CINEOS Premiere
Shoplifters
A makeshift family scraping by on petty theft loves one another more truly than the blood families around them — until the law decides that what they built was never a family at all.
Koreeda lets you settle into the warmth — the meals, the fireworks heard through a gap in the roof, bodies asleep in a heap — and withholds every declaration, so affection lives in proximity rather than words. Then the slow reveal of what's being taken recasts all that comfort as something you were about to lose, and the unease arrives late and changes everything behind it. The ending re-isolates each person into their old solitude, and you feel that atomisation as a genuine bereavement.
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FAQ
Is it a heist film?
No. The shoplifting is almost tender — small acts of taking back from a world that took everything first. It's a quiet, devastating family drama, not a caper.
Why is it so acclaimed?
Because it reframes what family means so gently you don't notice until the last scene has taken the ground out from under you. It leaves you arguing with yourself about who was really harmed.