The story of an airport and its air traffic control crew in a remote and northern Japanese town. Three of the air traffic controllers are female with one of them working with her dead fiancé's sister. The engaged man had gone to war and never returned.

This tremendous blockbuster hit from 1970, showing the rise to power of Tojo Hideki, is perhaps the most important film to come out of Japan since the 7 Samurai! Interspersed with actual footage dating back to the 1930’s and throughout the Great Pacific War it shows in exciting detail the early successes and ultimate failure of the Japanese war machine. Never before has there been a chronicle of this magnitude about the war in the Pacific Theater of Operations, rivaling Saving Private Ryan with its intense battle scenes. With a brilliant cast featuring Kobayashi Keiju as Tojo, Yamamura So as former Prime Minister Yonai, Mifune Toshiro as Admiral Yamamoto, and Kayama Yuzo as an intrepid newspaper reporter whose articles detailing Japanese losing battles infuriates Tojo to the point of putting his life in danger! The final hour of this film features some of the most disturbing aspects of how the Japanese fought to save their nation and their honor!

Young coal miner Takeda leaves Kyushu in search of a better job in Tokyo, only to fall into the lucrative yet dangerous life of a yakuza.

Based on a 1956 television feature on Japan’s national network, NHK, this is one of Uchida’s rarest films. A socially conscious drama with a contemporary backdrop, Dotanba focuses on the attempts to rescue a group of trapped miners. The title is a figure of speech — (essentially “last minute” or “eleventh hour”) — that refers to a situation of peril. The film boasts a script co-written by Uchida and Akira Kurosawa’s frequent screenwriter, Shinobu Hashimoto, and stars Kurosawa’s frequent star Takashi Shimura.

When a young soldier is killed while trying to prevent his younger sister, Kaoru, from being sold into a life of prostitution, his commander, Col. Miyagi, tries to honor his dying wish to rescue his sister. Upon finding Kaoru at a party working as a geisha and later rescuing her from committing suicide, Col. Miyagi allows her to move in with him. Over time, the two grow close, but in spite of Kaoru's growing feelings for him, Col. Miyagi is unable to bring himself to return her love. On the night of his deployment to war, Col. Miyagi finally admits his feelings for Kaoru, but will they ever be able to enjoy a peaceful life together now that a very violent and bloody military revolt is under way...

A petty thief with an utter resemblance to a samurai warlord is hired as the lord's double. When the warlord later dies the thief is forced to take up arms in his place.

Set in Japan's Tenpyou era (729-749 CE), four young monks are sent to China to study Buddhism and bring a high priest back to Japan with them. The film tells the tale of the four monks' youth and the life and times of the high priest Ganjin.

Sen Rikyu is a ceremonial tea master who advises warlord Hideyoshi in sixteenth-century feudal Japan. His daughter, the beautiful Lady Ogin, has an unrequited love for Lord Ukon, who has angered Hideyoshi by becoming a Christian convert. Ogin's father Rikyu also displeases Hideyoshi by opposing the warlord's plan to invade China and Korea. When the animalistic Hideyoshi is rejected by Ogin, he threatens her and her father with arrest and worse.

After a chance encounter with Hiroshi's father on a bus, Tora decides to get serious and reflect on the mortality of man. His plans are derailed when a beautiful lady starts working at Toraya.

Criminals plant a bomb on a high-speed train. It will explode when the train slows down, unless a ransom is paid.

Adaptation of the novel by Toyoko Yamasaki.

Professor Nishiyama, after studying and interpreting the prophecies of Nostradamus, realizes that the end of the world is at hand. Unfortunately, nobody listens to him until it is too late. As the effects of mankind's tampering of the earth - radioactive smog clouds, hideously mutated animals, destruction of the ozone layer - rage out of control, the world leaders hurtle blindly toward the final confrontation. The film sparked controversy in Japan and was subsequently pulled out of circulation, with no official video release of the uncut film.

Zatoichi returns to his home village for the first time in over ten years to find much has changed and that corruption abounds.

Taking a message from Hiroshi's father to heart, Torajiro attempts to give up his wandering ways.

Hidejuro is sent to prison after killing the boss of a rival family. After being released, he discovers that his family has scattered and he is taking in by a company of quarry workers, whose boss has a strict code of non-violence.

Tora-San, an itinerant peddler who is thrown out of his father's house twenty years before but reconnects with his aunt, uncle and sister Sakura. Tora wreaks some havoc in their lives, like getting drunk and silly at a marriage meeting and ruining Sakura's chance to marry someone, as well as just being a real pain to those around him. There is a sentimental side to him also, and the best way to describe him is that he grows on you.

A shrewd 16th Century samurai helps a daimyo expand his realm.

Story of loyal sailors giving their lives for their country as human torpedoes towards the end of the War.

On the night of the summer Obon festival, Hagiwara Shinzaburo meets a beautiful courtesan named Otsuyu. Not knowing she's a ghost, he becomes infatuated by her.

Zatoichi runs afoul of some evil fugitives, working for a corrupt law official.

Kitagawa is an engineer charged with construction of a gigantic tunnel through the Japan Alps for the transportation of equipment in the building of the massive Kurobe Dam. The tunnel crosses an earthquake fault and Kitagawa is beleaguered not only by cave-ins and flooding, but by strife between management and the workers's union. Adding to Kitagawa's stress is the knowledge that as his attention is pulled inexorably toward the tunnel construction, his youngest daughter is dying from leukemia.

Shinkichi, a peasant employed as a cloth-dyer, has a dream: in the midst of the civil war which ravages Japan, he hopes to revive the long-banned custom of the Kyoto Gion Festival, and by doing so, bring together the warring clans and rampaging brigands in peaceful celebration.

Following the detonation of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military and the government clash over the demand from the Allies for unconditional surrender. Minister of the Army Anami leads the military officers who propose to fight on, even to the death of every Japanese citizen. Emperor Hirohito, however, joins with his ministers in asking the unthinkable, the peaceful surrender of Japan. When the military plots a coup to overthrow the Emperor's civilian government, Anami must face the choice between his desires and loyalty to his Emperor.

A tale of three Yakuza gamblers who traveled Japan during the samurai era living by their wits and sword skills. Told in 3 separate vignettes, each part tells the story of a different drifter’s life. Part 1: A man is on the run after killing two Hasshu Officials to avenge his Boss. He must make a life or death decision as he is asked to protect a gang from attack. Part 2: A pair of gamblers chased out of a crooked game must fight not only their pursuers, but the ghosts of their pasts as well. Part 3: A wanderer who wants to live according to the Yakuza Code, but is not sure that he can do so when asked to save a town from an evil official.

Remake of Kurosawa's films Sanshiro Sugata and Sanshiro Sugata part 2. A young man, Sanshiro Sugata, troubled by personal problems, takes up judo. His teacher, Shogoro Yano, is a devout man who has aroused the enmity of the local practitioners of jujitsu, the older and more accepted of the two sports. Sugata uses his newly learned prowess to gain a measure of respect from others; however, Shogoro insists that the sport has a spiritual side, a lesson Sugata has yet to learn. Eventually, in hand-to-hand combat with the father of a young woman he loves, he comes to understand the true meaning of judo.

Japan, 1860. The men of the Mito clan, victims of the Ansei purge, anxiously prowl around the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle with the intention of assassinating Naosuke Ii of Hikone, tairō of the Tokugawa shogunate and responsible for their misfortune.

Near the end of WWII, Germans transport the immortal heart of Frankenstein's monster to Japan, where it is seeming lost in the bombing of Hiroshima. Years later a wild boy is found, born from the immortal heart.

In 19th-century Japan, a rough-tempered yet charitable town doctor trains a young intern.

A meteor lands in Kurobe Valley as detective Shindo is assigned to protect Princess Salno from assassination. She emerges under the guise of a Venusian prophetess and catches the attention of journalist Naoko and Mothra's fairies by predicting a powerful space monster's arrival. The infant Mothra must convince Godzilla and Rodan to set aside their hatred of humanity or face the monster alone.

A collection of four Japanese folk tales with supernatural themes.

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

Sukezaemon, a pirate, is shipwrecked in a strange corner of the world. With his companion, a wizard named Sennin, Sukezaemon becomes entangled in a plot by the evil premier to succeed the dying King Raksha.

In 1980, a giant planetoid named Gorath is discovered to be on a collision course with Earth. Even though it is smaller than Earth, its mass is huge enough to crush the Earth and destroy it. A mission sent to observe Gorath is destroyed after all the orbiting ships are drawn into the planetoid. A later mission is sent to observe and the crew barely leaves before suffering the same fate. However Astronaut Tatsuo Kanai is left in a catatonic state due to his near death experience. The Earth's scientists then come up with a desperate plan to build giant rockets at the South Pole to move Earth out of Gorath's path before it is too late.

A crafty samurai helps a young man and his fellow clansmen trying to save his uncle, who has been framed and imprisoned by a corrupt superintendent.

A fishing village is terrorized by a giant whale, and the fishermen are determined to kill it.

After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor.

A yakuza man helps attacking a man out of obligation but also promise to take care of his family a he finds out the boss killed the man to get his wife.

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

During the raging war between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa clans, the swordsman Mohei (whose family has been completely decimated) is recruited by Toyotomi to overcome the seat of power, Osaka Castle. Mohei's daredevil skills will be put to severe tests.

An expedition to Infant Island discovers a native population and tiny twin fairy priestesses of the island's mythical deity. Named Mothra, she sets out to rescue her fairies after they are kidnapped by an exploitative businessman.

Takeo is a young yakuza who renounces his former criminal activities after being released from prison. But sometimes escaping the past is not so easy.

Lt. Koji Kitami is a navigator-bombardier in Japan's Naval Air Force. He participates in the Japanese raid on the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in 1941 and is welcomed with pride in his hometown on his return. As Japan racks up victory after victory in the Pacific War, Kitami is caught up in the emotion of the time and fights courageously for the standard of Japanese honor. But his assuredness of his government's righteousness is shaken after the Japanese navy is defeated in the debacle of Midway.

Aya is the Madame who runs a restaurant where Geishas meet with their customers to eat, drink, listen to music and sing.

A vengeful young man marries the daughter of a corrupt industrialist in order to seek justice for his father's suicide.

Koharu, a young geisha, is in love with Kenichi, an apprentice carpenter to her father Masagoro. Their love life comes to a sudden halt after an argument between their two fathers. Can their love survive in spite of the bitterness between their two families?

A prince, framed for murder and starved for affection from his father, is sent on a quest.

The story is about the social problems faced by Japan's indigenous Ainu, mostly centered on the reactions of the characters to their oppressed state.

During the 1200's, legendary Buddhist monk Nichiren returns from his studies to lead Japan out of moral crisis and prepare to fight Mongol invaders by creating a new form of Buddhism. He runs afoul of the existing Buddhist sects and their government supporters and is persecuted. Can Nichiren persevere before the Mogol fleet reaches Japanese shores?

Japan, 1701. A group of samurai become rônin after their lord is forced to commit seppuku for assaulting a court official, who will become the target of a merciless revenge.

A senior detective is determined to find the truth behind an apparent double suicide.

Lured by gold, two greedy peasants unknowingly escort a princess and her general across enemy lines.

Young Lord Gentaro (Otomo Ryutaro) takes a journey to Edo in search of his future wife. Easier said than done, evil forces lurk in Edo and Gentaro must use his phenomenal sword skills to overcome the evil and find the love of his life. Another must have for fans of the great Otomo Ryutaro. And don't let the "silly" English title fool you, this is a great movie!

A war-hardened general, egged on by his ambitious wife, works to fulfill a prophecy that he would become lord of Spider's Web Castle.

In Japan, scientifically advanced invaders from the war-destroyed planet Mysteroid cause an entire village to vanish, then send a giant robot out to storm the city by night, after which they request a small patch of land on Earth and the right to marry earthling women, claiming to be pacifists. Mankind must decide whether to capitulate or to resist.

A woman marries, gives birth to a stillborn child, and divorces, falls in love with a hotel-keeper, only to find herself subordinated to his drive for success, takes up with a tailor who cannot console himself with her strong personality.

A 400-foot (122-meter) dinosaur-like beast, awoken from undersea hibernation off the Japanese coast by atomic-bomb testing, attacks Tokyo.

Musashi Miyamoto is challenged to a duel by a confident swordsman Sasaki Kojiro. He agrees to fight him in a year's time.

An aging Japanese industrialist becomes so fearful of nuclear war that it begins to take a toll on his life and family.

Fishing scout-pilots are startled to discover a new monster named Anguirus alongside a second Godzilla. The monsters make their way towards Osaka as Japan can only brace for tragedy and relive the horror of Godzilla once more.

A poor village under attack by bandits recruits seven unemployed samurai to help them defend themselves.

American nuclear weapons testing results in the creation of a seemingly unstoppable, dinosaur-like beast.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a brilliant tactician, is a loyal subject of the emperor, despite his grave misgivings about leading Japan's navy into war with the United States. He opposes the attack on Pearl Harbor, but, overruled, he leads his forces to the best of his ability.

The picture belongs to the jidai gekki (historic) genre. It is a powerful story of violence and eroticism, picturing a world at once sordid and poetic, with two central themes which intermingle to compound an admirable panel of a critical period in Japanese history: the great famine in the mid 19th Century.

Soldiers Hayate and Yaheiji secretly escape from their besieged castle. Hayate has left behind his lover, Kano. On his way, Hayate is wounded and cared for by O’Ryo, who falls in love with him. But when Hayate accidentally kills her caretaker, he flees, with O’Ryo in pursuit. Subsequently, Hayate's comrade Yaheiji falls in love with Oryo. Kano, the lover left behind by Hayate, believes him dead, and becomes involved with another soldier, Jurota. When Jurota defects to the opposing army, he takes Kano with him. A double set of love triangles has developed, wherein each man and each woman loves one and is loved by another. Finally only combat and self-sacrifice can untangle the weave.

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

A Japanese woman, the mistress of an American, falls in love with her servant.

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

Mataemon Araki, a renowned swordsman, helps a young man find vengeance.

A Japanese veteran, driven partially mad from the war, travels to the snowy island of Hokkaido where he soon enters a love triangle with his best friend and a disgraced woman.

A young man, convicted of a crime and imprisoned in the penitentiary, comes to believe that his wife is being unfaithful to him. He contrives his escape from the prison in order to seek her out and learn the truth, but the police give chase and he must flee into the mountains.

A celebrity photograph sparks a court case as a tabloid magazine spins a scandalous yarn over a painter and a famous singer.

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.

The Angry Street includes a great deal of location shooting in the rebuilt city, including downtown streets, residential neighborhoods, the campus of the University of Tokyo, and the high life of jazzy dance halls. Sudo (Hara Yasumi) and Mori (Uno Jukichi) are two university students who make money by picking up rich girls in dance clubs and conning them into giving them cash. Mori is the brains of the operation, and Sudo is the suave dancer who picks up the girls. Over the course of the film, Sudo becomes involved with three different girls and is drawn into the gangster milieu, which he seems unable to resist even though he is responsible for his mother, grandmother, and sister, Masako (Wakayama Setsuko). In this world of bad boys and girls, Masako is the pillar of strength and moral virtue who finally enables Mori to straighten out.

An early film by Kon Ichikawa

A surgeon gets syphilis from a patient when he cuts himself during an operation. The doctor's life is destroyed, but unlike the patient, he doesn't destroy others along with him.

During a sweltering summer, a rookie homicide detective tries to track down his stolen Colt pistol.

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

Anthology film in four parts: First Love, Separating's Fun, Too, Love is Easy, and Love Circus.

Slice of life film centered on a couple of years in the life of a rural high school girl.

Three bank robbers, Eijima, Nojiri, and Takasugi, flee the police and escape into the mountains. At an inn high in the Japanese Alps, Eijima and Nojiri encounter a young woman and her father, as well as Honda, a mountaineer. The inn folk do not realize their guests are wanted criminals and the visitors are treated with great kindness. Honda volunteers to lead them over the mountains, but Eijima's paranoia endangers all of them as they make the perilous trip.

The daughter of a politically disgraced university professor struggles to find a place for herself in love and life, in the uncertain world of Japan leading into WWII.

Two sisters, one a dancer and the other a script supervisor at a big movie studio, become embroiled in union activities when a strike is called in sympathy with striking railroad workers, one of whom boards with the sisters and their parents. The girls' father argues with them about their strike, but finds his views changing when he himself loses his job.

Lord for a Night is a 1946 Japanese film directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa.

A Japanese general and his men disguise themselves as monks in order to pass an enemy border patrol.

The Way of Drama unfolds in the world of kabuki in Osaka, but also addresses the politics of popular culture and the rivalry between theatrical styles like those used by amateur actors to dramatise contemporary events.

Biographical movie about Colonel Kato, an officer serving with the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force in Southeast Asia, he was highly respected by his pilots for his fairness and excellent flying ability.

World War II film about female volunteer workers at an optics plant who do their best to meet production targets.

Sugata, a young man, struggles to learn the nuance and meaning of judo, and in doing so comes to learn something of the meaning of life.

Oharu is in love with a ronin who lives next door. A mistake puts Oharu's father deeply in debt to the local lord and he is confronted with having to sell Oharu in order to pay it off.

This is Kanjûrô Arashi's first film with Nikkatsu after his independent production company went bankrupt (many of these independent companies went bankrupt shortly after the transition to sound). As he is mostly famous for his portrait of Kurama tengu (and on the other hand, he's the definitive actor for Kurama Tengu as well), Nikkatsu made another version of Kurama tengu, co-directed by Masahiro Makino & Sadatsugu Matsuda who are both sons of Shozo Makino. Scripted by Yoshitake Hisa, a jidaigeki specialist who later scripted several Toei All-Star Jidaigeki.

The rise to power of Toyotomi Hideyoshi from a farmer's son.

The ronin Nakayama Yasubei delights in fighting. Various dramas unfold and lead toward Yasubei getting entangled against 18 opponents in a fight to the death.

Akanishi Kakita moved from the countryside to a big city. Although he comes from the samurai class, he now lives in poverty among the common people in times of rebellion, but the failed Kakita is not skilled in martial arts.

A young woman becomes a mistress of her boss in order to support her family.