In 11th-century Japan, a samurai is found dead. Four conflicting accounts are given by a woodcutter, a bandit, the samurai’s wife, and the samurai’s spirit, summoned by a medium. Each tells a different version of the crime—but is anyone telling the truth?

Winner of the 1951 Golden Lion at Venice, Rashômon was the film that introduced Akira Kurosawa—and Japanese cinema itself—to international audiences. With its unreliable narrators offering different perspectives on the same event, this feudal allegory’s approach to storytelling was revolutionary.