japan

Aug 4, 2003 — Shohei Imamura’s lurid black comedy showcases the director’s passion for everything that’s kinky, lowlife, or irrational in Japanese culture.

May 21, 2001 — Akira Kurosawa’s period film not only commemorated historical Japanese myths with new, vivid feeling but also created the source for many of the enduring entertainment tropes in world cinema today.

Jun 5, 1995 — Kenji Mizoguchi departed abruptly from his earlier sentimental films into a world of acute realism with this bold critique of the position of women in contemporary Japanese society.

Apr 10, 1989 — In the Hollywood heyday of the ‘30s and ‘40s, America was synonymous with rip-snorting action-adventure movies. Audiences throughout the world thrilled to such classics as Gunga Din, The Sea Hawk, and Union Pacific. In the 1950s the Japanese made their...

Oct 12, 1987 — Akira Kurosawa’s thrilling Cinemascope epic is set squarely within the traditions of the Japanese film genre known as the “Chambara.”

Two unflinching reports from working-class America; a Brooklyn-set Dostoevskian family tragedy and gangster drama; an existential crime thriller from a French-cinema legend; a prescient commentary on self-help culture; and five documentaries that wage war against the conformism of modern Japanese...

The actor and star of Christophe Honoré’s Marcello Mio talks about the power of political films disguised as comedies, such as To Be or Not to Be and Divorce Italian Style; shares her love for Japanese horror cinema; and reminisces...

The writer and director of the cult classic The Babadook shares her love for fellow Australian filmmaker Peter Weir’s The Last Wave, talks about her repeat viewings of Mulholland Dr., and selects spine-tingling Japanese horror classics Kuroneko and Onibaba.

The pioneering video game designer throws a spotlight on treasures of 1950s and ’60s Japanese cinema, including Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Twilight and Nobuo Nakagawa’s Jigoku.

The acclaimed band talks about Japanese films about family, the rock music in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and a festival viewing experience of Carnival of Souls.