Best Japanese Films Kinema Junpo (1926-2025)

1965 film by Tomu Uchida

A sake factory worker on holiday returns to his home town, where he rapes the wife of one of his co-workers in the forest. The other man returns home to find his wife changed and suspects that she has been unfaithful.

The intense selfishness of a man brings him fame and fortune but not happiness.

An innocuous comment during a weapon inspection wounds the pride of low-ranking samurai Shinpachi, leading to an argument with his superior. The situation snowballs out of control, leading to a deadly duel and political fallout which threatens the entire clan. Declared mentally unstable by the corrupt authority, Shinpachi begins his descent into true insanity…

1964 Japanese film by Kaneto Shindō

A young woman begins murdering all those responsible for her ailing father's condition. Because the girl is so outwardly sweet and innocent, the detective looking into the deaths does not suspect her.

A gangster gets released from prison and has to cope with the recent shifts of power between the gangs, while taking care of a thrill-seeking young woman, who got in bad company while gambling.

1964 film by Masahiro Shinoda

1964 film by Mikio Naruse

Mototsugu is the younger son of Akira Sakawa, a director of an advertising agency whose mother, Nobuko, is ill with cancer of the liver. His elder brother, Ichiro, works at the Bank of Japan whose wife, Masuko, is from a very high-class family. Mototsugu becomes disgusted with such strait-laced living and leaves home to marry Yoshiko, a blind masseuse, and they live in a small apartment near a pinball parlor where he works.

The closest Japanese cinema ever came to the full-blown Broadway-style musical, with singing and dancing on the streets of Tokyo, music by avant-garde composer and jazzman Toshiro Mayuzumi, lyrics by renowned poet Shuntaro Tanikawa, and direction by one of Toho’s most prominent “new wave” directors, Eizo Sugawa. Popular jazz drummer and actor Frankie Sakai stars in this comic version of the “industrial competition” genre: two tourism companies compete for foreign clients in the run-up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Highlighting the coming internationalization of Japan, the film dramatizes the felt tensions between tradition and modernity, the pressures of the “economic animal” lifestyle, and the energy of high economic growth.

Blind swordsman/masseuse Zatoichi befriends a young woman returning home with her baby. When gangsters mistake her for Zatoichi and kill her, Zatoichi determines to escort the baby to its father. He gains the reluctant help of a young pick pocket and together they travel to find the baby's father. But they do not reckon on the father's reaction to their arrival, nor on their own growing feelings for the child.

The four principals in a love affair collide when jealousy, blackmail and suicide enter the picture.

1963 film by Shōhei Imamura

In the midst of an attempt to take over his company, a powerhouse executive is hit with a huge ransom demand when his chauffeur's son is kidnapped by mistake.

Kenichi Horie is determined to challenge his family, the law and the nature crossing the Pacific to America in a small sailboat. Despite his careful planning, many unforeseen events will test his determination.

1963 film by Tadashi Imai

A greedy, materialistic family attempts to cover-up the embezzlement committed by the son while keeping their other schemes active. They discover there are other, equally conniving players involved.

As her husband Eiichi becomes more entangled in his life as businessman, Naoko looks for ways to expand her own life even as her husband's life shrinks in scope and intimacy. She finds new interests, new love, and a greater sense of her place in the world.

A divorced woman enters a marriage arranged by her mother in exchange for money to save the life of her seriously ill son.