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Part of the Japanese teaching blog I maintain away from Gaia is helping people see the different sides of Japanese culture, but normal and not so much so. In modern times, where nearly anything can be dug up and consumed by the world at large, one of the main methods I wish to employ is media(movies, shows and the like), so students can have a more visceral understanding of how to approach Japanese language and Japanese people. What kind of recommendations do you all have?

This is the list I've come up with so far

It's more of a general list, and I chose the movie not specifically because of it's value in introducing Japanese culture, but rather because it introduces many of the film genres Japan in known for(IE Samurai flicks, Yakuza grindhouse movies and Lady Snowblood[where many say the last fight scene in the film draws inspiration from]).

My general belief as a language teacher is that to form a more complete picture of the country who's language your studying, one must at least familiarize themselves with the 3 big aspects of any country's national conversation and identity: politics, entertainment and sports. Once that is done, a language learner can better realize their own conception about the country and see the thing a lot of teachers don't touch much on: the humanity of each person in the country and their individual complexities. It's a shared wisdom that these 3 greatly intersect on a daily basis, and understanding them means understanding the true face of a country and the people who live in it