Hirokazu Kore-eda has established himself as one of the most consistently gratifying humanist filmmakers with poignant family dramas like Still Walking, After the Storm and Like Father, Like Son. (He won the Palme d’Or in May for his latest film, Shoplifters.) But The Third Murder is a complete change of pace. As the title suggests, it’s a murder mystery, a story laden with twists and ironies in which a defence attorney sets about disproving his client’s confession of murder.

"What initially comes on like a genre exercise soon develops into a metaphysical examination of objective truth and the power that narratives have to shape and sometimes distort the world around us. The distances between events as experienced, remembered, communicated and comprehended are The Third Murder’s four thematic poles… The film hinges on a series of one-on-one dialogue scenes in the prison interview room, shot in close up, often with reflections of lawyer and client overlapping in the dividing glass. Where one would expect a murder-mystery to cohere, The Third Murder’s plotline refracts as new information and compromised perspectives complicate the case. Koreeda uses the momentum of the genre – its twists and turns, reveals and developments – to an unusual end, rejecting a satisfying conclusion for a complex moral conundrum." Michael Leader, Sight & Sound