Akira Tani

In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who...

Journalists Ichiro Sakai and Junko cover the wreckage of a typhoon when an enormous egg is found and claimed by greedy entrepreneurs. Mothra's...

1953 Hiroshi Inagaki movie.

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money...

Doctor Sanada treats gangster Matsunaga after he is wounded in a gunfight, and discovers that he is suffering from tuberculosis. Sanada tries to...

1962 Japanese movie

A young woman begins murdering all those responsible for her ailing father's condition. Because the girl is so outwardly sweet and innocent, the...

Ushinosuke returns to his hometown to become a farmer. Part three (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku Shishi’s novel, Oban.

A young country boy leaves his village for Tokyo, where he begins to work as a stock trader. First part (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku...

Ushinosuke returns broke to his hometown, where everyone believes he's rich and successful. Part two (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku...

A young Japanese-American comes from California looking for a bride, going on blind dates with three candidates from Osaka, Hiroshima and Nagoya.

The film takes place at the junction of the two eras of Meiji and Taisho. Sakata Sankichi, an uneducated zori sandal maker, becomes a professional...

When Sergeant Okubo's brother is murdered at a Japanese outpost in Northern China during the Second World War, Okubo poses as a war correspondent and...

Story of a resourceful hobo (Kobayashi), a con woman (Takamine) who pretends to be a victim of the Nagasaki A-bomb, and two orphaned children who...

Every year, at the festival, familiar merchants such as Toraemon, a magic trick, Tokubei, a blowgun, Kaji, acrobatics, and Unsaibo, a ritual, gather...

1958 Japanese movie

Tells the story of Shintaro, a lawyer who quits his job to work at a camera factory, and his love adventures.

A squadron of Japanese fighter pilots realise that they are never going to win the war when they understand that Japanese military tactics have...

Comedy movie

Shozo is plagued by the needs of his ex-wife and his current one, but prefers the company of his cat.

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the...

A widowed high-school teacher tries to raise his four children alone.

Three competing parties all race against time to track down an elusive creature known only as the Snowman.

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six...

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to...

Kiichi Nakajima, an elderly foundry owner, is convinced that Japan will be affected by an imminent nuclear war, and resolves to move his family to...

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the...

After handing in a report on the treatment of Chinese colonial labor, Kaji is offered the post of labor chief at a large mining operation in...

With delicate, unobtrusive strokes, Naruse evokes both the humor and bitterness of his characters’ dilemmas, in this bleak, compelling poignant...

Ten years into a marriage, the wife is disappointed by the husband's lack of financial success, meaning she has to work and can't treat herself and...

Lavish Japanese-Chinese coproduction based on an ancient Chinese legend about a man who falls in love with a snake goddess in human form.

A math teacher loses his job while falling in love with a local girl.

The actor Koheiji is terribly in love with the wife of his best friend, the playwright Takuro; to get her, he would even kill Takuro.

The story of a couple, a spoiled son and a down-to-earth girl, in Osaka in the early Showa era. The film won the prestigious Blue Ribbon awards for...

In the Tokugawa Era, the clan of Lord Yagyu has hidden away three scrolls containing clan secrets which, if revealed, would cause revolution and...

Edmund Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac, transplanted to Japan. A poet-warrior with an oversized nose (matched only by his great heart) loves a...

During the raging war between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa clans, the swordsman Mohei (whose family has been completely decimated) is recruited by...

Set at the end of the Siege of Osaka this film follows the exploits of several members of the defeated Toyotomi clan as they cope with the post...

The legend of the birth of Shintoism. In Fourth Century Japan, the Emperor's son Ouso expects to succeed his father on the throne, but Otomo, the...

It's a man's world. Shimamura, an artist, comes to this snowbound town to rejuvenate himself. He connects with Komako, a geisha he met on a previous...

A promising post-graduate literature student is transformed into a psychotic killer following the suicide of his father and a sleazy affair by his...

Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful...

Forced on the road by yakuza obligations, a man sets out on a reckless journey to Tsumagoi. Movie posters for local cinemas were often displayed at...

A longtime hotel employee (Morishige) struggles to bring his old-fashioned ryokan in line with postwar Japanese business practices.

A married couple looking for an apartment move in with the husband's co-worker, a widower. The husband becomes jealous of the widower and his wife.

A group of five law enforcers search Edo for a missing sword.

An Ishiro Honda film.

An Ishiro Honda film.

After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their...

Lord Taro must deliver a money chest but is robbed by brigands led by Jibu. One of Jibu's men, Rokuro, steals the money from Jibu, but after meeting...

A woman marries, gives birth to a stillborn child, and divorces, falls in love with a hotel-keeper, only to find herself subordinated to his drive...

Drama about the lives of the five daughters and daughter-in-law of a store owner.

Picked up and raised on an island in the Seto Inland Sea, Yasukichi's only trait is his innate mischievousness. However, because his love for his...

A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He...

Based on a novel by Kôen Hasegawa

Story about a poor Japanese woman living near an American army base who resorts to prostitution.

In a village subsisting on it herring fishery, a one-eyed criminal named Jakoman terrorizes the inhabitants. One of them, the son of the head of one...

An American scientist tells two colleagues about the finding of an abominable snowman living in the Japanese alps, where it is worshipped by a remote...

"When human beings venture too far along a trail made by wild beasts, it is said, they quite often discover themselves on a road of no return." ...

Gensaburo Funaki and Oyuki were childhood friends, but Gensaburo misunderstood that Oyuki was hesitant to get married because he had to feed his...

A skilled country doctor's talents are such that he can even perform operations as difficult and novel as removing a patient's kidney for the first...

1964 Japanese movie