Bunshun Bunko's Top 150 Japanese Films

Farmers from a village exploited by bandits hire a veteran samurai for protection, and he gathers six other samurai to join him.

An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city, but receive little attention.

A bureaucrat tries to find meaning in his life after he discovers he has terminal cancer.

The rape of a bride and the murder of her samurai husband are recalled from the perspectives of a bandit, the bride, the samurai's ghost and a woodcutter.

A tragic social drama set in post war Japan about a lonely woman trying to find purpose and stability in a devastated Tokyo.

Three thieves escape from a heist, one of them killing the other two. He is sheltered by a prostitute and sought after by the police, but only after ten years his true motivation unravels.

Schoolteacher Hisako Oishi forms an emotional bond with her pupils and teaches them various virtues, while at the same time worrying about their future.

Matsugoro is a poor rickshaw driver whose animated spirit and optimistic demeanor make him a favorite of the town. Matsu helps an injured boy, Toshio, and is hired by the boy's parents.

In the last days of the Shogunate, a resourceful grifter seeks to outwit competing prostitutes, rebellious samurai and other inhabitants of a brothel in order to survive the hardened times.

The lives of two slum neighbors, one of a happy-go-lucky gambler and the other of a poor ronin, converge when the two get involved with the affairs of a powerful samurai official and his gangsters.

The hero Saburo (Okada Eiji) is obstructed by a series of events from meeting Keiko (Kuga Yoshiko), his fiancee.

A tale of ambition, family, love, and war set in the midst of the Japanese Civil Wars of the sixteenth century.

Detectives investigate the murder of an old man found in a Tokyo rail yard.

Follows a woman's fight and survival amid the vicissitudes of life and the cruelty of society.

In post-War Japan, a boy from a noodle store-owning family befriends a neighboring boy living in poverty.

Three complete strangers embark on a road-trip to Hokkaido.

A crafty ronin comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other to free the town.

A drunken doctor with a hot temper and a violence-prone gangster with tuberculosis form a quicksilver bond.

Several people try to talk 27-year-old Noriko into marrying, but all she wants is to keep on caring for her widowed father.

When a post-war high school girl is seen with an older boy many find the nontraditional notion unacceptable and try to trick the girl and also assail her right to continue the relationship. Cue her teacher who not only supports the girl, but encourages her pupils to do as they wish and ignore what society indoctrinates. Not everyone agrees with the teacher and her modern ideas however.

During the violent chaos of post-War Japanese black market, a young gangster called Shozo Hirono has to keep up with the rapid shifts of power between unscrupulous bosses.

A family chooses a match for their daughter Noriko, but she, surprisingly, has her own plans.

An executive of a Yokohama shoe company becomes a victim of extortion when his chauffeur's son is kidnapped by mistake and held for ransom.

A conscience-driven Japanese soldier traumatized by the events of WWII adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.

A surreal period film following a university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.