Hideo Oguni

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Yoshio Inaba

Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Takashi Shimura, Haruo Tanaka, Nobuo Kaneko

A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyōko Kagawa

Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Yūzō Kayama, Tsutomu Yamazaki

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura

In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Minoru Chiaki, Kamatari Fujiwara

In this companion piece and sequel to "Yojimbo," jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a proper samurai on its ear.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Keiju Kobayashi

In this loose adaptation of "Hamlet," illegitimate son Kôichi Nishi climbs to a high position within a Japanese corporation and marries the crippled daughter of company vice president Iwabuchi. At the reception, the wedding cake is a replica of their corporate headquarters, but an aspect of the design reminds the party of the hushed-up death of Nishi's father. It is then that Nishi unleashes his plan to avenge his father's death.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Kamatari Fujiwara

A hardened convict and a younger prisoner escape from a brutal prison in the middle of winter only to find themselves on an out-of-control train with a female railway worker while being pursued by the vengeful head of security.

Dir. Andrei Konchalovsky · With Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecca De Mornay

In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. "Tora! Tora! Tora!", named after the code words used by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Americans, covers the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged America into the Second World War.

Dir. Toshio Masuda, Kinji Fukasaku, Richard Fleischer · With Martin Balsam, So Yamamura, Jason Robards

An aging foundry patriarch, gripped by terror of nuclear annihilation, tries to uproot his family to Brazil. When they petition to have him declared incompetent, a family-court counselor witnesses his obsession slide into ruin—and asks whether ignoring the atomic threat is any saner.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki

On a Tokyo dump’s shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who “drives” an imaginary trolley, a homeless father and son designing a dream house, a young woman brutalized at home, drunks, schemers, and saints of small kindnesses. Kurosawa crafts a ragged mosaic of hardship, fantasy, and flickers of grace that keep people moving forward.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Yoshitaka Zushi, Kin Sugai, Toshiyuki Tonomura

Residents of a rundown boardinghouse in 19th-century Japan, including a mysterious old man and an aging actor, get drawn into a love triangle that turns violent. When amoral thief Sutekichi breaks off his affair with landlady Osugi to romance her younger sister, Okayo, Osugi extracts her revenge by revealing her infidelity to her jealous husband.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Kyōko Kagawa