The Most Beautiful

Karel Zeman's astonishing fantasy mixes live-action and animation to tell the adventures of a ploughman and a mercenery during the Thirty Years War.

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.

Legendary director Josef von Sternberg brings to life this vulnerable tale of human trauma, survival and redemption, telling the story of twelve Japanese WWII seamen stranded on a forgotten island for seven years.

A faithful adaptation of Joseph Kessel’s celebrated novel about the French Resistance, this is also Melville’s most profoundly personal film.

Derek Jarman's affecting vision of the horrors young men faced during the First World War.

Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's legendary, independently produced speculative fiction, imagining the Nazi occupation of Britain.

A master of period-drama, Kurosawa (Rashomon, Seven Samurai) recasts Macbeth as a Japanese warlord in one of the greatest Shakespearean adaptations.

Akira Kurosawa’s first colour film is an eccentric and joyous account of a group of disparate people living in a city dump.

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.

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.

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 first film made by Akira Kurosawa's own production company is a dark tale of greed, corporate corruption and revenge.

A master of period-drama, Kurosawa (Rashomon, Seven Samurai) recasts Macbeth as a Japanese warlord in one of the greatest Shakespearean adaptations.

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.

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.

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.

The first film made by Akira Kurosawa's own production company is a dark tale of greed, corporate corruption and revenge.

Kurosawa’s assured debut film about a young man’s spiritual journey through the study and practice of judo.

Kurosawa’s bitter-sweet story of young love set in the devastation of post-war Tokyo.

A master of period-drama, Kurosawa (Rashomon, Seven Samurai) recasts Macbeth as a Japanese warlord in one of the greatest Shakespearean adaptations.

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

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.

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.

Toshiro Mifune delivers an outstanding performance as a paranoid man striving to move his family to Brazil to escape the nuclear holocaust which he fears is imminent.

Akira Kurosawa’s first colour film is an eccentric and joyous account of a group of disparate people living in a city dump.

Karel Zeman's astonishing fantasy mixes live-action and animation to tell the adventures of a ploughman and a mercenery during the Thirty Years War.

Karel Zeman’s wildly inventive and comic take on the surreal adventures of the bragging Baron explodes on to the screen in a riot of colour, visual wit and poetic verve.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's a nerve-shredding thriller about the hunt for a serial killer in a bleak and decaying Tokyo.

The living and the dead coexist in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cannes-winning meditation on love and loss.

A beautiful and contemplative portrait of grief from Cannes-winning filmmaker Naomi Kawase (Sweet Bean, Still the Water).

Kôji Fukada's mixture of slow-burn thriller and off-kilter family drama won Un Certain Regard Jury prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.