Takashi Shimura

A dying man devotes his last months to building a children's playground.

In this powerful early noir from the great Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune bursts onto the screen as a volatile, tubercular criminal who strikes up an unlikely relationship with Takashi Shimura’s jaded physician. Set in and around the muddy swamps and back alleys of postwar Tokyo, DRUNKEN ANGEL is an evocative, moody snapshot of a treacherous time and place, featuring one of the director’s most memorably violent climaxes.

This portrait of female volunteer workers at an optics plant during World War II, shot on location at the Nippon Kogaku factory, was created with a patriotic agenda. Yet thanks to Akira Kurosawa’s groundbreaking semidocumentary approach, The Most Beautiful is a revealing look at Japanese women of the era and anticipates the aesthetics of Japanese cinema’s postwar social realism.

Japanese villagers hire a team of traveling samurai to defend them against a bandit attack.

During a sweltering summer, a rookie homicide detective tries to track down his stolen Colt pistol.

The monster is awakened by an undersea explosion and wreaks havoc on the citizens of Tokyo.

In medieval Japan, four people offer conflicting accounts of a rape and murder.

Spurred by his wife and a witch's prediction, a samurai murders his lord to steal the throne.

After a meteorite unleashes a three-headed beast upon Tokyo, Mothra tries to unite with Godzilla and Rodan to battle the extraterrestrial threat.

This time around, Godzilla is reawakened by an A-Bomb again but decides to wreak havoc on Osaka.

Sanshiro, a strong but stubborn youth, abandons his jujutsu training to master the art of judo from the master Shogoro Yano by combining the competitive elements of the art with the quiet, meditative aspects of the fighting style.

In post-World War II Japan, childlike veteran Kinji suffers from post-traumatic stress-induced seizures, and, after treatment at a mental health institution in Okinawa, he returns to his hometown. There he meets and becomes romantically caught up with two women -- Taeko and Ayako. Another man, Denkichi, is passionately in love with Taeko, too. So when Kinji begins favoring Taeko, a violent conflict erupts between the two men.

A surprising celebrity photograph sparks a court case as a tabloid magazine spins a scandalous story about a painter and a famous singer.

The follow-up to hugely successful Yojimbo, sees the return of star Toshiro Mifune as the samurai who cleans up corruption in a small town.

In medieval Japan, a samurai fights to save a feudal lord's daughter from bandits.

Yojimbo is the story of Sanjuro, a samurai in nineteenth-century Japan who drifts into a rural town and learns from the innkeeper that the town is divided between two gangs.