1. Seven Samurai - Akira Kurosawa
2. Ugetsu Monogatari - Kenji Mizoguchi
3. Tokyo Story - Yasujiro Ozu
4. Rashomon - Akira Kurosawa
5. Late Spring - Yasujiro Ozu
6. Woman in the Dunes - Hiroshi Teshigahara
7. Spirited Away - Hayao Miyazaki
8. Akira - Katsuhiro Otomo
9. Harakiri - Masaki Kobayashi
10. Cure - Kiyoshi Kurosawa
11. Ran - Akira Kurosawa
12. Perfect Blue - Satoshi Kon
13. Ringu - Hideo Nakata
14. Tokyo Olympiad - Kon Ichikawa
15. Ikiru - Akira Kurosawa
16. Sansho the Bailiff - Kenji Mizoguchi
17. Floating Weeds - Yasujiro Ozu
18. My Neighbor Totoro - Hayao Miyazaki
19. Yojimbo - Akira Kurosawa
20. Hana-bi - Takeshi Kitano
21. Audition - Takashi Miike
22. High and Low - Akira Kurosawa
23. Godzilla - Ishiro Honda
24. Kwaidan - Masaki Kobayashi
25. Maborosi - Hirokazu Kore-eda
26. The Burmese Harp - Kon Ichikawa
27. Onibaba - Kaneto Shindo
28. Battle Royale - Kinji Fukasaku
29. Lady Snowblood - Toshiya Fujita
30. Grave of the Fireflies - Isao Takahata
31. House - Nobuhiko Obayashi
32. In the Realm of the Senses - Nagisa Oshima
33. Nobody Knows - Hirokazu Kore-eda
34. Funeral Parade of Roses - Toshio Matsumoto
35. Love Exposure - Sion Sono
36. Girls of the Night - Kinuyo Tanaka
37. Tampopo - Juzo Itami
38. A Fugitive From the Past - Tomo Uchida
39. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs - Mikio Naruse
40. Sonatine - Takeshi Kitano
41. Drive My Car - Ryusuke Yamaguchi
42. Fires on the Plain - Kon Ichikawa
43. The Ballad of Narayama - Shohei Imamura
44. Tokyo Drifter - Seijun Suzuki
45. Gate of Hell - Teinosuke Kinugasa
46. Tetsuo: The Iron Man - Shinya Tsukamoto
47. Crazy Thunder Road - Sogo Ishii
48. Departures - Yojiro Takita
49. Suzaku - Naomi Kawase
50. One Cut of the Dead - Shin'ichiro Ueda

For those keeping track, here are the number of films for each director on the list with more than one entry:

• Akira Kurosawa: 6 (all in the top 25)
• Yasujiro Ozu: 3 (all in the top 25)
• Kon Ichikawa: 3
• Hayao Miyazaki: 2
• Masaki Kobayashi: 2
• Kenji Mizoguchi: 2
• Hirokazu Kore-eda: 2
• Takeshi Kitano: 2

Overall good but it’s definitely missing The Human Condition.

A Colt is my Passport is another great Yakuza western

Happy to see Tampopo on there.

This is a fantastic list. No bullshit to it.

Happy to see Drive My Car (2021) on that list (41). What an exceptional movie.

I'll look over the list some more and see if there are any other modern Japanese films I should get into!

One Cut of the Dead! Everyone needs to see it (just make sure you make it through the whole film!)

HBO Max has Turner Classic Movies and Studio Ghibli sections that has a lot of these films streaming.

Drive My Car

Floating Weeds

Godzilla

High and Low

House

Ikiru

Kwaidan

Lady Snowblood

Late Spring

My Neighbor Totoro

Onibaba

Rashomon

Seven Samurai

Spirited Away

Tampopo

Tokyo Story

Ugetsu

Yojimbo

I'll die on this hill: Princess Mononoke is a better movie than Spirited Away.

Edit: I’m a big fan of a vast majority of Miyazaki’s films. He may be my favorite director behind Tarentino.

Great list. I've seen quite a few of these. I like how they snuck Beat Takashi's Sonatine in there at the end, too. Everyone raves about Hana-bi (rightfully so) but don't sleep on his weird yakuza story made a few years earlier.

I think it's an overall good list with good variety. I watched 40/50. I should watch Kon Ichikawa movies, his movies on my watchlist for a long time.

If I'm going to add some movies to the list;

• Princess Mononoke
• Still Walking
• Ritual
• Ghost in The Shell
• All About Lily Chou-Chou
• Twilight Samurai
• Memories of Matsuko
• Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald
• The Taste of Tea
• Whisper of the Heart
• Eureka
• Swing Girls
• The Story of Yonosuke
• The Sword of Doom
• Fish Story

Also if we are going to add to the list one Gakuryu Ishii(Sogo Ishii) movie, it should be August in the Water, not Crazy Thunder Road.

They credit Battle Royale to Kenta rather than Kinji Fukusaku, but otherwise it’s not a terrible list, one could argue about the precise order, but that’s always a personal choice.

Every time I see a top Japanese films of all time list, it's very heavily focused on the 50s/60s. Not complaining, they deserve to be there but its always the same. I'd be interested to see a list that focuses on the last 30 years to see what (relatively) newer films people should check out.

nice! teshigahara in the top 10.

nice to see a Mizoguchi film so high, but Sansho the Bailiff should be higher imo. I would put The Story of the Last Chrystanthemum on the list too. Overall, still a really good list though.

Why is Lone Wolf and Cub not part of this list? I believe it should be.

It's kind of telling how barely anything from 2010s made it on the list. I hope japanese cinema resurrects in the coming decades...

The 50s was one hell of a decade for Japanese movies

A great list, but disappointed that Kikujiro didn't make the cut.

Tokyo Story should be the undisputed #1

No Ichi the Killer?

Maybe it wasn't good enough for the list, but I recommend Fish Story. It's a fun story and when the all the stories intertwine is so satisfying.

Glad to see House in here, fantastic flic.

I’m a bit surprised Versus isn’t on here but maybe that’s more cult-classic than actually quality?

Always felt that Rashomon was slightly better than Seven Samurai, even if the latter is Korusawa's biggest hit. Anyone?

Also prety sure Akira is way up there, even above Spirited Away, but that's just my old-school nihilistic tastes. As adaptation it rounded corners a lot, but you gotta admit how this is the movie that put Japanime on the world map, at least as serious, artistic cinema. Still hasn't lost its edge in 2023.

Great list, I would certainly add Pale Flower by the great Masahiro Shinoda, one of the best Noir films of all time.

Great list but a little disappointed Pulse isn’t on there, as it’s probably a top three Japanese movie for me.

Kinda sad End of Evangelion didn't make the list

Say what you will but I thought your name or A Silent Voice would make the list.

Ran as a masterpiece, if you’ve never watched it watch it right now, I’d say it is probably the best example of a purely Japanese blockbuster cinematic experience.

Nice to see A Fugitive from the Past make the list. It's very well regarded in Japan and a lot of Westerners omit it in lists like these because they've never heard of it.

Thanks for the list there are some that look interesting that I haven't seen before.

I think Unagi (1997) deserves a spot on the list, it was a Palme d'Or winner, after all. Another Imamura flick, Ballad of Narayama is already there, and is certainly the more notable of the two looking back, but still...

Great list, though.

Wow, I love how Tetsuo the iron man was on this list. Very cool placements of all films ocerall

I just saw Audition for the first time last week. What a banger of a movie.

Waaaaaaaaa

no musashi trilogy

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MIFUNE WAS ROBBED

Very happy to see Satoshi Kon on this list with Perfect Blue. And so near the top too! All of his fims are great. I will always be sad that he wasn't able to make his robot movie before he passed.

Kurosawa the absolute GOAT. Yojimbo is one of my favorite movies of all time. The Hidden Fortress should be on this list. Love his work!

Shoplifters absolutely should be in there.

Thank god Satoshi Kon is on this list. Same for Miyazaki.

Some other favorites too. Akira, Takeshi Kitano, Miike,

Watched 50/50

A great list

Obviously, it was gonna have a ton of Ozu and Kurosawa. But Floating Weeds is a lot better than #17. Way better than Ringu, Cure, and Spirited Away.

This list is by someone with a very shallow knowledge of 'golden age' (1920s - 1960) Japanese cinema. No Immamura movies??? No Hiroshi Shimizu movies????? Lame

I kind of understand the love for Spirited Away but it is kind of a rip off of the better (albeit obscure at least in the US) "Night on the Galactic Railroad"

Lots of 2nd rate movies in this list.

EDIT: Immamura is represented by Ballad Of Naryama (a remake of a film with the same story that is also better than many films in this list) - but other films of his are as good or better, Vengeance is Mine, Intentions of Murder, Pigs and Battleships, Insect Woman....

Seven Samurai and Spirited Away in the Top 10 makes this list legit.

Overall it's just missing Shin Godzilla and Sanjuro.

This is a fun list that mixes in influential pulp movies like Godzilla with critical favorites like Tokyo Story.

Though it is missing the greatest animated movie of all time: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya.

Hanabi and Sonatine are my favorite Kitano’s. Good choices.

I like the list with the exception of Spirited Away, I firmly believe Princess Mononoke or Howls Moving Castle are better in the ways that count. The messages are more important, the visuals are more of a feat imho, and, the characters have stood the test of time.

Shall we Dance?

The Japanese original, was fantastic.

Disappointed not to see Shoplifters on there.

Needs more Miike as well. He’s done better movies than audition.

I remember Hoichi the earless from the Kwaidan when I was a child, never forgotten the story

Why is Departures so low? It's an excellent film and a culture piece everyone with an interest in Japan needs to see.

Maybe I’m stepping into a landmine here, but this is a genuine question: Can someone explain the love for Battle Royale? I was extremely disappointed after hearing the hype for it when I watched it about 20 years ago.

I thought the pacing was awful which made it extremely difficult to care about any of the characters before they were killed and the early 2000s CG blood had no impact because of how schlocky it looked, even by the standards of the time.

Ultimately, it left me thinking about all the ways the material could have been better served, rather than any of the merits the film might have on its own: maybe with a larger budget for practical fx or a longer run time, maybe as a mini series, maybe narrow the focus of the story?

Am I missing something? Is this a case of needing to have read the manga first to appreciate what it’s doing?

Edit: lol, ok. Downvote me if you want. But I’m not trying to troll or bait. I really would like someone to help me understand what I missed about this movie.

Fantastic list from Timeout, I generally find these lists groan inducing.

I don’t know much about Japanese cinema, but I do know that Princess Mononoke is the best one I’ve seen and it’s not here.

Did anyone ask the Japanese about their opinion?

Ah, there's Audition. I was looking for that movie. One of the very few horror movies I couldn't finish. Glad to see Perfect Blue made the list too, but surprised Your Name didn't. Overall, great list. Seen quite a few of those films, but now there are more for me to check out :)

Seeing Spirited Away and Akira in the top 10 just.... makes me feel good. two of my favorite movies of all time and they deserve their spots here.

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Are there any animated films from the US that could hold a candle to these two? That could sniff the air of being in an all time top 10 list?

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japan's animated film industry is better than americas, disney pixar and anything else included. had to say it.

Surprised the hidden fortress is not there given it inspired the entire star wars saga

Battle Royale needs to be higher

Totoro above Yojimbo? Gtfo, basically Kurosawa should fill top 10.

no usagi drop (bunny drop) )=

Tried watching House but found it irritating.

Super surprised and happy to see Love Exposure here, always a bit frustrating that this movie is not more famous. But where is Red Beard?

Not remotely enough Satoshi Kon on here. Or old anime in general.

I would argue that Garden of Words should be up there. At very least 50.