Masaki Kobayashi

When a ronin requesting seppuku at a feudal lord's palace is told of the brutal suicide of another ronin who previously visited, he reveals how their pasts are intertwined - and in doing so challenges the clan's integrity.

His ideals challenged by life as a conscript in war-time Japan's military, a pacifist faces ever greater tests in his fight for survival.

As a conscript in war-time Japan's military, a pacifist struggles to maintain his determination to keep his ideals.

A Japanese pacifist, unable to face the dire consequences of conscientious objection, is transformed by his attempts to compromise with the demands of war-time Japan.

The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped away from her husband by the lord. The husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to get her back.

A collection of four Japanese folk tales with supernatural themes.

A dying businessman intends to will two hundred million yen to his three illegitimate children, but his associates scheme to take advantage of the situation.

A detailed look at a Tokyo business tycoon (played by Shin Saburi) given a diagnosis of terminal cancer who must now re-assess his life and values.

Documentary covering the 1946-48 Tokyo Trials.

During WWII a soldier is beaten so badly by a superior officer he is left deaf. After the war he is an inventor and meets this officer at the patent office. The man is still the bully he was.

A group of rank-and-file Japanese soldiers are jailed for crimes against humanity, themselves victims of a nation refusing to bear its burdens as a whole.

A love triangle develops between a benevolent student, his innocent girlfriend, and a cruel petty criminal, all as a point of diagnosis of a social disease that had Japan slowly succumbing to lawlessness during the post-War era.

A talent scout moves sharply, dead-set on signing a promising athlete to his team.

The story takes place in feudal Japan, when any commerce with the rest of the world was strictly prohibited. An idealist suddenly appears in an isolated inn (the one that the title refers to), the head-quarters of a group of smugglers, with stolen money intended to ransom his loved one who is forced to work in a brothel.

This gripping docudrama is a fictionalized account of what could happen to a Japanese family when one of their sons shames them in front of the entire nation.

Masaki Kobayashi directs this romantic drama concerning a family of florists.

A young student (Akira Inshihama) falls into a hopeless romantic attraction to an invalid girl (Keiko Awaji) whom he can only see from afar.

The story of a father and two teen-aged sons, and the rivalry between the two siblings as they begin to discover the attraction of girls.

A family in the city of Tokyo running a liquor store overcome their impotence and dysfunction as they induce an understanding through each other of how to deal with their individual problems.

In a mountain village, Heita, a translator's son, is a gifted boy but is shunned by the villagers. He can imitate birds' cry and befriends another boy who works in a brewery. Heita also finds solace in the village pastor Yasugi and his teacher Michiko, but they too have problems of their own.

A botanist woos the secretary of an industrialist whose company threatens the local water supply.