Regarded as one of the most important and influential film-makers in the history of cinema, Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s directed 30 films over a 57 year career.
Kurosawa entered the Japanese film industry in 1936, following a brief stint as a painter. After years of working on numerous films as an assistant director and scriptwriter, he made his debut as a director during World War II with the popular action film Sanshiro Sugata (a.k.a. Judo Saga). After the war, the critically acclaimed Drunken Angel (1948), in which Kurosawa cast the then little-known actor Toshiro Mifune in a starring role, cemented the director’s reputation as one of the most important young film-makers in Japan. The two men would go on to collaborate on another fifteen films.
Rashomon, which premiered in Tokyo, became the surprise winner of the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival. The commercial and critical success of that film opened up Western film markets for the first time to the products of the Japanese film industry, which in turn led to international recognition for other Japanese film-makers. Kurosawa directed approximately one film per year throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, including a number of highly regarded (and often adapted) films, such as Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954) and Yojimbo (1961). After the 1960s he became much less prolific; even so, his later work—including his final two epics, Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985)—continued to receive great acclaim, though more often abroad than in Japan.
In 1990, he accepted the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. Posthumously, he was named “Asian of the Century” in the “Arts, Literature, and Culture” category by AsianWeek magazine and CNN, cited there as being among the five people who most prominently contributed to the improvement of Asia in the 20th century. His career has been honored by many retrospectives, critical studies and biographies in both print and video, and by releases in many consumer media.
Following his death at the age of 88, the posthumous book Yume wa tensai de aru (A Dream is a Genius) was published with the approval of Kurosawa’s family. As part of that book, publishers were able to pull together a comprehensive list of the director’s favourite films of all time.
Kurosawa’s daughter, Kazuko, explained the process of coming up with the list, “My father always said that the films he loved were too many to count, and to make a top ten rank. That explains why you cannot find in this list many of the titles of the films he regarded as wonderful. The principle of the choice is: one film for one director, entry of the unforgettable films about which I and my father had a lovely talk, and of some ideas on cinema that he had cherished but did not express in public. This is the way I made a list of 100 films of Kurosawa’s choice.”
The films are listed in order of when they were first released.
1. Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl – Griffith, 1919.
2. Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari [The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari] -Wiene, 1920.
3. Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler – Ein Bild der Zeit (Part 1 – Part 2) [Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler] – Lang, 1922.
4. The Gold Rush – Chaplin, 1925.
5. La Chute de la Maison Usher [The Fall of the House of Usher] – Jean Epstein, 1928.
6. Un Chien Andalou [An Andalusian Dog] – Bunuel, 1928.
7. Morocco – von Sternberg, 1930.
8. Der Kongress Tanzt – Charell, 1931.
9. Die 3groschenoper [The Threepenny Opera] – Pabst, 1931.
10. Leise Flehen Meine Lieder [Lover Divine] – Forst, 1933.
11. The Thin Man – Dyke, 1934.
12. Tonari no Yae-chan [My Little Neighbour, Yae] – Shimazu, 1934.
13. Tange Sazen yowa: Hyakuman ryo no tsubo [Sazen Tange and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo] – Yamanaka, 1935.
14. Akanishi Kakita [Capricious Young Men] – Itami, 1936.
15. La Grande Illusion [The Grand Illusion] – Renoir, 1937.
16. Stella Dallas – Vidor, 1937.
17. Tsuzurikata Kyoshitsu [Lessons in Essay] – Yamamoto, 1938.
18. Tsuchi [Earth] – Uchida, 1939.
19. Ninotchka – Lubitsch, 1939.
20. Ivan Groznyy I, Ivan Groznyy II: Boyarsky Zagovor [Ivan the Terrible Parts I and II] – Eisenstein, 1944-46.
21. My Darling Clementine – Ford, 1946.
22. It’s a Wonderful Life – Capra, 1946.
23. The Big Sleep – Hawks, 1946.
24. Ladri di Biciclette [The Bicycle Thief] [Bicycle Thieves] – De Sica, 1948.
25. Aoi sanmyaku [The Green Mountains] – Imai, 1949.
26. The Third Man – Reed, 1949.
27. Banshun [Late Spring] – Ozu, 1949.
28. Orpheus – Cocteau, 1949.
29. Karumen kokyo ni kaeru [Carmen Comes Home] – Kinoshita, 1951.
30. A Streetcar Named Desire – Kazan, 1951.
31. Thérèse Raquin [The Adultress] – Carne 1953.
32. Saikaku ichidai onna [The Life of Oharu] – Mizoguchi, 1952.
33. Viaggio in Italia [Journey to Italy] – Rossellini, 1953.
34. Gojira [Godzilla] – Honda, 1954.
35. La Strada – Fellini, 1954.
36. Ukigumo [Floating Clouds] – Naruse, 1955.
37. Pather Panchali [Song of the Road] – Ray, 1955.
38. Daddy Long Legs – Negulesco, 1955.
39. The Proud Ones – Webb, 1956.
40. Bakumatsu taiyoden [Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate] – Kawashima, 1957.
41. The Young Lions – Dmytryk, 1957.
42. Les Cousins [The Cousins] – Chabrol, 1959.
43. Les Quarte Cents Coups [The 400 Blows] – Truffaut, 1959.
44. A bout de Souffle [Breathless] – Godard, 1959.
45. Ben-Hur – Wyler, 1959.
46. Ototo [Her Brother] – Ichikawa, 1960.
47. Une aussi longue absence [The Long Absence] – Colpi, 1960.
48. Le Voyage en Ballon [Stowaway in the Sky] – Lamorisse, 1960.
49. Plein Soleil [Purple Noon] – Clement, 1960.
50. Zazie dans le métro [Zazie on the Subway] – Malle, 1960.
51. L’Annee derniere a Marienbad [Last Year in Marienbad] – Resnais, 1960).
52. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? – Aldrich, 1962.
53. Lawrence of Arabia – Lean, 1962.
54. Melodie en sous-sol [Any Number Can Win] – Verneuil, 1963.
55. The Birds – Hitchcock, 1963.
56. Il Deserto Rosso [The Red Desert]- Antonioni, 1964.
57. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – Nichols, 1966.
58. Bonnie and Clyde – Penn, 1967.
59. In the Heat of the Night – Jewison, 1967.
60. The Charge of the Light Brigade – Richardson, 1968.
61. Midnight Cowboy – Schlesinger, 1969.
62. MASH – Altman, 1970.
63. Johnny Got His Gun – Trumbo, 1971.
64. The French Connection – Friedkin, 1971.
65. El espíritu de la colmena [Spirit of the Beehive] – Erice, 1973.
66. Solyaris [Solaris] – Tarkovsky, 1972.
67. The Day of the Jackal – Zinneman, 1973.
68. Gruppo di famiglia in un interno [Conversation Piece] – Visconti, 1974.
69. The Godfather Part II – Coppola, 1974.
70. Sandakan hachibanshokan bohkyo [Sandakan 8] – Kumai, 1974.
71. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Forman, 1975.
72. O, Thiassos [The Travelling Players] -Angelopoulos, 1975.
73. Barry Lyndon – Kubrick, 1975.
74. Daichi no komoriuta [Lullaby of the Earth] – Masumura, 1976.
75. Annie Hall – Allen, 1977.
76. Neokonchennaya pyesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino [Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano] – Mikhalkov, 1977.
77. Padre Padrone [My Father My Master] (P. & V. Taviani, 1977.
78. Gloria (Cassavetes, 1980.
79. Harukanaru yama no yobigoe [A Distant Cry From Spring] – Yamada, 1980.
80. La Traviata – Zeffirelli, 1982.
81. Fanny och Alexander [Fanny and Alexander] – Bergman, 1982.
82. Fitzcarraldo – Herzog, 1982.
83. The King of Comedy – Scorsese, 1983.
84. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence – Oshima, 1983.
85. The Killing Fields – Joffe 1984.
86. Stranger Than Paradise – Jarmusch, 1984.
87. Dongdong de Jiaqi [A Summer at Grandpa’s] – Hou, 1984.
88. Paris, Texas – Wenders, 1984.
89. Witness – Weir, 1985.
90. The Trip to Bountiful – Masterson, 1985.
91. Otac na sluzbenom putu [When Father was Away on Business] – Kusturica, 1985.
92. The Dead – Huston, 1987.
93. Khane-ye doust kodjast? [Where is the Friend’s Home] – Kiarostami, 1987.
94. Baghdad Cafe [Out of Rosenheim] – Adlon, 1987.
95. The Whales of August – Anderson, 1987.
96. Running on Empty – Lumet, 1988.
97. Tonari no totoro [My Neighbour Totoro] – Miyazaki, 1988.
98. A un [Buddies] – Furuhata, 1989.
99. La Belle Noiseuse [The Beautiful Troublemaker] – Rivette, 1991.
100. Hana-bi [Fireworks] – Kitano, 1997.
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