Movies Similar to Summer Lights

Même le vent semble pleurer(2016)

Hiroshima(1953)

Historical fiction about the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August 1945, and its effects on various civilians, especially children, of that city.

Hiroshima Mon Amour(1959)

The deep conversation between a Japanese architect and a French actress forms the basis of this celebrated French film, considered one of the vanguard productions of the French New Wave. Set in Hiroshima after the end of World War II, the couple -- lovers turned friends -- recount, over many hours, previous romances and life experiences. The two intertwine their stories about the past with pondering the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb dropped on the city.

Barefoot Gen(1983)

A story about the effect of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on a boy's life and the lives of the Japanese people.

Barefoot Gen 2(1986)

Three years after the Hiroshima bombing, a teenager helps a group of orphans to survive and find their new life.

Kabei: Our Mother(2008)

Set in Tokyo in 1940, the peaceful life of the Nogami Family suddenly changes when the father, Shigeru, is arrested and accused of being a Communist. His wife Kayo works frantically from morning to night to maintain the household and bring up her two daughters with the support of Shigeru's sister Hisako and Shigeru's ex-student Yamazaki, but her husband does not return. WWII breaks out and casts dark shadows on the entire country, but Kayo still tries to keep her cheerful determination, and sustain the family with her love. This is an emotional drama of a mother and an eternal message for peace.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity(1973)

In the teeming black markets of postwar Japan, Shozo Hirono and his buddies find themselves in a new war between factious and ambitious yakuza.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Police Tactics(1974)

As Japan gears up for the 1964 Olympic games, the cops start to crack down on the gangs, under pressure from the public and the press, adding a new dimension in the war for power among the yakuza families of Hiroshima.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Proxy War(1973)

Shozo Hirono has managed to separate from the Yamamori family and create his own small family, and extend his circle of acquaintances. These new friendships include a powerful underboss of the Muraoka family, Noboru Uchimoto.

Radio Love(2014)

Hiroshima(2005)

The documentary recounts the world's first nuclear attack and examines the alarming repercussions. Covering a three-week period from the Trinity test to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the program chronicles America's political gamble and the planning for the momentous event. Archival film, dramatizations, and special effects feature what occurred aboard the Enola Gay (the aircraft that dropped the bomb) and inside the exploding bomb.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Final Episode(1974)

While Hirono is in prison, his rival Takeda turns his own crime organization into a political party, whose two executives stir up new tensions in their thirst for power.

In This Corner of the World(2016)

Japan, 1943, during World War II. Young Suzu leaves her village near Hiroshima to marry and live with her in-laws in Kure, a military harbor. Her creativity to overcome deprivation quickly makes her indispensable at home. Inhabited by an ancestral wisdom, Suzu impregnates the simple gestures of everyday life with poetry and beauty. The many hardships, the loss of loved ones, the frequent air raids of the enemy, nothing alters her enthusiasm…

The Face of Jizo(2004)

Based on a play by Hisashi Inoue, it focuses on the sufferings of the survivors of Hiroshima. The film takes place during 4 days in the summer of 1948, as the ghost of her father visits Mitsué (Rié Miyama). He had somehow learned that she has fallen in love, and tries to convince her to start her new life. But Mitsué obstinately refuses his warm and humorous encouragements : « People were killed in my place. I do not have the right to find happiness », she says.

The Beginning or the End(1947)

The research, development, and deployment of the first atomic bomb, as well as the bombing of Hiroshima, are detailed in this docudrama.

Pride(1998)

Based on the International Military Tribunal for the Far East of 1946–48, depicts Japanese prime minister Hideki Tojo as a family man who fought to defend Japan and Asia from western colonialism but was ultimately hanged by a vengeful United States.

Hiroshima(1995)

Hiroshima is a 1995 Japanese / Canadian film directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara and Roger Spottiswoode about the decision-making processes that led to the dropping of the atomic bombs by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki toward the end of World War II. Except as actors, no Americans took part in the production. The three-hour film was made for television and evidently had no theatrical release, but is available on DVD for home viewing. A combination of dramatisation, historical footage, and eyewitness interviews, the film alternates between documentary footage and the dramatic recreations. Both the dramatisations and most of the original footage are presented as sepia-toned images, serving to blur the distinction between them. The languages are English and Japanese, with subtitles, and the actors are largely Canadian and Japanese.

Akiko's Piano: Chords Played by the Surviving Piano(2020)

1940, Kawamoto Akiko lives in Hiroshima with her father and mother, Genkichi and Shizuko, as well as her two younger brothers. Akiko loves playing her favourite piano. As the war situation worsens, she is busy helping out the war efforts. On the morning of August 6, 1945, she disobeys her father and heads into the centre of town for work. In Hiroshima 75 years later, her favourite piano remains, restored and playable following its survival of the atomic bombing

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms(2018)

Nanami Ishikawa works as an editor at a publishing company. She travels Hiroshima to go after her father Asahi who left home. During her visit to Hiroshima, she learns about the tragic story of Asahi's older sister Minami Hirano. When Minami Hirano was 13 years old, she was exposed to radiation by an atomic bomb.

Drive My Car(2021)

Yusuke Kafuku, a stage actor and director, still unable, after two years, to cope with the loss of his beloved wife, accepts to direct Uncle Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There he meets Misaki, an introverted young woman, appointed to drive his car. In between rides, secrets from the past and heartfelt confessions will be unveiled.