Love Life12A

Directed by Kōji Fukada | Japan | 2022 | 2h 3m | Japanese & Korean w/ English subtitles | Starring Fumino Kimura, Kento Nagayama, Tetta Shimada, Tomorô Taguchi, Hirona Yamazaki

On the surface, Taeko and Jiro are a happily married couple. Both in their thirties, they have steady careers, a six-year-old son, and are planning a 65th birthday party for Jiro’s father. However, a sudden tragedy, coupled with the emergence of their former partners, exposes growing tensions in the young couple’s relationship. From the Cannes award-winning director of Harmonium, Kôji Fukada’s intricately plotted drama is a beguiling portrait of a family grappling with the vulnerabilities of human nature.

Reviews

‘An enormously poignant melodrama told at the volume of a broken whisper, Kōji Fukada’s “Love Life” represents a major breakthrough for a filmmaker who’s found the perfect story for his probing but distant style.’
★★★★
David Ehrlich, IndieWire

‘It is a movie whose gentleness and sadness coexist with a strange sense of the absurd, preposterous and tasteless new twists that life can give you’
★★★★
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Sorry - you missed it!

We showed Love Life between September 29, 2023 and October 5, 2023.

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What else is on?

Today (Friday 27th March)

15:15

The President's Cake 12A
1h 45m | Arabic w/ English subtitles
During 1990s Iraq, schoolgirl Lamia is chosen by her class to bake a birthday cake for Saddam Hussein. With her pet rooster beside her she searches the town for ingredients in an award-winning debut about childhood resilience and life under dictatorship.

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17:45

Sinners 15
2h 18m
Twin brothers seek a fresh start in their 1930s Southern hometown but uncover an evil lurking beneath the surface. Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan reunite for this chilling supernatural thriller set against the backdrop of the Jim Crow-era South.

Book here

20:45

Sirāt 15
1h 54m | Spanish, French & Arabic w/ English subtitles
Oliver Laxe’s intense, hallucinatory road movie follows a father and son through Morocco as they try to find a missing relative at various sprawling, illegal raves. Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival 2025.

Book here


Tomorrow (Saturday 28th March)

14:15

Sound of Falling 18
2h 35m | German w/ English subtitles
Across the twentieth century four teenage girls spend their youth in the same farmhouse decades apart, yet their lives echo each other. German director Mascha Schilinski interweaves generations of girlhood, revealing loneliness and lost innocence across a turbulent century.

Book here

17:45

Sirāt 15
1h 54m | Spanish, French & Arabic w/ English subtitles
Oliver Laxe’s intense, hallucinatory road movie follows a father and son through Morocco as they try to find a missing relative at various sprawling, illegal raves. Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival 2025.

Book here

20:30

Sinners 15
2h 18m
Twin brothers seek a fresh start in their 1930s Southern hometown but uncover an evil lurking beneath the surface. Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan reunite for this chilling supernatural thriller set against the backdrop of the Jim Crow-era South.

Book here


Plan your visit

Our beautiful art deco inspired auditorium can be found just off East Oxford's Cowley Road.We are open 7 days a week. We open the cinema and box office 30 minutes before the scheduled start time of each film, and the Box Office then closes 10 minutes after the film starts. We only show a few adverts – less than most cinemas – and we only play a couple of trailers, so please don’t be late as the film itself starts very close to the advertised time!