Kinema Junpo's Top 200 Japanese Films of All Time (2009)

An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city, but receive little attention.

Farmers from a village exploited by bandits hire a veteran samurai for protection, and he gathers six other samurai to join him.

A tragic social drama set in post war Japan about a lonely woman trying to find purpose and stability in a devastated Tokyo.

In the last days of the Shogunate, a resourceful grifter seeks to outwit competing prostitutes, rebellious samurai and other inhabitants of a brothel in order to survive the hardened times.

During the violent chaos of post-War Japanese black market, a young gangster called Shozo Hirono has to keep up with the rapid shifts of power between unscrupulous bosses.

Schoolteacher Hisako Oishi forms an emotional bond with her pupils and teaches them various virtues, while at the same time worrying about their future.

The rape of a bride and the murder of her samurai husband are recalled from the perspectives of a bandit, the bride, the samurai's ghost and a woodcutter.

A man gets rid of a cheap pot without knowing it contains a map to a treasure. As word spreads, many join in hunting it.

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

The movie takes place in the five-day period before, during and after a ferocious, seemingly liberating typhoon, which several students endure while marooned in their school gymnasium.

A bureaucrat tries to find meaning in his life after he discovers he has terminal cancer.

An executive of a Yokohama shoe company becomes a victim of extortion when his chauffeur's son is kidnapped by mistake and held for ransom.

When a ronin requesting seppuku at a feudal lord's palace is told of the brutal suicide of another ronin who previously visited, he reveals how their pasts are intertwined - and in doing so challenges the clan's integrity.

A housewife living under her tyrannical husband has her life stressfully turned upside down after getting raped by a burglar.

Kon Ichikawa examines the beauty and rich drama on display at the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo, creating a record of observations that range from the expansive to the intimate.

Warrior and pacifist Princess Nausicaä desperately struggles to prevent two warring nations from destroying themselves and their dying planet.

The lives of two slum neighbors, one of a happy-go-lucky gambler and the other of a poor ronin, converge when the two get involved with the affairs of a powerful samurai official and his gangsters.

A crafty ronin comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other to free the town.

Two disquieted junior baseball players seek revenge on the local yakuza for attacking their coach.

A tale of ambition, family, love, and war set in the midst of the Japanese Civil Wars of the sixteenth century.

Ishun is a wealthy but unsympathetic master printer who has wrongly accused his wife and best employee of being lovers. To escape punishment, the accused run away together, but Ishun is certain to be ruined if word gets out.

An old man, being rowed along a river, sees a field of daisies and thinks back to when he was fifteen. He recalls his time with, and away from, the girl cousin he grew up with and would have married, except the family and other pressures got in the way.

Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Her daughter Katsuyo doesn't see any future in her mothers trade in the late days of Geisha. But Otsuta will not give up. This film portraits the day time life of geisha when not entertaining customers.

After a botched assignment, a rice-fetishizing hitman finds himself in conflict with his organization, and one mysterious, dangerous fellow-hitman in particular.

Chronological exploits of Iwao Enokizu, a murderous thief on the run.