Movie · 2003 · Drama, Comedy, Romance · 1h 42m · R · English
Curator score: 7.9/10 (1.9M ratings)
Everyone wants to be found.
Overview
Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.
Ratings
Curator score: 7.9/10
IMDb: 7.7/10
Letterboxd: 3.77/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
Metacritic: 91
TMDB: 7.4/10
Director
Sofia Coppola
Production
American Zoetrope, Elemental Films
Cast
Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi, Anna Faris, Akiko Takeshita, Kazuyoshi Minamimagoe, Kazuko Shibata, Take, Ryuichiro Baba, Akira Yamaguchi, Catherine Lambert, François du Bois, Tim Leffman, Gregory Pekar, Richard Allen, Diamond Yukai, Jun Maki, Nao Asuka, Tetsuro Nakagawa, Kanako Nakazato
Curator Review
Verdict
A quietly aching, highly atmospheric drift through loneliness, cultural dislocation, and an unlikely emotional connection. Its mood, performances, and Tokyo-night visuals are the main draw; the film is less about plot than about suspended feeling.
Best for
viewers who like melancholy character studies
fans of understated romance
people drawn to travel-as-emotional-dislocation stories
audiences who appreciate mood, texture, and city atmosphere
fans of introspective early-2000s indie cinema
Skip if
you want a plot-heavy romance
you dislike slow, elliptical storytelling
you’re sensitive to cultural representation issues in films about Japan
you prefer clear emotional resolutions
you want broad comedy or conventional relationship drama
Overview
Lost in Translation is a film of glances, pauses, and half-spoken thoughts. Sofia Coppola turns jet lag, alienation, and insomnia into a soft, drifting romance that feels more like shared weather than a conventional love story. The film’s greatest strength is its atmosphere: neon Tokyo, hotel interiors, karaoke rooms, and the hush between two people who recognize each other’s loneliness.
Worth noting
Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson give the movie its fragile center, balancing wit with sadness. Their chemistry is deliberately restrained, which makes the connection feel intimate without becoming tidy or sentimental. The film is often funniest when it is most observant, catching the absurdity of being adrift in a place you cannot fully read.
Bottom line
It is also a film that invites debate, especially around its depiction of Japan and the way the city functions as a backdrop for American malaise. For some viewers that tension is part of the text; for others it is a serious flaw. Even so, as a piece of mood-driven filmmaking, it remains distinctive and deeply influential.
Top Letterboxd reviews
russman (3.5★) · 22476 likes
For the sake of science, I am going to take the most liked review of this movie, Google Translate it into Japanese, then Google Translate it back into English. Let's see what happens.
Original review by Lisa Bettany: "Who doesn't love a movie that starts on Scarlett Johansson's bum?"
Lisa Bettany's review Lost in Translation: "Who starts in the ass of Scarlett Johansson, you do not love movies?"
Penny (1.5★) · 18552 likes
Sofia Coppola you fucking weirdo.
I was really looking forward to this.
Lost In Translation takes a look at a blossoming love affair between 2 Americans isolated in Japan. My problem with this is that I found the depiction of Japan and of Japanese people by the film to be, how do I say, dogshit. Like half of the film's runtime is Bill Murray making fun of the fact that the Japanese people don't have perfect English pronunciation while completely… more
john (5★) · 11387 likes
the earliest hints of Scarlett Johansson's asian heritage can be traced back to the filming of this movie
veronica (3★) · 10839 likes
loved the two ladies in the waiting room of the hospital who couldn’t stop chuckling in the background throughout the whole scene
ana 🏳🌈 (1★) · 8805 likes
sofia coppola really be making racist movies about sad white people and y'all are like 'wow story of my life. five stars.' lmao