Minoru Chiaki

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

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

Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Takashi Shimura

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

A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his new doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality and causing him to question his identity.

Dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara · With Tatsuya Nakadai, Mikijiro Hira, Machiko Kyō

A humble and simple Takezo abandons his life as a knight errant. He's sought as a teacher and vassal by Shogun, Japan's most powerful clan leader. He's also challenged to fight by the supremely confident and skillful Sasaki Kojiro. Takezo agrees to fight Kojiro in a year's time but rejects Shogun's patronage, choosing instead to live on the edge of a village, raising vegetables. He's followed there by Otsu and later by Akemi, both in love with him. The year ends as Takezo assists the villagers against a band of brigands. He seeks Otsu's forgiveness and accepts her love, then sets off across the water to Ganryu Island for his final contest.

Dir. Hiroshi Inagaki · With Toshirō Mifune, Koji Tsuruta, Kaoru Yachigusa

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

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

A gentle, war-shattered ex-soldier, Kinji Kameda, arrives in wintry Hokkaidō and is pulled into a volatile tangle of love and pity between the disgraced Taeko Nasu, the proud Ayako, and his possessive friend Akama. Kameda’s saintly compassion exposes everyone’s wounds, steering the quartet toward jealousy, violence, and inexorable tragedy. Adapted from Dostoevsky’s novel.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Setsuko Hara, Masayuki Mori, Toshirō Mifune

Two fishing scout pilots make a horrifying discovery when they encounter a second Godzilla alongside a new monster named Anguirus. Without the weapon that killed the original, authorities attempt to lure Godzilla away from the mainland. But Anguirus soon arrives and the two monsters make their way towards Osaka as Japan braces for tragedy.

Dir. Motoyoshi Oda · With Hiroshi Koizumi, Setsuko Wakayama, Minoru Chiaki