Based on a Murakami short story, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car has won Best International Feature at this year's Academy Awards. The film is now available to stream via the Bookshop.org screening room, with 50% of the ticket price going directly to independent bookshops! Based on Haruki Murakami’s short story from the collection, Men Without Women, this beautiful and haunting road movie is truly unmissable. Explore this list of cinematic adaptations and delve into the strange and enticing world of this iconic author.

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Two years after his wife’s unexpected death, Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a renowned stage actor and director, receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya at a theatre festival in Hiroshima. There, he meets Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a taciturn young woman assigned by the festival to chauffeur him in his beloved red Saab 900. 

As the production’s premiere approaches, tensions mount amongst the cast and crew, not least between Yusuke and Koji Takatsuki, a handsome TV star who shares an unwelcome connection to Yusuke’s late wife. Forced to confront painful truths raised from his past, Yusuke begins, with the help of his driver, to face the haunting mysteries his wife left behind. 

Adapted from Haruki Murakami’s short story, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car is a haunting road movie travelling a path of love, loss, acceptance, and peace. Winner of the Best Screenplay Award and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. The film is also Japan's 2022 Oscars submission for Best International Picture.