Masaki Kobayashi Movies

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money...

Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find...

After handing in a report on the treatment of Chinese colonial labor, Kaji is offered the post of labor chief at a large mining operation in...

The Human Condition follows the journey of the well-intentioned, yet naïve Kaji who transitions from being a labor camp supervisor to an...

This impressionistic portrait of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics pays as much attention to the crowds and workers as it does to the actual competitive...

The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped away from her husband by the lord. The husband and his samurai father must decide whether to...

A rural village elder plans an event on the return of a farmer's daughter from the city, unaware that she has become a Westernized burlesque artist.

When the future of his construction company falls into danger, a controlling father pushes his children into unsatisfying marriages and careers in...

After the Japanese defeat to the Russians, Kaji leads the last remaining men through Manchuria. Intent on returning to his dear wife and his old...

In the Meiji period, a schoolteacher tries to hide his lower-class upbringing as he supports a visiting liberal intellectual.

Kaji is sent to the Japanese army labeled Red and is mistreated by the vets. Along his assignment, Kaji witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts...

On a Tokyo dump’s shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who “drives” an imaginary trolley, a...

A new magistrate in the town of Horisoto—widely reputed to be the most lawless township in Japan, uses guile and his opponents' own...

Zensaku, middle-aged and deaf in one ear, learns that his son's fallen for the daughter of a war officer responsible for the maiming.

One year has passed since the Kidojis' eldest son Otohiko was arrested for his part in a terrorist kidnapping, which resulted in multiple deaths....

Iemon Tamiya is an impoverished masterless samurai who craves a better life, which he cannot have because of his marriage to Oiwa, who is completely...

A talent scout moves sharply, dead-set on signing a promising athlete to the baseball team the Toyko Flowers.

In this 1993 video interview, filmed for the Directors Guild of Japan at Tokyo’s Haiyuza Theatre, director Masaki Kobayashi talks to fellow...

The mistress of a crook real estate broker comes to terms with her soulless existence after an artist paints her portrait.

The story takes place in feudal Japan, when any commerce with the rest of the world was strictly prohibited. An idealist suddenly appears in an...