Japan Synopsis
“Exterminate all rational thought.”
Blank-faced bug killer Bill Lee and his dead-eyed wife, Joan, like to get high on Bill's pest poisons while lounging with Beat poet pals. After meeting the devilish Dr. Benway, Bill gets a drug made from a centipede. Upon indulging, he accidentally kills Joan, takes orders from his typewriter-turned-cockroach, ends up in a constantly mutating Mediterranean city and learns that his hip friends have published his work — which he doesn't remember writing.
Audience Engagement
939 audience reviews — more than 97% of Japan films in our index.
Review volume (97th percentile) outruns trending popularity (73th) — a durable title with sustained audience attention.
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with Naked Lunch. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
Crime + Drama in Japan
203 Japan titles in our catalog blend the Crime and Drama genres. Below: the top-rated of them (excluding Naked Lunch itself).
The 1990–1992 Japan Window
Naked Lunch holds position #31 of 107 Japan films in the 1990–1992 window, below highlighted by audience rating.
The 1990s Japan Landscape
Catalog density by release year across the 1990s in Japan, 447 titles in total. Highlighted year (yellow) is when Naked Lunch premiered alongside 36 others.
Budget & Box Office Efficiency
At a 1h 55m runtime, production spent $139K per minute on screen and earned $23K per minute back.
Position in Catalog
Released alongside 36 other Japan films in 1991.
The 872nd Japan title from Japan we index (earliest catalogued entry: 1899).
Our Japan catalog contains 4,579 titles in total (2,908 films).
Thematic Fingerprint
Tags on Naked Lunch, grouped by how common each theme is across the full Asian catalog. Rare tags are more distinctive signals.
- illegal drugs · 5
- exterminator · 2
- bug · 1
- beat generation · 1
- writer · 15
- hallucination · 11
- writing · 6
- based on novel or book · 288
- gay theme · 67
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #2,081 of 4,579 Japan films indexed here (55th percentile by TMDB audience score).
Among Japan Crime productions specifically: #138 of 402 (top 34%).
Production Details
| Primary Country | Japan |
|---|---|
| All Production Countries | Canada, Japan, United Kingdom |
| Original Language | En |
| Spoken Languages | Arabic, English |
| Production Companies | Nippon Film Development and Finance, Film Trustees Ltd., Naked Lunch Productions, Recorded Picture Company, Téléfilm Canada |
| Runtime | 1h 55m |
| Release Date | December 27, 1991 |
| IMDb | tt0102511 |