What Runs at Tokyo’s 39th Film Festival, From Sukiyaki to Godzilla Minus Zero and Colony

The 39th Tokyo International Film Festival opens today, 26 October 2026, and runs to 4 November, according to the festival’s official website. The opening film is Zeze Takahisa’s music drama Sukiyaki. The centerpiece is Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus Zero, and the closing film is Yeon Sang-ho’s South Korean thriller Colony.

The programme spans gala screenings, a main competition, Asian premieres, an animation lineup and a retrospective of the director Kenji Mizoguchi. The full line-up was published on 1 October 2026, more than three weeks before the opening day. Outlook India calls the festival “Asia’s largest film event.”

Opening Night: Sukiyaki and the Red Carpet

Sukiyaki follows the three people behind the 1963 song of the same name, which reached No. 1 on the US Billboard chart for three consecutive weeks, according to The Film Stage. The film centres on a composer, a lyricist and a singer who made the song together. The Film Stage names them as Nakamura Hachidai, played by Junichi Okada, Ei Rokusuke, played by Tori Matsuzaka, and Sakamoto Kyu, played by Taiga Nakano. Zeze Takahisa directs.

Toho will open the film in Japan on Christmas, according to the same report.

The official website lists a Multi-Angle Red Carpet Live item dated 26 October, the day the festival opens. It describes streaming of the red carpet from multiple angles. The carpet stream has no start time listed.

The festival takes place across the Hibiya, Yurakucho, Marunouchi and Ginza areas of Tokyo. The official dates are 26 October (Monday) to 4 November (Wednesday).

Festival Dates
The official site gives the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival as 26 October to 4 November 2026, with venues in the Hibiya-Yurakucho-Marunouchi-Ginza area of Tokyo.

Gala Screenings: Fourteen Films From the US, Europe and Asia

The gala section has 14 films. The American titles are Tony Gilroy’s Behemoth!, Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Michael Showalter’s Verity and Wayne Wang’s Diary of a Mad Old Man. Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord is a co-production across six European countries: Romania, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beloved is a Spanish title in the same section.

The Japanese galas are Hiroshi Ando’s A Bouquet of Light for You, Kazuya Shiraishi’s Bye Bye Love: Detective Is in the Bar, Yukiko Sode’s All the Lovers in the Night, Ryutaro Nakagawa’s Your Story – Kimi No Hanashi and Yoshiro Nagikawa’s The Tiger and Her Wings The Movie. Taiwan is represented by Gavin Lin’s Sunshine Women’s Choir, and Sabu’s Arrested Memory is a Taiwan and Japan co-production.

The lineup report also says numerous gala titles show no sign of a US debut. Its other sections are an Asian Future Selection of 10 titles, Nippon Cinema Now with nine, Women’s Empowerment with seven, CROSSCUT ASIA+ with six and a World Focus selection.

Main Competition: Fifteen Films for the Tokyo Grand Prix

Fifteen films compete for the Tokyo Grand Prix and the Governor of Tokyo Award, according to Outlook India. Outlook lists seven world premieres: Akira Ikeda’s The Canary’s Lullaby, a Taiwan and Japan production; Qiu Jiongjiong’s Fuxi: Four Tales of Feasting; Akira Yamamoto’s The Intertwining; Wang Jiangyong’s The Night That Binds Us; Garin Nugroho’s Red Before Dawn from Indonesia; Milcho Manchevski’s Sister Brother Manhole Cover; and Yukiko Mishima’s Two Cigarettes, Three Nights.

Outlook marks eight competition films as Asian premieres. They include Rubaiyat Hossain’s The Difficult Bride, Lisandro Alonso’s Double Freedom, Sun Xun’s Magic Atlas from Singapore, Bahman Ghobadi’s Trees Are Watching from Türkiye, Teodora Ana Mihai’s Heysel 85, Sérgio Graciano’s Memories of Prison, Samuele Rossi’s Even If Hell Came and Jelena Maksimović’s Until the Day Ends. These Asian premieres are part of the same 15 films, not a separate group.

The Film Stage lists The Difficult Bride and Magic Atlas in the main competition, and Outlook also marks both as Asian premieres. The Film Stage’s lineup report calls Qiu Jiongjiong’s A New Old Play follow-up an Asian premiere, while Outlook lists Fuxi: Four Tales of Feasting as a world premiere.

Fuxi is a production from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Double Freedom comes from Chile, Argentina, Luxembourg, Germany and the UK.

Programming Director Ichiyama Shozo says the competition titles look back at the past, using historical events to understand the present, according to The Film Stage’s lineup report.

Centerpiece and Closing: Godzilla Minus Zero and Colony

Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus Zero is the festival’s centerpiece. According to The Film Stage, it premiered at the New York Film Festival. It makes its domestic debut at the Tokyo festival, shortly before its Japanese release on 3 November.

Ichiyama Shozo, whom The Film Stage’s gala report calls festival director, describes the film as a masterpiece made for “these challenging times.”

Yeon Sang-ho’s Colony closes the festival on 4 November. A sudden bioterror attack hits a Seoul skyscraper, trapping a visiting professor, Se Jeong, who watches infected people evolve with collective intelligence. The film premiered in the Midnight Screenings section at Cannes and has performed strongly at the box office in Korea and beyond, according to The Film Stage.

A sudden bioterror attack hits a Seoul skyscraper, trapping a visiting professor.

The Academy Panel and Industry Events on the Festival Calendar

The official site lists an Academy in Tokyo program, with a panel discussion featuring senior leadership from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the body that presents the Oscars.

The official site also carries an invitation to a TIFF-WIP Pitch, a project presentation event. A Letterboxd meet-up is described as the first of its kind in Asia. A TIFF Teens Cine Club item, dated 8 October, reports that Kishii Yukino has joined the club.

The Mizoguchi Retrospective and the Animation Lineup

The Film Stage’s lineup report lists 12 entries in the Kenji Mizoguchi retrospective, including Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff, Sisters of Gion, Osaka Elegy and The Water Magician. The same report calls it a 13-film retrospective.

World Focus also includes an eight-film Youssef Chahine selection, among them Cairo Station and Alexandria Again and Forever. It lists Ulrike Ottinger’s The Blood Countess (2026) alongside two older titles by the same director.

Outlook India names four animation projects: Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado’s Forgotten Island, Brenda Lígia and Edu Felistoque’s Amadeo and the Hypothetical New World, Louis Clichy’s Iron Boy and Son of a Bitch by Érica Maradona, Otto Guerra, Tania Anaya and Sávio Leite. The Film Stage’s lineup report lists 12 titles in its Animation Selection, including Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire and The Rose of Versailles.