Akira Kurosawa

Director, Actor

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Sanshiro Sugata (1943): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Denjirô Ôkôchi, Susumu Fujita; Notable chiefly as the debut directorial effort for Akira Kurosawa, this adaptation of Tsuneo Tomita's novel finds an immature Judo exponent (Fujita)…
Sanshiro Sugata 2 (1945): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Denjirô Ôkôchi, Susumu Fujita; Sequel to dir. Kurosawa’s debut picture about a studious judo disciple in training continues the director’s own development as a future master of…
Drunken Angel (Yoidore tenshi) (1948): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura; The film that made Toshiro Mifune a star – playing a petty gangster with TB, who turns to an alcoholic doctor for help after a shoot–out.…
Stray Dog (Nora Inu) (1949): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune; An early film noir from Japan’s best–known director tracks police detective Toshiro Mifune into the underbelly of Tokyo in search of a pistol…
Quiet Duel, The (Shizukanaru ketto) (1949): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura; A pre–RED BEARD Toshiro Mifune plays an idealistic doctor who fatally contracts syphilis from performing surgery in this minor Kurosawa…
Scandal (Shubun) (1950): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Shirley Yamaguchi, Takashi Shimura…; This excellent early Kurosawa, has Mifune playing a painter who becomes acquainted with a pop–singer, and thus the target of a tabloid…
Rashomon (1951): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori…; The film that brought Kurosawa to the attention of the world, and an Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film. Four wildly varying perspectives on a…
Idiot, The (Hakuchi) (1951): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Setsuko Hara, Masayuki Mori…; Flawed but compelling adaptation of Dostoyevsky's classic novel of human frailty, in which a madman and war criminal (Mori), is released from an…
Ikiru (1952): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Takashi Shimura, Shinichi Himori, Haruo Tanaka; A patient meditation on life and death about a sullen yet dutiful office clerk of 30 years whose terminal illness compels him to rediscover his…
Seven Samurai, The (1954): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune; Kurosawa's classic 'Eastern Western' about a village who hire an elite band of warriors to fend off marauders. Compassionate storytelling with combat…
I Live in Fear (Ikimono no Kiroku) (1955): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura; Convinced a nuclear holocaust is imminent, an elderly industrialist (Mifune) decides to uproot his reluctant family (even his mistresses!) from Tokyo…
Throne of Blood (1957): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura; Kurosawa transposes MacBeth into a Samurai setting and the result justifies his reputation. Nothing short of an awesome spectacle Shakespeare himself…
Lower Depths, The (Donzoko) (1957): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Kyoko Kagawa, Isuzu Yamada…; Arresting Maxim Gorky stage adaptation (previously filmed by Jean Renoir) is transposed to Japan’s Edo–era slums. Social realisms and the…
Hidden Fortress (1958): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune; Toshiro Mifune displays astounding skill with horse and sword as the ultimate warrior in this innovative amalgam of fairy–tale and Samurai…
Bad Sleep Well, The (1960): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune; A contemporary gangster saga that uses a Hamlet–esque narrative to indict corporate and political corruption. Government officials were not…
Yojimbo (1961): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoko Tsukasa; Mercenary Sanjuro walks into town and sells his services to both factions of rival gangs – to stand back and watch them destroy each other.…
Sanjuro (1962): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai; The sequel to YOJIMBO unravels the story of nine would–be Samurai unveiling a government corruption ring. Kurosawa adopts a satirical…
High and Low (1963): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune; Adapted from a crime–novel by Ed McBain, this kidnapping–thriller is a central work in dir. Kurosawa’s series of film noirs, combining…
Red Beard (Akahige) (1965): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Yuzo Kayama, Tsutomu Yamazaki…; An unusual hospital drama from dir. Kurosawa, collaborating for the final time with Mifune, who here plays a tough doctor coaching an intern (Kayama)…
Dersu Uzala (1975): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Maksim Munzuk, Yuri Solomin, Svetlana Danilchenko; Kurosawa ventured to Russia for this Oscar–winning epic detailing the experiences of a Russian military explorer in Siberia, and his friendship…
Kagemusha (1980): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Tatsuya Nakadai, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kenichi Hagiwara; A majestic 16th century saga about a petty thief who ascends to tribal leadership on account of his resemblance to a dying warlord. Shared the top…
Ran (1985): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Tatsuya Nakadai; The title translates to 'chaos'; it is Kurosawa's vast and bloody interpretation of Shakespeare's King Lear. Grandiose in every sense – a…
Kurosawa's Dreams (1990): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Akira Terao, Mitsuko Baisho, Martin Scorsese; Opinions vary wildly over this sequence of eight re–enactments of Akira's very own dreams – stunning photography and subtle use of…
Rhapsody in August (1991): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Sachiko Murase, Richard Gere; A Japanese grandmother shares painful memories of Nagasaki with her four grandchildren who travel to meet extended kin–folk in Hawaii. Dir.…
Maadadayo (Madadayo) (1993): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Tatsuo Matsumura, Kyoko Kagawa; A masterful, understated last word from Japanese sensei Kurosawa, here paying tribute to an inspiration from his own life with the story of a retired…

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Akira Kurosawa