The Family Game

Directed by Yoshimitsu Morita, The Family Game (1983) is a formally daring and sharply satirical portrait of middle-class life in Japan. Through meticulously staged scenes and a detached visual style, the film dismantles the idea of the harmonious nuclear family.

The story follows an apparently ordinary household whose fragile order is disrupted by the arrival of a private tutor. His presence intensifies existing tensions and reveals a domestic environment shaped by control, ambition and unspoken power struggles.

Upon its release, the film challenged conventions with its audacity and dark humor. Although it missed out on the Japan Academy Prize for Best Picture, it was named Best Japanese Film of the Year by both Kinema Junpo and the British Film Institute. Today, The Family Game is widely regarded as a classic and a landmark of Japanese cinema.