Jeremiah Johnson (my favourite, the story of a man who's fed up with society and goes to live alone in the mountains, with only animals and other lonely hunters as occasional company.)

Old Boy (japanese movie about a kidnapped man who's kept in isolation for years)

Escape from New York (not about isolation itself, but it's the quintessential anti-hero post-apocalyptic movie, and the main character is quite the antisocial type)

Jeremiah Johnson is a badass movie. I love it.

I just watched Stay, i don't see what's so reclusive about it.

The recent Woody Allen film, Whatever Works, features a protagonist who's suicidal, and randomly gains the company of a beautiful young girl who he is reluctant to interact with as a result of his solitary/introverted nature. ...it's a comedy of course.

House of Five Leaves isn't so much about reclusiveness as it is about a ronin samurai with severe social anxiety.

Put more simply, its purely Awesome.

Either I missed it, or you people completely forgot Edward Scissorhands!

These titles I mention are pretty weird and I don't expect them to be to everyone's taste. For me though, they capture the language of anxiety, depression and loneliness in an entertaining and meaningful way. There is a strong element of cruelty in some of these which may be very painful to watch, but I think it rings true to the experience of being an outsider.

The Tenant
The Tenant chronicles a harrowing, fascinating descent into madness as the pathologically alienated Trelkovsky is subsumed into Simone Choule, an enigmatic suicide whose baleful presence still saturates his new apartment. Much more than a tale of possession, the novel probes disturbing depths of guilt, paranoia, and sexual obsession with an unsparing, almost clinical detachment. (summary for the book)

This is a very funny, very dark film which might appeal to some people here (kafkaesque ftw!). The book is even better.

Barton Fink
Possibly my favorite film. It's about an anxious intellectual playwright who moves to Hollywood and gets a major case of writer's block. surreal, dark, funny, atmospheric and REALLY GOOD. Directed by the Coen Bros.

Welcome to the Dollhouse
A black comedy about a nerdy middle school outcast. (my synopses are getting progressively shorter)
(check out Happiness and Storytelling by the same director if you enjoy this)

Neon Genesis Evangelion (not a movie but ill count it)
Great show- uses the apocalypse, aliens and giant robots as a metaphor for depression, loneliness, and the human experience. If you haven't seen this show I guarantee you WILL come away with something.

That's it for now.

Maggie Mui, from the anime Read or Die, has some SLIGHTLY hikikomori tendencies (for example: she sleeps and reads in a closet under the stairs)...
but I'm really pushing it here. This show has no major hiki-themes to speak of... but I just watched the series and thought she was a note-worthy character
that any fellow otaku/hiki might relate to.

She's the one curled up in the closet at 0:20

I'll definitely check out Kairo, especially since it's on Netflix Instant (which has been my obsession for the past few months).

marebito

Taxi Driver and Neon genesis evangelion.

here is a great short movie called "Shaking Tokyo" which is about a hardcore-hikki. Pretty good stuff. Love the cinematography.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AQgY-7jHTA&NR=1

Oh, I never heard of it, vsnare. I also read that segment is by Joon-ho Bong, a good director.

Thanks for sharing it!

A&E did a series of Movies Based on the Rex Stout character Nero Wolfe. Nero wolf is a recluse who seldom leaves his home and runs his detective agency using a group of fact finders. He solves his crimes in his home at his desk. He is a well written character with hobbies, character flaws and a pathological fear of women, although the A&E movies play this aspect down. If you have never heard of Nero Wolfe, I highly recommend these. Sadly its getting difficult to find Rex Stout novels because Wolfe, like Nancy Drew is somewhat dated and does not have that ageless quality like the Christie and Doyle novels seem to have. My favorite is when he pits his whits against the FBI.

Absolutely Fantastic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Ys1IsOFeo&feature=related

I saw a documentary on the Independent Film Channel called "Does Your Soul Have a Cold?". It's about depression and the use of antidepressants in Japan. The documentary follows the lives of several people, and one of them is a hikikomori, I believe.

A good anime series is "Welcome to the N.H.K."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_the_N.H.K.


A "real" movie would be "Old Boy."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364569/


The latter is touchy for us that feel like we have lost the best years of our lives. After being isolated and never seeing a person for 15 years he meets a girl. And they fall in love, and he says, "I would like to thank for all those years, if I haven't been locked in, would she have liked me?"

The soundtrack is the best part.

Yeah, and the girl turns out to be his daughter.

That's beside the point. They do erase the knowledge of them being family and live happily ever after.

It was a shit movie anyway.

Now, I... (Ima Boku Wa)


I seriously believed this was a documentary following a real-life NEET/Hiki in Japan when I first began watching it. This movie is pretty good, and there aren't many shows or movies out there touching specifically on being a NEET or Hiki, so I give this movie my recommendation.

Here's some info:
http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/index.php?aid=2510
Here's where I downloaded it:
http://asiandvdclub.org/details.php?id=21458&dllist=1

be sure to check out "shaking tokyo" !

Since we've got two topics about hikikomori movies, I decided to merge both.


I saw Shaking Tokyo - it's really good.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is an awesome anime, the lead constantly wants to kill himself over his depression/despair. There's also a hikikomori character.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqY1Qpu1Now :)
The show centers around lots of different issues in general, and Hikikomori-ism is just one of them so it's not entirely devoted to Hikis but I still think many people here could really enjoy this.
Also reminds you that being a hiki may mean you're weird, but it's not like others out there don't have their issues ^^

welcome to the NHK..... anime

funny you mentioned both "cast away" and "moon", because there is a great korean film on the subject called "castaway on the moon" (2009, hae-jun lee), that i would VERY MUCH recommend to everybody. two different kinds of voluntary recluses, and their communication.

Japanese Movie -> Old Boy

Its about someone who was a prisoner in a smal room for I think it was 20 years.