Though credited with over 100 titles, Takashi Miike’s legendary horror film AUDITION is perhaps the director’s most well-known feature outside of Japan. Based on a novel by Ryū Murakami, the film centers on a middle age widower (Ryo Ishibashi) who is goaded into helping with a casting call in the hopes of finding a new partner. When he meets Asami (Eihi Shiina) it looks as though the search is over. The courtship, however, eclipses a more horrifying reality. Divisive to this day, Miike’s film is a seminal piece of horror filmmaking that went on to influence genre filmmakers for the next two decades while also turning audiences on to the so-called “J-horror” boom that was to come. — Andy Helmkamp