Ryusuke Hamaguchi

2000s

After graduating from the University of Tokyo, Hamaguchi worked in the commercial film industry for a few years before entering the graduate program in film at Tokyo University of the Arts where he studied with and was influenced by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

In 2007, he directed Solaris, an unauthorized version of Stanisław Lem's novel of same name, during his first year as a graduation student at the Tokyo University of the Arts, the film had a considerable budget for a graduation project, ¥4 million. Since the production failed to gain the novel rights, the resulting 90-minute was never released.

His second graduation film, Passion (2008) was selected for the competition of the Tokyo Filmex.

2010s

Alongside Kō Sakai, Hamaguchi directed a three-part documentary about survivors of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Voices from the Waves was selected for the competition at the 2013 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. The duo also directed Storytellers, which won the Sky Perfect IDEHA Prize.

His 5-hour-long drama film Happy Hour (2015), marked his first film selected to a major western film festival, premiered at the Golden Leopard competition of the 2015 Locarno Film Festival and won the Best Actress award for its four lead actresses alongside a Special Mention for its script. It was also given the Special Jury award at the 2016 Japan Movie Critic Awards, and the Best Newcomer award of the Agency for Cultural Affairs' Geijutsu Sensho Awards that year. Hamaguchi first developed the screenplay while he was an artist in residence at KIITO Design and Creative Center Kobe in 2013. It came out of an improvisational acting workshop he held for non-professionals, with many of the film's performers having participated in the workshop.

He followed with Asako I & II (2018), which marked his first entry at the Cannes Film Festival, directly into the main competition for the Palme d'Or. Based on the 2010 novel by Tomoka Shibasaki, it follows a woman who falls in love with two men who look the same but act completely differently. It received positive reviews, establishing his career in the west.

His anthology film Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021), delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, was selected to the main competition of the 71st Berlin International Film Festival where it won Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize (2nd place). It received critical acclaim.

Drive My Car (also 2021), premiered at the main competition of the 74th Cannes Film Festival where it won the Best Screenplay award. It also received critical acclaim, winning numerous awards, including: Best Picture prizes from the New York Film Critics Circle, Boston Society of Film Critics, and Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Non-English Language Film. At the 94th Academy Awards, the film won Best International Feature Film and Hamaguchi was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director, for the latter he became the third Japanese director nominated.

His Evil Does Not Exist (2023), premiered at the main competition of the 80th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize (2nd place). The film received critical acclaim. That same year, he released the short film Gift, which uses the same footage as Evil Does Not Exist (though with a different story) and is accompanied by a live score by Eiko Ishibashi.

His French language debut All of a Sudden (2026), had its world premiere at the main competition of the 79th Cannes Film Festival, where its stars Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto won the Best Actress prize. It received critical acclaim.

Hamaguchi has referred to himself as "purely a cinephile" and "conventionally in love with Hollywood films." He has been influenced by the works of John Cassavetes.

In April 2024, he listed his 50 favorite films for LaCinetek. His selection explores various cinema genres and periods, including works from directors such as Robert Bresson, Clint Eastwood, Howard Hawks, Edward Yang, Kenji Mizoguchi and Robert Zemeckis.

Quotes

• "To some extent, all films are fiction and documentary at the same time. I have experienced to make both, and I believe there is no such thing as pure fiction or pure documentary."
• "The actor is acting in front of the camera. What the camera captures there is a documentary about the actors, because they're doing something which happens only once."
• (On the multilingual staging in Drive My Car) "In a multilingual staging, of course, they're not understanding the meaning of the words. Instead, the body language and the voice tones is what becomes more important to convey those feelings or the emotional state of the respective actors. It becomes easier to focus and react. That's a nice way I look at it to get a more simple and strong performance."
• (On the ending of Drive My Car) "Once I talked with a big fan of Drive My Car who said that it really would have been perfect without that ending. (Laugh) Well, I think maybe the reason I ended that way is to make it a bit imperfect." "In terms of the final staging of the play in applause, if I had ended the movie at that point, presumably the audience would want to do a round of applause, and it would almost be like closing of a full circle. But for me that didn't really feel like a satisfying ending. I wanted to do something a bit more disruptive, to leave some sort of break."
• (On the ending of Drive My Car) "I have no any plans of making a sequel, but I was just sort of playing around with things at the end there. One other thing I'd like to say is that the title itself also might give a clue to how you can interpret the ending."

Political views

In December 2023, alongside 50 other filmmakers, Hamaguchi signed an open letter published in Libération demanding a ceasefire and an end to the killing of civilians amid the 2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, and for a humanitarian corridor into Gaza to be established for humanitarian aid, and the release of hostages.

Feature films

Only writer

Documentaries

Short films