Overview
A family’s unconventional survival strategy leads to unexpected consequences when they take in a young girl.
Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Measured
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Mild
- tender
- bittersweet
- melancholic
- quiet evening
- reflective movie night
What critics said
Critics broadly praised Hirokazu Kore-eda’s understated, deeply humanistic drama for combining social critique with powerful emotional subtlety.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
Osamu, Nobuyo, Aki, Shota, and Hatsue live together while taking in the vulnerable Yuri, foregrounding affectional bonds over formal kinship.
The household survives through part-time work, pension income, and shoplifting, with poverty embedded in everyday domestic life.
The family offers Yuri warmth and protection while its criminal practices and unstable guardianship complicate claims of parental care.
The film focuses on cramped household spaces, communal routines, and small gestures rather than spectacle or overt melodrama.
Films like Shoplifters, and why
Nobody Knows
humanistic family drama examining poverty, parent-child bonds, and unconventional caregiving through understated social realism
Like Father, Like Son
quietly devastating japanese family drama centered on economic precarity, domestic intimacy, and emotionally complex parent-child relationships
The Florida Project
socially conscious drama portraying marginalized people who form an improvised household against rigid ideas of family and belonging
Movie Details
- Director
- Hirokazu Kore-eda
- Release Date
- 2018-06-02
- Runtime
- 120 min
- Rating
- 7.8 / 10 (2384)
Cast
- Lily Franky
- Sakura Ando
- Mayu Matsuoka
- Kairi Jo
- Miyu Sasaki
- Kirin Kiki
- Sosuke Ikematsu
- Naoto Ogata
- Yōko Moriguchi
- Yuki Yamada
Where to watch in United States
- Streaming
- Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix Standard with Ads, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
- Rent
- Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, FlixFling, Spectrum On Demand
- Buy
- Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, FlixFling
Streaming options come from TMDB and change over time.
Common questions
- What is Shoplifters about?
- A tender, morally unsettled portrait of an improvised Tokyo household whose shoplifting survival is transformed by the arrival of a neglected girl.
- What is Shoplifters like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Shoplifters as measured, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as layered.
- Is Shoplifters violent?
- Only mildly. Ember rates the violence in Shoplifters as mild.
- What did critics think of Shoplifters?
- Critics broadly praised Hirokazu Kore-eda’s understated, deeply humanistic drama for combining social critique with powerful emotional subtlety.
- Which films are like Shoplifters?
- Films with a similar feel include Nobody Knows, Like Father, Like Son, and The Florida Project.
- How long is Shoplifters?
- Shoplifters runs 120 minutes.
- Where can I watch Shoplifters?
- In United States, Shoplifters streams on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix Standard with Ads, Amazon Prime Video with Ads.
