From Ishiguro’s Top 10 movies of all time entry on the Criterion Channel site. Ishiguro wrote the screenplay for the modern version of Ikiru – Living, which released in select American theaters this weekend.

Read his list in full here.

I first saw Ikiru when I was a child growing up in England, and it had a profound influence on me. That’s not just because it was one of the very few Japanese movies I was able to see at that time, but because it said something really encouraging to me, something I held with me all through my student years and as I was becoming an adult. It told me you don’t have to be a superstar. You don’t have to do something magnificent that the world applauds you for. Chances are that life is going to be relatively ordinary—at least that’s what I had imagined for myself. For most of us, life is very circumscribed and humble and frustrating; it’s a daily grind. But with some supreme effort, even a small life can turn into something satisfying and magnificent.

Kazuo Ishiguro, January 6, 2023. https://www.criterion.com/current/top-10-lists/518-kazuo-ishiguros-top-10

Can we muster a supreme effort today? And build on that tomorrow, if granted?