Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on The Criterion Channel

Watch this video and more on The Criterion Channel

Start your free trial

Already subscribed? Sign in

Sight and Sound Critics’ Poll: Greatest Films of All Time

Late Spring

1h 48m

Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1949 • Japan
Starring Chishu Ryu, Setsuko Hara, Yumeji Tsukioka

One of the most powerful of Yasujiro Ozu’s family portraits, LATE SPRING (BANSHUN) tells the story of a widowed father who feels compelled to marry off his beloved only daughter. Eminent Ozu players Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara command this poignant tale of love and loss in postwar Japan, which remains as potent today as ever, and a strong justification for its maker’s inclusion in the pantheon of cinema’s greatest directors.

Up Next in Sight and Sound Critics’ Poll: Greatest Films of All Time

  • PlayTime
    2:04:08
    PlayTime

    PlayTime

    Directed by Jacques Tati • 1967 • France
    Starring Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, Georges Montant

    Jacques Tati’s gloriously choreographed, nearly wordless comedies about confusion in an age of high technology reached their apotheosis with PLAYTIME. For this monumental achievement, a nearly three-y...

  • Au hasard Balthazar
    1:35:50
    Au hasard Balthazar

    Au hasard Balthazar

    Directed by Robert Bresson • 1966 • France
    Starring Anne Wiazemsky, Walter Green, François Lafarge

    A profound masterpiece from one of the most revered filmmakers in the history of cinema, Robert Bresson’s AU HASARD BALTHAZAR follows the donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some ...

  • The Night of the Hunter
    1:32:57
    The Night of the Hunter

    The Night of the Hunter

    Directed by Charles Laughton • 1955 • United States
    Starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish

    THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER—incredibly, the only film the great actor Charles Laughton ever directed—is truly a stand-alone masterwork. A horror movie with qualities of a Grimm fairy tale, i...

×