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Japanese Cinema
From the samurai thrillers of Kurosawa to Koreeda's beautiful domestic dramas, this collection celebrates the extraordinary diversity of Japanese cinema.
While little was known in the west until Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon won the Golden Lion at Venice in 1951, Japanese cinema is now regarded as one of the great canons of world film.

Red BeardRed Beard
Drama1965180 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
Kurosawa’s episodic, poignant story of a 19th-century doctor (Toshiro Mifune) working in a clinic for the poor and his tumultuous friendship with a young intern.

Tony TakitaniTony Takitani
Drama200476 minsDirector: Jun Ichikawa
Award-winning film adapted from Haruki Murakami’s New Yorker tale of solitude and obsession.

Throne of BloodThrone of Blood
Drama1957110 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
A master of period-drama, Kurosawa (Rashomon, Seven Samurai) recasts Macbeth as a Japanese warlord in one of the greatest Shakespearean adaptations

When a Woman Ascends the StairsWhen a Woman Ascends the Stairs
1960111 minsDirector: Mikio Naruse
Mikio Naruse’s best-known film is a masterful study of a Ginza hostess struggling under constant pressures to compromise her honour.

Seven SamuraiSeven Samurai
Drama1954207 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
Farmers hire a band of samurai to defend them against marauding bandits in Kurosawa’s influential epic, a touchstone for action movies ever since.

Sanshiro SugataSanshiro Sugata
Crime194379 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
Kurosawa’s assured debut film about a young man’s spiritual journey through the study and practice of judo.

Ring [Ringu]Ring [Ringu]
Horror199796 minsDirector: Hideo Nakata
A journalist sets out to uncover in urban legend about a supposedly cursed videotape, in Hideo Nakata's chilling and highly influential tale of technological terror.

IkiruIkiru
Drama1952143 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
A bureaucrat’s life finds new meaning in Kurosawa’s classic original, the source for Bill Nighy’s brilliant drama, Living.

After LifeAfter Life
Drama1998119 minsDirector: Hirokazu Koreeda
Koreeda's lyrical fantasy challenges the viewer to reflect on the experiences that most make life worth living.

I Was Born, But...I Was Born, But...
Comedy193287 minsSilentDirector: Yasujirō Ozu
Ozu's silent masterpiece follows two brothers as they try to outwit the local bully.

Equinox FlowerEquinox Flower
Comedy1958118 minsDirector: Yasujirō Ozu
Ozu's deft comedy takes an ironic look at the decline of paternal authority.

Still WalkingStill Walking
Drama2008115 minsDirector: Hirokazu Koreeda
Koreeda’s subtle, moving account of the tensions within a family is his most Ozu-like film.

Battle RoyaleBattle Royale
Science Fiction2000114 minsDirector: Kenji Fukasaku
Before The Hunger Games there was Battle Royale, Kinji Fukasaku's magnificently twisted shocker in which tearaway teens are given three days to kill or be killed.

Violent CopViolent Cop
Crime1989103 minsDirector: Takeshi Kitano
In his brutal directorial debut, ‘Beat' Takeshi Kitano plays a renegade cop who frequently resorts to violence and unethical methods to get results.

SonatineSonatine
Crime199394 minsDirector: Takeshi Kitano
Takeshi Kitano's masterful and meditative gangster film, about a yakuza sent to the beautiful beaches of Okinawa where he has time to ruminate on his fate.

Late SpringLate Spring
Drama1949108 minsDirector: Yasujirō Ozu
Yasujiro Ozu's influential masterpiece is a tender meditation on family politics, sacrifice and the status quo.

The Bad Sleep WellThe Bad Sleep Well
Crime1960151 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
The first film made by Akira Kurosawa's own production company is a dark tale of greed, corporate corruption and revenge.

Boiling PointBoiling Point
Crime199097 minsDirector: Takeshi Kitano
A young baseball player becomes mixed up with a psychotic yakuza, in Takeshi Kitano's hilarious and twisted crime tale.

RashomonRashomon
Crime195088 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
Credited with bringing Japanese cinema to worldwide audiences, Akira Kurosawa’s breakthrough tells the story of a murder in the woods from four differing perspectives.

Good MorningGood Morning
Comedy195994 minsDirector: Yasujirō Ozu
Yasujiro Ozu's cheerful comedy about the silliness of everyday chatter.

KwaidanKwaidan
Anthology1964183 minsDirector: Masaki Kobayashi
This stunningly beautiful anthology of Japanese ghost stories is one of the most meticulously crafted supernatural films ever made.

Sanshiro Sugata part twoSanshiro Sugata part two
Crime194579 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
This sequel reunites most of the principal cast from the original and follows Sanshiro face a new set of enemies whilst continuing his quest to become a judo master.

A Lonely Cow Weeps at DawnA Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn
Drama200361 minsDirector: Daisuke Gotô
In this bizarre erotic family drama, a young widow pretends to be a cow for her senile father-in-law, who's a farmer.

SanjuroSanjuro
Crime196296 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
In Akira Kurosawa's comedy of manners, a ronin runs rings around nine young, clean-cut samurai while cleaning up a spot of corruption in local government.

Floating CloudsFloating Clouds
Drama1955123 minsDirector: Mikio Naruse
Mikio Naruse’s masterpiece about a wandering woman trying to find her identity amid the devastation of post-war Japan.

Early SummerEarly Summer
Drama1951125 minsDirector: Yasujirō Ozu
Ozu's wonderfully poised ensemble work presents the intricacies and contradictions of three generations who have lived through the end of an era and are looking towards the new.

Late AutumnLate Autumn
Drama1960128 minsDirector: Yasujirō Ozu
Comedy turns to pathos in Yasujiro Ozu's tale of a group of businessmen who conspire to match-make for a widow and her daughter.

An Autumn AfternoonAn Autumn Afternoon
Drama1962113 minsDirector: Yasujirō Ozu
Yasujiro Ozu's elegiac final film charts the inevitable eclipse of older generations by irreverent youth.

PulsePulse
Horror2001119 minsDirector: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Kiyoshi Kurosawa's dark and apocalyptic J-Horror foretells how technology serves to isolate us as it grows more important to our lives.

Late ChrysanthemumsLate Chrysanthemums
Drama1954101 minsDirector: Mikio Naruse
The story of four ageing geishas as they struggle to make ends meet in post-war Japan, from acclaimed filmmaker Mikio Naruse.

Woman of the DunesWoman of the Dunes
Animation & Artists Moving Image1964147 minsDirector: Hiroshi Teshigahara
Hiroshi Teshigahara's mystifying, serene and provocative fable about an entomologist who becomes trapped in a young widow’s desert shack.

Early SpringEarly Spring
Drama1956145 minsDirector: Yasujirō Ozu
Shoji (Ryu Ikebe) and his wife Masako (Chikage Awashima), struggle with a family tragedy. When Shoji's interest turns to the office flirt, the couple's fragile peace is threatened.

Mifune : The Last SamuraiMifune : The Last Samurai
Documentary201680 minsDirector: Steven Okazaki
The on and off-screen character of Toshiro Mifune, Japan’s first international movie star, is explored in this illuminating documentary exploring the life and legacy of this mercurial icon.

Dragnet GirlDragnet Girl
Crime1933100 minsSilentDirector: Yasujirō Ozu
A seemingly ordinary typist moonlights as a fun-loving gangster's moll in one of Ozu's most enduring silent films.

Tokyo StoryTokyo Story
Drama1953136 minsDirector: Yasujirō Ozu
A constant fixture in critics' polls, Yasujirō Ozu's most enduring masterpiece is a beautifully nuanced exploration of filial duty, expectation and regret.

Stray DogStray Dog
Crime1949122 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa’s masterful mix of film noir and police thriller set on the sweltering mean streets of occupied Tokyo.

High and LowHigh and Low
Crime1963143 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa’s procedural crime masterpiece, from Ed McBain’s gritty novel, follows an industrialist who faces an agonising choice as a result of a botched kidnapping by ruthless criminals.

The Hidden FortressThe Hidden Fortress
Martial arts1958139 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa’s thrilling mix of fairy story and samurai movie - a story of rival clans, hidden gold and a princess in distress - was famously a key inspiration for George Lucas’ Star Wars.

YojimboYojimbo
Crime1961111 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
Kurosawa’s classic about a drifting samurai who plays two gangs off against each other, famously remade as A Fistful of Dollars.

MaborosiMaborosi
Drama1995109 minsDirector: Hirokazu Koreeda
Koreeda’s first fiction feature is an exquisite meditation on loss, loneliness, uncertainty, and coming to terms with the past.

Nobody KnowsNobody Knows
Drama2003141 minsDirector: Hirokazu Koreeda
Koreeda’s drama about four children left to fend for themselves is a heartbreaking study of childhood neglect.

Orgies of EdoOrgies of Edo
Drama196994 minsDirector: Teruo Ishii
Teruo Ishii's landmark ‘ero-guro’ film tells three stories of moral sickness set during Japan’s prosperous Genroku era.

Dodes'Ka-DenDodes'Ka-Den
Drama1970140 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa’s first colour film is an eccentric and joyous account of a group of disparate people living in a city dump.

OnibabaOnibaba
Period drama1964102 minsDirector: Kaneto Shindo
Stylish, symbolic and erotically charged Japanese horror in which the fortunes of a murderous mother-and-daughter team are upended by a strangely masked samurai.

A Snake of JuneA Snake of June
Drama200277 minsDirector: Shinya Tsukamoto
Bizarre and unsettling sex fantasy from Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo), about a woman blackmailed by a stranger into enacting his wildest fantasies.

Drunken AngelDrunken Angel
Film noir194898 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
Part gangster film, part melodrama and part social critique, Akira Kurosawa's first critical success follows the troubled friendship between a disillusioned doctor and a young yakuza.

More Japanese films on our Japan 2020 landing page