Ryuichi Sakamoto: CODA

Ryuichi Sakamoto: CODA is a documentary portrait of the Japanese composer and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, directed and written by Stephen Nomura Schible. The film follows Sakamoto across several years as he writes and performs music, opens up his studio and daily life to the camera, and reflects on the sounds he builds from both instruments and the natural world. His anti-nuclear activism, which intensified after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, and his return to work following a cancer diagnosis in 2014 form part of the backdrop, as does his long career in film music, including his Academy Award-winning score. Archival clips of scenes he scored appear alongside the new material.

The documentary was released in 2017 and runs 100 minutes. It was produced by Eric Nyari and Schible, with Cineric Creative and Borderland Media behind it, and it is a co-production between the United States and Japan. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.6 from around 2,300 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7.4 from a much smaller group of about 60 voters. The two audiences broadly agree, with the larger IMDb sample pointing to a steady, well-regarded response rather than a divisive one.

Sakamoto appears as himself throughout. The cast list also includes Leonardo DiCaprio, David Bowie, John Malkovich, Debra Winger and Donatas Banionis, all credited through archive footage from films whose music Sakamoto composed.