This film is currently unavailable
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
War Requiem War Requiem
War 1989 93 mins Director: Derek Jarman
Derek Jarman's affecting vision of the horrors young men faced during the First World War.
It Happened Here 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.
Land and Freedom 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.
Rome, Open City Rome, Open City
War 1945 103 mins Director: Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini’s landmark of Italian neorealism often cited as one of the greatest films ever made.
Germany, Year Zero Germany, Year Zero
War 1948 73 mins Director: Roberto Rossellini
The concluding part of Roberto Rossellini’s celebrated War Trilogy, set amid the war-torn ruins of Berlin.
Paisà Paisà
War 1946 126 mins Director: Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini’s ambitious and enormously moving follow-up to his breakthrough Rome, Open City.
Japanese Classics
Throne of Blood 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.
Dodes'Ka-Den Dodes'Ka-Den
Drama 1970 140 mins Director: 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.
Godzilla 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.
Floating Clouds Floating Clouds
Drama 1955 123 mins Director: Mikio Naruse
Mikio Naruse’s masterpiece about a wandering woman trying to find her identity amid the devastation of post-war Japan.
Onibaba Onibaba
Period drama 1964 102 mins Director: 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.
Floating Weeds Floating Weeds
Drama 1959 119 mins Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Yasujiro Ozu's late-career, elegiac masterpiece about a travelling kabuki troupe that returns to the seaside town they visited years before.
Featuring Takashi Shimura
Kwaidan 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 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.
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Rashomon 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.
New
T11 Incomplete T11 Incomplete
Drama 2020 104 mins Director: Suzanne Guacci
Past mistakes haunt the present and threaten a new love affair between an older woman and her patient in this compelling melodrama.
Disclosure Disclosure
Documentary 2020 107 mins Director: Sam Feder
A well-timed and thrilling analysis of the history of transgender stories on screen, from the silent era to the present day.
A Dog Barking at the Moon A Dog Barking at the Moon
Drama 2019 108 mins Director: Lisa Zi Xiang
This impressive dissection of one Chinese family’s imperfect life gradually reveals discomforting secrets.
Ask Any Buddy Ask Any Buddy
Documentary 2020 78 mins Director: Evan Purchell
This lovingly edited compilation of erotic gay film is the nearest you’ll get to experiencing queer life in the glory days between 1968 and 1986.
Don't Look Down Don't Look Down
Drama 2019 89 mins Director: Olivier Ducastel
Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau (directors of Théo and Hugo), serve up a deliciously enigmatic chamber piece.
Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story
Documentary 2019 60 mins Director: Posy Dixon
After his 1986 album Keyboard Fantasies is rediscovered, a black trans musician recounts his life, from the lonely 1960s to the joy of witnessing the present.