100 Japanese Directors Ranked

1962 film by Yuzo Kawashima

A playwright moves to a rural neighborhood to avoid the distractions of the city, but he discovers there are plenty of ways to get sidetracked in his new home, too.

A sad and troubled man finds a new job five years after the end of WWII, where he writes love letters for other people.

A cynical samurai is left as the sole survivor to fulfill a plot to assassinate the puppet of a villain intent on usurping the shogunate in the 17th century. A Shogunate Elder connives to rule Japan by making his puppet, the Shogun's brother Tsunashige, the next Shogun. The best strategist in Japan, Yamaga, leads a plot to stop the Elder, but his cabal is betrayed and most of the conspirators are captured and tortured.

The story of a teenage boy named Yu, who falls for Yoko, a girl he runs into while working as an "up-skirt" photographer in an offshoot of the porn industry. His attempts to woo her are complicated by a spot of cross-dressing – which convinces Yoko that she is lesbian – dalliances with kung-fu and crime, and a constant struggle with the guilt that's a legacy of his Catholic upbringing.

2004 film by Hirokazu Koreeda

2001 film by Takashi Miike

Kanji is a poor peasant widower who struggles to earn a living for his daughter and himself and to pay off his father-in-law's debts.

Set in the Edo period, the film deals with two brothers falling in love with the same girl. Sadly, only 12 minutes of footage survive.

A soldier has been in the Japanese military for the entirety of WWII, and in that time, his dedication to the army has never faltered. However, as the war draws to a close, his commanding officers become increasingly desperate and push their men to ever more absurd extremes. The ridiculousness of the orders from above peak when the hero of the story is assigned to drive a one-man submarine straight into the hull of an enemy battleship.

An umbrella maker with a shopping addiction finds himself in dire straits when his debts force him to consider selling his attractive, desirable daughter to a suitor she doesn't love.