Perfect Days
Neon | Release Date: November 10, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
80
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeFeb 22, 2024
By the close, the picture risks taking on the quality of those allegorical novels that provided solace in the post-hippie era. Jonathan Livingstone Lavatory Cleaner. Zen and the Art of Lavatory Maintenance. But better than that. Sharper, less sentimental, less aphoristic. A film to live your life by. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayFeb 14, 2024
The fact that writer-director Wim Wenders has called a movie about cleaning toilets “Perfect Days” might strike some viewers as the height of absurdity, even perverse humor. But once they get a glimpse of Hirayama in action, the dreams (literal and figurative) behind the drudgery reveal themselves in a series of revelatory moments. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleFeb 8, 2024
This film beams and buzzes inside its closed loop with the hard-won wisdom of acceptance. And it does so while staying in awe of what can never be understood, only appreciated — and if we’re lucky, enjoyed. Read full review
100
Original-CinChris KnightFeb 6, 2024
If you enjoyed Paterson, Jim Jarmusch’s 2016 drama about… well, not much of anything to be honest, then you may similarly be moved by its spiritual cousin, Perfect Days by Wim Wenders. Read full review
100
The Associated PressJake CoyleFeb 5, 2024
The Wenders’ movie that “Perfect Days” most recalls is “Wings of Desire,” where melancholy angels watched over Cold War-era Berlin and spoke of testifying “day by day for eternity.” “Perfect Days” has no such supernatural element, but its gaze is likewise attuned to what’s beautiful and meaningful in everyday living. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyJan 30, 2024
The movie reminded me of what Peter Bogdanovich said of Ford’s “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”: that it "is not a young man’s movie; it has the wisdom and poetic perceptions of an artist knowingly nearing the end of his life and career." The wisdom and poetry here are just as real and just as thoroughly felt. Read full review
91
ColliderRoss BonaimeSep 17, 2023
Perfect Days is another masterwork from Wenders, a recognition of life’s curiosities, the small details that make it all worthwhile, and finding beauty in the overlooked things in life. Read full review
90
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerFeb 8, 2024
It’s a wonderful movie, and an Oscar nominee for best international feature. It is also proof, if any were needed, that the rhythms of everyday life, no matter how seemingly mundane, can resonate when beheld by an artist’s eye. Read full review
90
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonFeb 7, 2024
Pay attention to the shadows in Perfect Days. Pay attention also to the trees, to the ways Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) looks at them. They’re as much a character in the story as he is. Read full review
90
The Daily BeastNick SchagerDec 29, 2023
A sweet and sad slice-of-life about the comfort and sorrow of solitary repetition, buoyed by a Yakusho performance that rightly earned him the Best Actor prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 25, 2023
The director has crafted a film of deceptive simplicity, observing the tiny details of a routine existence with such clarity, soulfulness and empathy that they build a cumulative emotional power almost without you noticing. Read full review
90
TheWrapNicholas BarberMay 25, 2023
Perfect Days has plenty of amusing scenes and plenty of touching ones, but it would be stretching the definitions to describe it as either a comedy or a drama. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesFeb 15, 2024
The film becomes a kind of meditative act. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesChase HutchinsonFeb 20, 2024
A magnificent work of minimalism, the film is about these minute moments just as it’s about the most existential parts of life. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenFeb 15, 2024
The brilliance of the screenplay, which Wenders wrote with Takuma Takasaki, is the way it doesn’t inflate the interruptions to Hiryama’s happiness (a pushy coworker, the appearance of an estranged sister) into contrived drama. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubMurtada ElfadlFeb 8, 2024
With Perfect Days, Wenders shows what an artist who has lived a full life can accomplish. There’s a sweet rhythm to the film that cherishes the small moments that might go unnoticed elsewhere. Read full review
83
The PlaylistRafaela Sales RossMay 26, 2023
Frustration is quickly diluted in service of reinforcing the central character’s enlightenment, a repeating arc that muddles the refined treatment of the film’s accompanying themes. Read full review
83
IndieWireSiddhant AdlakhaMay 26, 2023
It builds, in the process, to a stunning and genuinely moving crescendo. Read full review
80
Film ThreatJason DelgadoMar 29, 2024
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this film shows us that we could all use a look through the lens that both Hirayama and Wim Wenders use to appreciate the overlooked jewels in this life better. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeFeb 25, 2024
Perhaps, in its polite and unassuming way, the film advocates not just a new way of looking, but also a new way of living. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinFeb 22, 2024
Wenders’ obvious affection for Tokyo itself, his keen feel for texture and neat avoidance of cliché all suggest Perfect Days is likely to age well as a portrait of a great city’s everyday side. Read full review
80
Little White LiesHannah StrongFeb 22, 2024
Perfect Days encourages a sort of radical presentness in our own lives – learning how to truly connect with our existence, even when it’s difficult or causes us to confront unpleasant truths. Read full review
80
EmpireAlex GodfreyFeb 19, 2024
Zen and the art of toilet cleaning? You’d better believe it. This is as gentle as it gets — a humble little film, maybe, but an enriching one. It’s a soul-cleanse. Read full review
80
Screen RantGraeme GuttmannFeb 9, 2024
Perfect Days is engrossing in its monotony and fascinating when something disrupts it, a portrait of a simple but beautiful existence that serves as a life-affirming reminder to value the little moments as much as we do the monumental ones. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekFeb 7, 2024
There’s something inexplicably Wenders-like about it; he’s a filmmaker who looks for joy in the corners, and finds it. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearFeb 7, 2024
There is real joy in how this man lives perpetually in the moment, embracing the small, unassuming pleasures of the present. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMay 26, 2023
Your cousin could have written this movie. But maybe only Wenders could have directed it. He has the sensitivity to shoot the seesawing depths of Yakusho’s face. He has the eye to capture the elegant and diverse architecture of Tokyo’s public bathrooms. Read full review
80
VarietyGuy LodgeMay 25, 2023
This beguiling film may trade in the tranquil security of routine, but makes an occasional, heart-quickening case for the unexpected. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonFeb 15, 2024
Wenders structures the film episodically, so characters, such as a goofy co-worker, a homeless man and a suddenly appearing relative, come and go from Hirayama’s life. Thus the story relies on Yakusho to carry this movie, and that he does. Read full review
72
Paste MagazineBrianna ZiglerOct 18, 2023
Perfect Days revels in its ambient minimalism as much as its own protagonist, though something is missing. One might ask for more from Perfect Days, a film that finds itself a bit too understated in its understatement. Read full review
70
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyMay 25, 2023
For all its poetic charm, this is a slender work that comes across as something of a ’mindfulness movie’, in a faintly self-satisfied vein. Read full review
68
The Film VerdictStephen DaltonJul 10, 2023
Perfect Days turns out to be a surprisingly charming, haunting, moving work with deliberate echoes of Japanese cinema legend Yasujiro Ozu. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 29, 2024
Your appreciation of Perfect Days hangs on how fascinating you think a toilet cleaner would be, and how much interior life you’re willing to add to Wenders’ repetitive and superficial “meditation” on such a character. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalZachary BarnesFeb 8, 2024
Though not a bad movie, exactly, Perfect Days is a bit too much like a ready-made rendering of a good one, replete with a number of great songs that give scenes a semblance of emotional force. Read full review
60
Time OutPhil de SemlyenMay 30, 2023
Beautiful acted by Japanese veteran Yakusho, it’s a character study with real depth. Maybe not top tier Wenders, but still one to linger over. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 25, 2023
I found something a little too subdued in this film, though the evocation of Tokyo itself is very uncliched, despite the emphasis on something that is the subject of so many touristy jokes: the loos. Not perfect, but engaging enough. Read full review
50
The New YorkerRichard BrodyFeb 5, 2024
Rather than offering a stark and incisive vision, this aesthetic of tacitness delivers a sentimentalized prettiness. The results are merely vague, in a way that seems willfully naïve about Japan, about labor, and about art. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChuck BowenSep 8, 2023
The film’s details collectively grow absurd and pompous. Read full review
More From This Movie

80 Critic Reviews

tbd User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL