The best Japanese films of all time
The top 3 according to 0 votes from people: Tokyo Story · Seven Samurai · Floating Clouds. (Updated Jul 22, 2026.)
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.
Automatically translated (original in 日本語). See the original
Top 20
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1
Tokyo Story
Yasujirō Ozu, 1953. An elderly couple visit their children in Tokyo; number one in Kinema Junpo's all-time list.
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2
Seven Samurai
Akira Kurosawa, 1954. Seven samurai hired by farmers fight off bandits.
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3
Floating Clouds
Mikio Naruse, 1955. Hideko Takamine and Masayuki Mori, a couple adrift in the post-war years.
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4
Rashomon
Akira Kurosawa, 1950. Four contradictory accounts of the same crime; Golden Lion in Venice.
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5
Ikiru
Akira Kurosawa, 1952. A city hall section chief learns he is dying and builds a park.
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6
Ugetsu
Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953. A potter and a ghost princess in the age of civil war; Silver Lion in Venice.
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7
Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate
Yūzō Kawashima, 1957. Frankie Sakai runs riot in a Shinagawa brothel in this comedy.
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8
Battles Without Honor and Humanity
Kinji Fukasaku, 1973. Post-war yakuza wars in Hiroshima, based on real events.
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9
Twenty-Four Eyes
Keisuke Kinoshita, 1954. A teacher on Shōdoshima and her twelve pupils over twenty years.
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10
Late Spring
Yasujirō Ozu, 1949. Setsuko Hara as a daughter parting from her father.
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11
Yojimbo
Akira Kurosawa, 1961. Toshirō Mifune's ronin plays two gangs against each other.
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12
Harakiri
Masaki Kobayashi, 1962. Tatsuya Nakadai's ronin exposes samurai hypocrisy; Special Jury Prize at Cannes.
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13
The Castle of Sand
Yoshitarō Nomura, 1974. From Seichō Matsumoto: the father-and-son journey behind a murder.
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14
A Fugitive from the Past
Tomu Uchida, 1965. From Tsutomu Mizukami: a crime drama that begins on the night of the Tōya Maru disaster.
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15
The Man Who Stole the Sun
Kazuhiko Hasegawa, 1979. Kenji Sawada as a teacher who builds his own atomic bomb to blackmail the state.
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16
Spirited Away
Hayao Miyazaki, 2001. Golden Bear in Berlin and the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
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17
Departures
Yōjirō Takita, 2008. Masahiro Motoki as an encoffiner; Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
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18
Shoplifters
Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2018. The bonds of a 'family' that lives by shoplifting; Palme d'Or at Cannes.
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19
Drive My Car
Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, 2021. From Haruki Murakami; Oscar for Best International Feature.
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20
The Family Game
Yoshimitsu Morita, 1983. Yūsaku Matsuda as a private tutor and the family eating side by side at one long table.
Candidates
They don't make it into the top 20… yet. Vote for them to move them up.
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21
heaven and hell
A 1963 film directed by Akira Kurosawa. A masterpiece of suspense depicting a kidnapping incident.
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22
HANA-BI
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.
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Comments (2)
東京物語が1位なのは世界的な評価から見ても当然。
黒澤明の天国と地獄も入れてほしい！