A boy steals a knife from an old samurai, unaware of its value, setting off a strange chain of events.

Sanae is left a widow after her prestigious husband dies, but holds the proceeds of a million yen insurance policy. Being childless, her former in-laws have no objection to her return to her own family.

Fumiko and Ryōtarō Namiki's marriage has gone stale, with both constantly arguing over what to do on a day off, or about her cutting out recipes from the newspaper before he finishes reading it. Their animosities are witnessed by Fumiko's niece Ayako, who visits to complain about her own husband's inattentiveness, and their new neighbours, the Imasatos.

1949 film by Yasujiro Ozu

1951 film by Mikio Naruse

An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman.

1957 film by Yasujirō Ozu

A former aristocratic family faces financial hardship and their daughter is introduced to a nice man in the auto repair business, the hope being that a marriage might be of economic assistance to the family. The daughter's family finds it hard to accept this kind of idea and the young man is uncomfortable with the difference in their social standing. However, everything works out in the end and a happy marriage takes place.

A woman and her daughter are each forced to contend with an increasing pressure to marry, particularly from three men who knew her late husband.

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.