# The best Japanese films of all time

Led by Kinema Junpo's all-time best list (Tokyo Story first, Seven Samurai second, Floating Clouds third), the Japanese films critics and audiences have loved longest.

- 0 votes · 22 items
- Aug 1, 2024 · Suzuki M.
- https://even.best/en/l/433/the-best-japanese-films-of-all-time

## Top 20

1. **Tokyo Story** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Yasujirō Ozu, 1953. An elderly couple visit their children in Tokyo; number one in Kinema Junpo's all-time list.
2. **Seven Samurai** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Akira Kurosawa, 1954. Seven samurai hired by farmers fight off bandits.
3. **Floating Clouds** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Mikio Naruse, 1955. Hideko Takamine and Masayuki Mori, a couple adrift in the post-war years.
4. **Rashomon** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Akira Kurosawa, 1950. Four contradictory accounts of the same crime; Golden Lion in Venice.
5. **Ikiru** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Akira Kurosawa, 1952. A city hall section chief learns he is dying and builds a park.
6. **Ugetsu** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953. A potter and a ghost princess in the age of civil war; Silver Lion in Venice.
7. **Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Yūzō Kawashima, 1957. Frankie Sakai runs riot in a Shinagawa brothel in this comedy.
8. **Battles Without Honor and Humanity** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Kinji Fukasaku, 1973. Post-war yakuza wars in Hiroshima, based on real events.
9. **Twenty-Four Eyes** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Keisuke Kinoshita, 1954. A teacher on Shōdoshima and her twelve pupils over twenty years.
10. **Late Spring** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Yasujirō Ozu, 1949. Setsuko Hara as a daughter parting from her father.
11. **Yojimbo** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Akira Kurosawa, 1961. Toshirō Mifune's ronin plays two gangs against each other.
12. **Harakiri** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Masaki Kobayashi, 1962. Tatsuya Nakadai's ronin exposes samurai hypocrisy; Special Jury Prize at Cannes.
13. **The Castle of Sand** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Yoshitarō Nomura, 1974. From Seichō Matsumoto: the father-and-son journey behind a murder.
14. **A Fugitive from the Past** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Tomu Uchida, 1965. From Tsutomu Mizukami: a crime drama that begins on the night of the Tōya Maru disaster.
15. **The Man Who Stole the Sun** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Kazuhiko Hasegawa, 1979. Kenji Sawada as a teacher who builds his own atomic bomb to blackmail the state.
16. **Spirited Away** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Hayao Miyazaki, 2001. Golden Bear in Berlin and the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
17. **Departures** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Yōjirō Takita, 2008. Masahiro Motoki as an encoffiner; Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
18. **Shoplifters** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2018. The bonds of a 'family' that lives by shoplifting; Palme d'Or at Cannes.
19. **Drive My Car** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, 2021. From Haruki Murakami; Oscar for Best International Feature.
20. **The Family Game** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Yoshimitsu Morita, 1983. Yūsaku Matsuda as a private tutor and the family eating side by side at one long table.
21. **heaven and hell** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — A 1963 film directed by Akira Kurosawa. A masterpiece of suspense depicting a kidnapping incident.
22. **HANA-BI** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — A 1997 film directed by Takeshi Kitano. Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.