on his trail. The killer tracks her down and Soo-ah realizes that in order to save Gi-sub she would have to risk her life.

The film tells different stories in a kind of parallel Germany about love, affection and hatred.

Wang Tiemei, a single mother, loses her job and moves, befriending neighbor Xiaoye who appears cheerful but is depressed. Their bond grows as Tiemei navigates relationships with her ex-husband causing trouble.

After losing her parents, young flower selling Midori is put up by a fairground group. She is abused and forced to slavery, until the arrival of an enigmatic magician of short stature, who gives her hope for a better future.

Muriel is beautiful, free-spirited and bed-ridden since a horrific accident. Leo is a drunk middle-aged ex-boxer. Desperate for work and unqualified, he interviews for Muriel, who hires him to cook and care for her against her better judgment. Initially out of his depth, Leo slowly wins Muriel's trust. As Muriel teaches him to read, he forces her to confront the joys beyond her window.

High school student Yuki Hase wants to become close with classmate Kaori Fujimiya who is alway by herself. Kaori Fujimiya refuses to become close with Yuki Hase, because she forgets her friends every new Monday. Even though Kaori tells Yuki why she doesn't want to become friends, Yuki still wants to become close to her.

An ambitious young man struggles to achieve his dream of becoming an employee in a Munich luxury hotel despite being strongly visually impaired.

Henry, a young actor, finds himself involved in a film by cinema superstar, Cédric Rovere. Charmed by his benevolence, feelings hitherto unknown are aroused, while Rovere, intrigued by Henry's dream, lives this shoot as an unexpected gift.

A delivery boy falls for a young girl who is hearing impaired. Comparing themselves with water birds and trees, together they are going to break the barrier and pursuit their dreams and take their relationship to the next level.

Gab has a well-ordered life: a fiancée, a wealthy family. Leïla, who struggles to juggle her studies, odd jobs, and a brother to support, does not allow herself to live her own life... When Gab meets Leïla, it is a clash of worlds, the beginning of a great love story that will collide violently with reality.

Takumi and his six-year-old son, Yuji, haven't come to terms with their wife and mother's death. One day, they meet a woman with an uncanny resemblance to her sheltering from the rain near their home.

Twenty-year-old Matsuri Takabayashi learns that she only has ten years to live due to an incurable disease. She decides to not dwell on her life and not to fall in love—until she meets a man named Kazuto Manabe at a school reunion.

Bruno is a young film editor who has just broke up his marriage with Regina, and returned living in his mother's house. Drowned in deep sorrow, something very weird happens in his life: people around him are gradually disappearing. But only for him. Some kind of blindness.

As the first snow falls in Seoul, two old friends reunite; one is a successful college professor, and the other, a struggling filmmaker recently returned from the United States. After their reminiscences, they finally decide to go in search of the young woman each had romanced years earlier.

In the immense city of Tokyo, the darkness of the afterlife lures some of its inhabitants who are desperately trying to escape the sadness and isolation of the modern world.

Lila and Mo meet at a bus stop. Lila has a paralyzing speech impediment. Mo is chatty and exuberant. Lila is preparing for her exams. Mo illegally races cars for a living. Opposites attract, and they fall in love. But Mo carries a secret burden…

Hiroko attends the memorial service of her fiancé, Itsuki Fujii, who died in a mountain-climbing incident. Although Itsuki's mother says that their old house is gone, Hiroko records the address listed under his name in his yearbook and sends him a letter. Surprisingly, she receives a reply, and discovers it came from his old classmate, a girl who also happens to be called Itsuki Fujii.

When the actor in a scene for his film Life And Nothing More… has to quit, a film director casts another man for the part. However, complications arise since the man and the woman who was cast for the scene know each other.

When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.

A restless photographer leaves her family to "find herself" and takes up deep-sea diving.

A lonely university student develops a romance with a beautiful interesting woman, who turns out to be a cyborg from the future.

A woman's past as a convict follows her everywhere and because of this she doesn't open up to others. But then she strikes up a friendship with a broken child who has suffered from domestic violence and decides to save the girl from the cruel world. A man who holds feelings for the woman, tries to protect her in his own way.

After a drunken house party with his straight mates, Russell heads out to a gay club. Just before closing time he picks up Glen but what's expected to be just a one-night stand becomes something else, something special.


