Are you ready to “Look Back?”
GKids will release “Look Back,” the latest from Palme d’Or winner and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda, in select theatres beginning Dec. 30, with a nationwide expansion on Jan. 15, 2027. The feature marks the first live-action adaptation of the bestselling manga “Look Back” by Tatsuki Fujimoto.
The team also unveiled a brand-new trailer on Tuesday. You can watch it below — just be sure to have some tissues handy.
As you can see in the teaser, the film is a tender coming-of-age story about two young girls whose friendship blossoms thanks to their shared love of comic books, with some images lifted directly from the manga and a healthy amount of inspiration from the 2024 animated feature, written and directed by Kiyotaka Oshiyama. A press release describes the film as “a love letter to the artistic process, hand-written in ink on paper, and a meditation on how mutual pursuit of a craft creates the deepest etches in our memory.”
“Look Back” had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, which was followed by its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and, most recently, its U.K. premiere at the BFI London Film Festival. The film received warm reviews from critics, including our own, who noted that the director “maintains his knack for working with child actors to create a visually detailed drama whose emotions also, on occasion, feel just as thorough.”
GKids, known mostly for their incredible animated releases (including the Oscar-winning Hayao Miyazaki film “The Boy and the Heron”), are making huge inroads in live-action production and distribution as well. In fact, they have two hugely anticipated live-action features on the horizon – sentimental drama “5 Centimeters Per Second,” which releases this Friday, and “Godzilla Minus Zero,” the follow-up to the Academy Award-winning “Godzilla Minus One,” which will debut in North American theaters on Nov. 6.
“Look Back” arrives in select theaters on Dec. 30 before expanding nationwide on Jan. 15, 2027.
