Some great directors bring to the world of cinema new themes or styles or ideas or possibilities. Akira Kurosawa introduced an entire hemisphere. Released in 1950, RASHOMON wasn’t the director’s first masterpiece, but it was the one that opened the West to the majesty of Japanese cinema. The great legacy of his career, which spanned a full half century, is not just the many classics he made himself, nor the groundbreaking and genre-bending artistry with which he made them, but also the countless figures and films that benefitted from his influence: from Altman and Scorsese and Tarantino and Coppola (both father and daughter) to THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and STAR WARS and, well, pretty much any quality film you see today. Kurosawa is in all of them in some way, his genius so ingrained into the language of cinema as to be inseparable from all that it inspires. |
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Films In This Series
The Hidden Fortress
Red Beard
Seven Samurai
Drunken Angel
High and Low
Yojimbo
Rashomon
Throne of Blood
Dersu Uzala
Ikiru
Ran
Dreams
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1958A long, long time before Luke, Leia, R2-D2, and C-P3O hit the big screen, there was Kurosawa’s HIDDEN FORTRESS, the story of a general and a princess (and their two bumbling servants) dodging a dark and powerful enemy in an attempt to save a royal treasure. |
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1965With RED BEARD, Toshiro Mifune (in his final Kurosawa film) plays a compassionate mentor to an arrogant young doctor in 19th century Japan. |
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1954Considered by many cinephiles to be the greatest movie ever made, Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI practically defines “epic,” a landmark film that demands to be experienced on the big screen. |
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1948Kurosawa’s film noir classic DRUNKEN ANGEL marked the first of 16 collaborations between the director and acting giant Toshiro Mifune. |
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1963On one level, HIGH AND LOW, an adaptation of the novel “King’s Ransom” by Ed McBain, is the story of a family caught by a ruthless kidnapper; on another, it’s about the divide between haves and have-nots in 1960s Japan. |
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1961Dark comedies are rarely as visually stunning as YOJIMBO, the Western-inspired story of a masterless samurai playing both sides of a war between enemy clans. |
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1950Often imitated but never matched, RASHOMON remains the standard of comparison for any film employing unreliable narrators or shifting perspectives—in this case, the story of a murder and rape as explained by four contradictory witnesses. |
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1957In THRONE OF BLOOD, Kurosawa sets Shakespeare’s MacBeth in medieval Japan and Toshiro Mifune gives one of his fiercest and most memorable performances. |
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1975Adapting the memoirs of a Russian explorer, Kurosawa crafted the story of a life-threatening trek through early 20th century Siberia into the Academy Award-winning DERSU UZALA.
Read more about DERSU UZALA in our Film Notes. |
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1952Among the director’s most beloved films, IKIRU follows the inspirational reawakening of a government worker who suddenly realizes much of his life has been wasted.
Free screening for high school students: Tuesday, April 29, 3:30pm, with post-show discussion. Please present your student ID for entry. |
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1985In 1985, Kurosawa once again married Shakespearean tragedy (“King Lear”) with an epic samurai saga to produce another masterpiece in RAN.
Read more about RAN in our Film Notes. |
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1990A visual and imaginative masterpiece, Akira Kurosawa's DREAMS unfolds in eight dazzling vignettes, featuring special effects work by George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic and filmmaker Martin Scorsese as Vincent van Gogh.
Read more about DREAMS in our Film Notes. |
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