Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month
The Most Beautiful
Akira Kurosawa’s artful propaganda film provides a fascinating portrait of female volunteer workers in an optics factory during wartime.
War 1944 85 mins
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Overview
An artful propaganda film that anticipates the social realism of his post-war films, The Most Beautiful provides a fascinating portrait of female volunteer workers in an optics factory manufacturing lenses for binoculars and gunsights.
Kurosawa takes an approved wartime theme - of personal inclination willing sacrificed for the sake of national emergence - and turns it into a documentary on women in an optics factory. It is their dedication which is most beautiful, but most impressive is Kurosawa’s grasp of his material, the way he makes us care about whether a lens is ground properly.
Contains no material likely to offend or harmRelated
War
Westfront 1918
War 1930 96 mins Director: G.W. Pabst
Four infantrymen on the Western Front suffer the everyday hardships and insanity of trench warfare, in G.W. Pabst's anti-war classic.
It Happened Here
Science Fiction 1965 101 mins Director: Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's legendary, independently produced speculative fiction, imagining the Nazi occupation of Britain.
Two Women
War 1960 100 mins Director: Vittorio De Sica
Sophia Loren won an Oscar® for her performance as a mother trying to protect her daughter in wartime Italy, in Vittorio De Sica's neorealist classic.
The Devil's Backbone
Horror 2001 108 mins Director: Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo Del Toro’s elegant and chilling ghost story, set in an orphanage for victims of the Spanish Civil War, which is haunted by the spectre of young boy.
Land and Freedom
War 1995 105 mins Director: Ken Loach
Ken Loach’s passionate war drama follows an idealistic young Liverpudlian (Ian Hart) who fights for the international brigade during the Spanish Civil War.
Back to 1942
Drama 2012 146 mins Silent Director: Feng Xiaogang
With a cast that includes Adrien Brody, Tim Robbins and Fan Xu, Back to 1942 is an epic reconstruction of the deadly drought of 1942 that took its toll on central China's Henan province during the war against Japan
Japanese Classics
Throne of Blood
Drama 1957 110 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
A master of period-drama, Kurosawa (Rashomon, Seven Samurai) recasts Macbeth as a Japanese warlord in one of the greatest Shakespearean adaptations.
One Wonderful Sunday
Drama 1947 109 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
Kurosawa’s bitter-sweet story of young love set in the devastation of post-war Tokyo.
Yojimbo
Crime 1961 111 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
Kurosawa’s classic about a drifting samurai who plays two gangs off against each other, famously remade as A Fistful of Dollars.
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
1960 111 mins Director: Mikio Naruse
Mikio Naruse’s best-known film is a masterful study of Ginza hostess struggling under constant pressures to compromise her honour.
Woman of the Dunes
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1964 147 mins Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
Hiroshi Teshigahara's mystifying, serene and provocative fable about an entomologist who becomes trapped in a young widow’s desert shack.
The Bad Sleep Well
Crime 1960 151 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
The first film made by Akira Kurosawa's own production company is a dark tale of greed, corporate corruption and revenge.
Featuring Takashi Shimura
Kwaidan
Horror 1964 183 mins Director: Masaki Kobayashi
This stunningly beautiful anthology of Japanese ghost stories is one of the most meticulously crafted supernatural films ever made.
Rashomon
Crime 1950 88 mins Director: 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.
Godzilla
Horror 1954 92 mins Director: Ishiro Honda
The original Godzilla - arguably the definitive monster movie - both a bold metaphor for the atomic age and a thrilling powerhouse of pioneering special effects.
Throne of Blood
Drama 1957 110 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
A master of period-drama, Kurosawa (Rashomon, Seven Samurai) recasts Macbeth as a Japanese warlord in one of the greatest Shakespearean adaptations.
Seven Samurai
Drama 1954 207 mins Director: 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.
Ikiru
Drama 1952 143 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
Takashi Shimura is superb as a bureaucrat diagnosed with cancer in Akira Kurosawa’s lyrical and moving film about how we find meaning in our lives.
Featuring Ichiro Sugai
One Wonderful Sunday
Drama 1947 109 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
Kurosawa’s bitter-sweet story of young love set in the devastation of post-war Tokyo.
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Ran
Drama 1985 154 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa’s visually spectacular epic transplants Shakespeare’s King Lear from Celtic Britain to feudal Japan.
Rashomon
Crime 1950 88 mins Director: 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.
Throne of Blood
Drama 1957 110 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
A master of period-drama, Kurosawa (Rashomon, Seven Samurai) recasts Macbeth as a Japanese warlord in one of the greatest Shakespearean adaptations.
Seven Samurai
Drama 1954 207 mins Director: 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.
One Wonderful Sunday
Drama 1947 109 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
Kurosawa’s bitter-sweet story of young love set in the devastation of post-war Tokyo.
The Bad Sleep Well
Crime 1960 151 mins Director: Akira Kurosawa
The first film made by Akira Kurosawa's own production company is a dark tale of greed, corporate corruption and revenge.
New
Faithless
Drama 2000 154 mins Director: Liv Ullmann
Ingmar Bergman scripts this semi-autobiographical drama directed by his closest collaborator, Liv Ullmann, about a theatre director facing up to the pain he inflicted upon his muse.
Somersault
Drama 2004 102 mins Director: Cate Shortland
This intoxicating drama about an adolescent girl's sexual awakening launched the careers of both its star Abbie Cornish and director Cate Shortland.
Sweet Bean
Drama 2015 113 mins Director: Naomi Kawase
A struggling street food vendor accepts help from an elderly lady with a sensational recipe up her sleeve, in Naomi Kawase's bittersweet drama of culinary redemption.
Khrustalyov, My Car!
Drama 1998 146 mins Director: Alexei German
Aleksei German's hysterical and hallucinatory satire unfolds amid the chaos and paranoia of Stalin's 'doctor's plot' in 1953 USSR.
The Blue Angel
Drama 1930 103 mins Director: Josef von Sternberg
Marlene Dietrich is sensational in her breakthrough role as Lola Lola, star attraction of The Blue Angel beer hall.
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Comedy 2005 154 mins Director: Cristi Puiu
Cristi Puiu's multiple award-winning drama about a seriously ill man caught in an absurdist bureaucratic nightmare over the course of one night.