The Third Murder

An accomplished defense attorney agrees to take on a case that looks straightforward a museum robbery turned murder. The accused man claims he is innocent, and the lawyer dives into the evidence, the testimonies, and the competing narratives that surround the incident. As the process unfolds, the investigator questions the reliability of witnesses the contradictions pile up and the law seems to bend around the truth. The film follows the strain on the attorney as he weighs duty against doubt and confronts the moral weight of every choice. Kore-eda keeps the tempo measured, letting long conversations and quiet silences illuminate the ambiguities at the heart of the case. No sensational twists, just questions about what really happened in the courtroom.

Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, The Third Murder arrived in 2017 as a courtroom driven drama. It presents an original screenplay rather than a direct adaptation, yet it bears the director’s patient observational touch and his interest in moral ambiguity throughout.

The Third Murder signals Kore-eda's shift toward grayscale moral puzzles outside traditional family stories. The way it treats truth not as a fixed fact but as a layered construction sparked conversation about memory, accountability, and the limits of the legal system among international audiences and festival circles in critical discussions.

Critics praised the film for its quiet intensity and for Fukuyama's restrained performance, with Koji Yakusho delivering a poised counterpoint. The story probes how testimony, memory, and duty collide, asking whether justice can be truly fair when certainty remains elusive and every choice carries consequences. Its atmosphere lingers afterward too.

Box office data for this title is modest and not widely publicized; it had a controlled release in Japan and select international markets, appealing more to critics and festival audiences than blockbuster crowds, often discussed in film circles worldwide today.