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Year By Year: Japan

By: trolley freak

My favourite Japanese film of each year from 1929 onwards (with a few exceptions for year’s where I haven’t yet seen a Japanese film). Some choices aren’t particularly good (especially from the 1970’s) but this list will change the more films I see….

Rashomon

Rashomon (1950). The Japanese film that made the big breakthrough in the West…

1929 Days Of Youth (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu) Runner-Up: I Graduated, But… (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu)
1930 I Flunked, But… (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu) Runner-Up: That Night’s Wife (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu)
1931 Flunky, Work Hard! (Dir: Mikio Naruse) Runner-Up: The Lady And The Beard (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu)
1932 I Was Born, But… (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu) Runners-Up: No Blood Relation (Dir: Mikio Naruse), Where Now Are The Dreams Of Youth? (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu)
1933 Passing Fancy (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu) Runners-Up: Japanese Girls At The Harbor (Dir: Hiroshi Shimizu), Apart From You (Dir: Mikio Naruse)
1934 A Story Of Floating Weeds (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu) Runners-Up: Street Without End (Dir: Mikio Naruse), A Mother Should Be Loved (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu)

I Was Born, But...

I Was Born, But… (1932). Ozu’s first great film…

1935 An Inn In Tokyo (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu) Runner-Up: Wife! Be Like A Rose! (Dir: Mikio Naruse)
1936 The Only Son (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu) Runners-Up: Sisters Of The Gion (Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi), Mr. Thank You (Dir: Hiroshi Shimizu)
1937 Humanity And Paper Balloons (Dir: Sadao Yamanaka) Runners-Up: Children In The Wind (Dir: Hiroshi Shimizu), What Did The Lady Forget? (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu)
1938 The Masseurs And A Woman (Dir: Hiroshi Shimizu)
1939 The Story Of The Late Chrysanthemums (Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi)

Humanity And Paper Balloons

Humanity And Paper Balloons (1937). Yamanaka’s last film before his untimely death…

1940 Traveling Actors (Dir: Mikio Naruse)
1941 Brothers And Sisters Of The Toda Family (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu) Runners-Up: Ornamental Hairpin (Dir: Hiroshi Shimizu), Hideko The Bus Conductress (Dir: Mikio Naruse)
1942 There Was A Father (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu)
1943 Sanshiro Sugata (Dir: Akira Kurosawa)
1944 The Most Beautiful (Dir: Akira Kurosawa)

Susumu Fujita

Susumu Fujita, star of Sanshiro Sugata (1943). The first film of a remarkable directorial career…

1945 The Men Who Tread On The Tiger’s Tail (Dir: Akira Kurosawa) Runner-Up: Sanshiro Sugata, Part Two (Dir: Akira Kurosawa)
1946 Five Women Around Utamaro (Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi) Runner-Up: No Regrets For Our Youth (Dir: Akira Kurosawa)
1947 The Record Of A Tenement Gentleman (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu) Runners-Up: One Wonderful Sunday (Dir: Akira Kurosawa), The Love Of Sumako The Actress (Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi)
1948 Drunken Angel (Dir: Akira Kurosawa) Runners-Up: A Hen In The Wind (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu), Women Of The Night (Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi)
1949 Late Spring (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu) Runners-Up: Stray Dog (Dir: Akira Kurosawa), Flame Of My Love (Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi)

Late Spring

Late Spring (1949). Ozu + Hara + Ryu = Perfection…

1950 Rashomon (Dir: Akira Kurosawa) Runners-Up: Portrait Of Madame Yuki (Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi), The Munekata Sisters (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu)
1951 Early Summer (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu) Runners-Up: The Lady From Musashino (Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi), The Idiot (Dir: Akira Kurosawa)
1952 Ikiru (Dir: Akira Kurosawa) Runners-Up: The Life Of Oharu (Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi), Flavor Of Green Tea Over Rice (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu)
1953 Tokyo Story (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu) Runners-Up: Ugetsu (Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi), Gate Of Hell (Dir: Teinosuke Kinugasa)
1954 Sansho The Bailiff (Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi) Runners-Up: Seven Samurai (Dir: Akira Kurosawa), Twenty-Four Eyes (Dir: Keisuke Kinoshita)

Sansho the Bailiff

Sansho The Bailiff (1954). The greatest of all Japanese films…

1955 Floating Clouds (Dir: Mikio Naruse) Runners-Up: The Heart (Dir: Kon Ichikawa), I Live In Fear (Dir: Akira Kurosawa)
1956 Street Of Shame (Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi) Runners-Up: The Burmese Harp (Dir: Kon Ichikawa), Early Spring (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu)
1957 Throne Of Blood (Dir: Akira Kurosawa) Runners-Up: Tokyo Twilight (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu), Kisses (Dir: Yasuzo Masumura)
1958 The Hidden Fortress (Dir: Akira Kurosawa) Runners-Up: Ballad Of Narayama (Dir: Keisuke Kinoshita), Equinox Flower (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu)
1959 Floating Weeds (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu) Runners-Up: The Human Condition (Dir: Masaki Kobayashi), Good Morning (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu)

Throne of Blood

Throne Of Blood (1957). A quite brilliant Shakespeare adaptation…

1960 The Naked Island (Dir: Kaneto Shindo) Runners-Up: The Bad Sleep Well (Dir: Akira Kurosawa), Late Autumn (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu)
1961 Yojimbo (Dir: Akira Kurosawa) Runner-Up: The End Of Summer (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu)
1962 Harakiri (Dir: Masaki Kobayashi) Runners-Up: An Autumn Afternoon (Dir: Yasujiro Ozu), Sanjuro (Dir: Akira Kurosawa)
1963 High And Low (Dir: Akira Kurosawa) Runners-Up: Alone On The Pacific (Dir: Kon Ichikawa), An Actor’s Revenge (Dir: Kon Ichikawa)
1964 Onibaba (Dir: Kaneto Shindo) Runners-Up: Woman In The Dunes (Dir: Hiroshi Teshigahara), Assassination (Dir: Masahiro Shinoda)

Harakiri

Harakiri (1962). Possibly the greatest samurai movie of them all…

1965 Red Beard (Dir: Akira Kurosawa) Runners-Up: Seisaku’s Wife (Dir: Yasuzo Masumura), Kwaidan (Dir: Masaki Kobayashi)
1966 Red Angel (Dir: Yasuzo Masumura) Runners-Up: Irezumi (Dir: Yasuzo Masumura), The Face Of Another (Dir: Hiroshi Teshigahara)
1967 Samurai Rebellion (Dir: Masaki Kobayashi) Runner-Up: Branded To Kill (Dir: Seijun Suzuki)
1968 Kuroneko (Dir: Kaneto Shindo)
1969 Blind Beast (Dir: Yasuzo Masumura) Runners-Up: Double Suicide (Dir: Masahiro Shinoda), Portrait Of Hell (Dir: Shiro Toyoda)

Samurai Rebellion

Samurai Rebellion (1967). Kobayashi’s second samurai masterpiece, on a par with Harakiri (1962)…

1970 Dodes’ka-den (Dir: Akira Kurosawa) Runner-Up: Zatoichi: The Festival Of Fire (Dir: Kenji Misumi)
1971 Silence (Dir: Masahiro Shinoda)
1972 Hanzo The Razor: Sword Of Justice (Dir: Kenji Misumi)
1973 Sex And Fury (Dir: Noribumi Suzuki) Runner-Up: Hanzo The Razor: The Snare (Dir: Yasuzo Masumura)
1974 Hanzo The Razor: Who’s Got The Gold? (Dir: Yoshio Inoue)

Dodes'ka-den

Dodes’ka-den (1970). Kurosawa’s first film in colour and the film that gave me my MUBI name…

1975 Dersu Uzala (Dir: Akira Kurosawa) Runners-Up: Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life Of A Film Director (Dir: Kaneto Shindo), Under The Blossoming Cherry Trees (Dir: Masahiro Shinoda)
1976 In The Realm Of The Senses (Dir: Nagisa Oshima)
1977 House (Dir: Nobuhiko Obayashi)
1978 Double Suicide At Sonezaki (Dir: Yasuzo Masumura)
1979 Vengeance Is Mine (Dir: Shohei Imamura)
1980 Kagemusha (Dir: Akira Kurosawa)

In the Realm of the Senses

In The Realm Of The Senses (1976). By far the most controversial film on this list and maybe in all of Japanese cinema…

Selected years from 1981 onwards:

1983 Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (Dir: Nagisa Oshima)
1985 Ran (Dir: Akira Kurosawa) Runner-Up: Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters (Dir: Paul Schrader)
1990 Dreams (Dir: Akira Kurosawa)
1991 Rhapsody In August (Dir: Akira Kurosawa)
1993 Madadayo (Dir: Akira Kurosawa)
1997 Fireworks (Dir: Takeshi Kitano)
2006 Letters From Iwo Jima (Dir: Clint Eastwood)

Ran

Ran (1985). Kurosawa’s final masterpiece…

 

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