Directed by Akira Kurosawa • 1954 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima

One of the most thrilling movie epics of all time, SEVEN SAMURAI (SHICHININ NO SAMURAI) tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire the eponymous warriors to pro...

Directed by Akira Kurosawa • 1961 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoko Tsukasa

The incomparable Toshiro Mifune stars in Akira Kurosawa’s visually stunning and darkly comic YOJIMBO. To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily masterless samurai Sanjuro turns a range war...

Directed by Akira Kurosawa • 1957 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Minoru Chiaki

A vivid, visceral “Macbeth” adaptation, THRONE OF BLOOD, directed by Akira Kurosawa, sets Shakespeare’s definitive tale of ambition and duplicity in a ghostly, fog-enshrouded landscape in feudal Japan....

Directed by Akira Kurosawa • 1962 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Keiju Kobayashi

Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Akira Kurosawa’s tightly paced, beautifully composed SANJURO. In this sly companion piece to YOJIMBO, jaded samurai SANJURO helps an...

Directed by Masaki Kobayashi • 1962 • Japan
Starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Rentaro Mikuni, Akira Ishihama

Following the collapse of his clan, an unemployed samurai (Tatsuya Nakadai) arrives at the manor of Lord Iyi, begging to be allowed to commit ritual suicide on the property. Iyi’s clansmen, belie...

Directed by Toshiya Fujita • 1973 • Japan
Starring Meiko Kaji, Ko Nishimura, Toshio Kurosawa

Gory revenge is raised to the level of visual poetry in Toshiya Fujita’s stunning LADY SNOWBLOOD. A major inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL saga, this endlessly inventive film, set in late ni...

Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki • 1954 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Rentaro Mikuni, Kuroemon Onoe

In the first part of the epic Samurai Trilogy, Toshiro Mifune thunders onto the screen as the iconic title character. When we meet him, Miyamoto is a wide-eyed romantic, dreaming of military glory i...

ZATOICHI #1
Directed by Kenji Misumi • 1962 • Japan

The epic saga of Zatoichi begins. As tensions mount between rival yakuza clans, one boss hires a formidable but ailing ronin as his clan’s muscle, while the other employs a humble, moral blind masseur named Ichi. With its lightning-fast swordpl...

Directed by Kihachi Okamoto • 1966 • Japan
Starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Toshiro Mifune

Tatsuya Nakadai and Toshiro Mifune star in the story of a wandering samurai who exists in a maelstrom of violence. A gifted swordsman plying his craft during the turbulent final days of shogunate rule in Japan, R...

Directed by Masaki Kobayashi • 1967 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Yoko Tsukasa, Go Kato

Toshiro Mifune stars as Isaburo Sasahara, an aging swordsman living a quiet life until his clan lord orders that his son marry the lord’s mistress, who has recently displeased the ruler. Reluctantly, fathe...

Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki • 1955 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Koji Tsuruta, Kaoru Yachigusa

Toshiro Mifune furiously embodies swordsman Musashi Miyamoto as he comes into his own in the action-packed middle section of the Samurai Trilogy. DUEL AT ICHIJOJI TEMPLE furthers Miyamoto along his ...

Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki • 1956 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Koji Tsuruta, Kaoru Yachigusa

A disillusioned Musashi Miyamoto (Toshiro Mifune) has turned his back on the samurai life, becoming a farmer in a remote village, while his nemesis Kojiro (Koji Tsuruta) now works for the shogun. Ci...

ZATOICHI #20
Directed by Kihachi Okamoto • 1970 • Japan

After a two-year absence from screens, the blind swordsman returns in one of his best adventures. Zatoichi treks to a village that has always been a favorite spot of his, only to discover that it’s become a living hell, plagued by feuding f...

Directed by Akira Kurosawa • 1945 • Japan

The fourth film from Akira Kurosawa is based on a legendary twelfth-century incident in which the lord Yoshitsune and a group of samurai retainers dressed as monks in order to pass through a dangerous enemy checkpoint. The story was dramatized for centur...

ZATOICHI #3
Directed by Tokuzo Tanaka • 1963 • Japan

Zatoichi is back, and in color! Hoping to leave violence behind, the blind masseur wanders to a village, where he meets an old friend fallen on hard times. With a corrupt clan leader squeezing citizens dry and the brother of a past nemesis out...

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi • 1941 • Japan

47 samurai avenge the death of their lord in Kenji Mizoguchi's take on the famous historical event.

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi • 1941 • Japan

47 samurai avenge the death of their lord in Kenji Mizoguchi's take on the famous historical event.

ZATOICHI #2
Directed by Kazuo Mori • 1962 • Japan

THE TALE OF ZATOICHI proved so popular that a follow-up went into production the same year. Here, Zatoichi is hired to give a massage to a powerful political official who, he discovers, is mentally ill, a secret that the nobleman’s retinue is det...

Directed by Kazuo Mori • 1952 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura

Scripted by Akira Kurosawa and directed by period specialist Kazuo Mori, this revisionist samurai tale stars the mighty Toshiro Mifune as legendary swordsman Mataemon Araki, who aids a young man in his quest to avenge...

ZATOICHI #4
Directed by Tokuzo Tanaka • 1963 • Japan

Zatoichi triumphs at a village wrestling match, much to the chagrin of his yakuza opponents. The defeated gang members pay a hotheaded ronin to take out the masseur; unbeknownst to them, the hired assassin is married to a former flame of Zatoi...

ZATOICHI #25
Directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda • 1973 • Japan

Everything comes full circle when Zatoichi returns to his hometown. Unfortunately, he finds that a childhood friend has become a feared crime lord, keeping the locals in debt and bilking them of their rice. Capping off Zatoichi’s feature f...

ZATOICHI #19
Directed by Kenji Misumi • 1968 • Japan

Hired by a yakuza boss to eliminate an accused debtor, Zatoichi fulfills his task, only to witness the victim’s sister paying the owed amount minutes later. When the crime lord tries to possess the woman along with the cash, the blind swordsma...

ZATOICHI #6
Directed by Kazuo Ikehiro • 1964 • Japan

After arriving in a small village, Zatoichi finds himself accused of stealing the citizens’ hefty tax payments. To clear his name, he must face off against a corrupt official, a succession of hired blades, and a bullwhip-wielding titan, played...

ZATOICHI #5
Directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda • 1963 • Japan

The itinerant Zatoichi comes across a dying man, who begs the masseur to escort a young woman back to her family in Edo. The honorable swordsman agrees, but in so doing, he catapults himself between two warring yakuza clans, each with its o...