Film

We Are Little Zombies

Name: We Are Little Zombies
Genre: Drama, Music
Released: 2019
Cast: Keita Ninomiya, Satoshi Mizuno, Mondo Okumura, Sena Nakajima, Kuranosuke Sasaki

Coming-of-age

A wildly inventive Japanese film about four bereaved teenagers who form a band to process their grief—or try to, anyway. It's visually restless, tonally unpredictable, and genuinely tender beneath its chaos. For anyone who's felt too numb to cry, or who loved the controlled weirdness of films like *Juno* or *The Farewell*.

TMDb rating

3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy odd, deadpan stories about kids handling grief sideways, and you're happy to let a loud, scrappy band carry the feelings the characters can't reach.

Skip it if you need a story with steady momentum, since this one wanders through long stretches of quiet and stylised, sometimes repetitive, scenes before it gathers any speed.

What it asks of you: Two hours of patience with a deliberately flat surface, where the big moments arrive in bursts of noise and colour rather than through explanation; you watch for the feeling underneath.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

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The Florida Project2017

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But The handheld camera work is deliberately unglamorous, and the ending refuses easy catharsis. Some find the rawness exhausting rather than moving.

Your Name.2016

A Japanese anime that combines magical-realism body-swap comedy with genuine emotional devastation. It's visually sumptuous and structurally inventive in ways that feel kindred to *Little Zombies*.

But Anime subtitles aren't for everyone, and the tonal shifts from comedy to apocalyptic stakes can feel jarring if you're not on its wavelength.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from We Are Little Zombies

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Shoplifters2018

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Moonlight2016

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But The fragmented structure and long silences demand active attention. If you need plot momentum, this will feel slow.

A Ghost Story2017

A widow and her ghost-haunted house become a meditation on time, loss, and the impossibility of staying with someone after they're gone. Minimalist, strange, and oddly funny about grief.

But Most of it features a ghost under a sheet. If that sounds silly, it kind of is—which is the point, but it doesn't work for everyone.

Boyhood2014

Filmed over twelve years with the same cast, watching a boy become a man. It's unglamorous about family, pain, and growing up in ways that feel true to how *Little Zombies* captures adolescent numbness.

But Three hours of naturalistic family drama with no plot to speak of. Patience required; some viewers find it monotonous.

The Farewell2019

A Chinese-American family decides to hide a terminal diagnosis from their grandmother. It's whip-smart about grief, family obligation, and the gap between what you feel and what you show.

But The trailers oversold the comedy. There's humour, yes, but it's in service of something sadder and more complex.

Eighth Grade2018

An unflinching portrait of a thirteen-year-old girl navigating social media, crushes, and adult confusion. It's uncomfortable and funny in the way actual adolescence is.

But The secondhand embarrassment is intense, and there's a scene involving an adult that lands harder than some viewers want from a comedy-drama.

Everything Everywhere All at Once2022

A multiverse-hopping action film that's also about a daughter trying to connect with her disappointed mother. Wildly inventive formally, genuinely moving about love across impossible distances.

But The visual overstimulation is deliberate but exhausting. If you like your films to let you rest, this won't stop hitting you.

Everything Everywhere All at Once poster

Come and See1985

Both films centre a young protagonist whose numbness to horror is the film's deepest subject. Both use visual style (not dialogue) to show what it means when someone stops being able to feel.

A Soviet film that follows a boy through WWII Belarus. It's a descent into hell with such formal invention and visual daring that it becomes almost abstract—one of cinema's greatest achievements.

But It is genuinely harrowing. The boy's desensitization to atrocity is the point, but watching it happen is nearly unwatchable. This isn't cathartic sadness—it's traumatic.

Lean on Pete2018

Like *Little Zombies*, it's about a young person who can't access normal emotional outlets and instead bonds with something external (a horse instead of a band) to stay alive. Both understand numbness as a survival mechanism, not a flaw.

A boy and a dying racehorse travel across America. It's a road movie about loneliness and attachment, filmed with quiet desperation. The relationship with the horse is never cutesy—it's raw survival.

But The boy gets hurt repeatedly. If you need something that protects its characters (or you), this won't. It's relentlessly unglamorous about poverty and pain.