Akira Kurosawa’s Top 11 Movies of All Time

Akira Kurosawa was a seismic force, the kind of artist who makes other artists question their craft. Spielberg, Scorsese, Lucas, Tarantino—you name it, they all bow, one way or another, to the man who turned samurai battles and human frailty into masterpieces.

Without Kurosawa, half of modern cinema wouldn’t exist the way it does. George Lucas openly borrowed The Hidden Fortress for Star Wars. Sergio Leone reshaped Yojimbo into A Fistful of Dollars. Scorsese straight-up acted in Kurosawa’s Dreams out of reverence.

What makes Kurosawa’s work so irresistible is his range. The man could swing from Shakespearean tragedy (Throne of Blood, Ran) to pulse-pounding samurai action (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo), then pivot to deeply personal human dramas like Ikiru.

Ranking Kurosawa’s films isn’t about crowning a single masterpiece. It’s a guided tour through one of the most influential filmographies ever assembled.

11. The Hidden Fortress (1958)

Set in war-torn feudal Japan, The Hidden Fortress follows two bumbling peasants, Tahei (Minoru Chiaki) and Matashichi (Kamatari Fujiwara), who stumble into an unexpected mission: escorting Princess Yuki (Misa Uehara) and her loyal general, Rokurota Makabe (Toshiro Mifune), through enemy territory while smuggling gold.

It’s his most playful film, balancing spectacle and comedy with ease. The deep-focus cinematography adds richness to every wide shot, while the banter between the peasants became a direct blueprint for George Lucas when creating R2-D2 and C-3PO.

Kurosawa takes a lighter tone but never sacrifices his precision. The energy is relentless, the compositions are meticulous, and even here, he’s layering commentary about class, duty, and honor beneath the surface fun.

For filmmakers, it’s worth noting how to make genre entertainment feel substantial. Kurosawa demonstrates that spectacle is most effective when grounded in character and that humor need not undercut tension.

10. Kagemusha (1980)

In Kagemusha, a petty thief (Tatsuya Nakadai) is recruited to serve as a double for a powerful warlord who has died in secret. As the thief is forced to impersonate Shingen Takeda (also Nakadai), he wrestles with both the grandeur and the crushing weight of leadership while Japan’s warring clans circle like vultures.

Visually, Kagemusha is staggering. This was Kurosawa’s first grand-scale use of color, and every frame looks like a living painting. The dream sequences blur the line between the man and the role he’s playing, turning identity into an existential crisis. It earned a Palme d’Or and helped revive Kurosawa’s global standing after a period of financial and creative setbacks.

What we should take from Kagemusha is how restraint and atmosphere can generate psychological tension. Although spectacle is about action, sometimes, it can also be about the overwhelming burden of pretending to be something you’re not.

9. Ikiru (1952)

Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) is a Tokyo bureaucrat who, after learning he has terminal stomach cancer, confronts the emptiness of his life. Desperate for purpose, he tries nightlife, family, and spiritual pursuits before finding meaning in the simple act of building a children’s playground.

Ikiru strips Kurosawa’s canvas down to the most human scale. There are no swords or epic battles here, just a quiet dissection of mortality and regret. The film’s bifurcated structure—first watching Watanabe struggle to live, then observing others discuss him after his death—was daring for its time. Shimura’s understated performance carries enormous emotional weight, and the film’s famous swing scene is one of the most haunting images in cinema history.

Filmmaking students must study Ikiru to understand how to extract profound emotion from small stakes.

8. Throne of Blood (1957)

Set in feudal Japan, Throne of Blood adapts Shakespeare’s Macbeth through the rise and fall of General Washizu (Toshiro Mifune), whose lust for power drives him into paranoia and destruction, spurred on by ominous forest spirits and his manipulative wife Asaji (Isuzu Yamada).

The fog-drenched landscapes and eerie silence create an oppressive atmosphere that perfectly matches its theme of inevitable doom. The story builds to one of cinema’s most unforgettable death scenes—pierced by a barrage of real arrows fired by expert archers. Kurosawa translates Shakespeare’s text into a uniquely Japanese setting without losing its universal resonance.

Throne of Blood shows how mood and visual design can elevate narrative. Kurosawa builds tension not through dialogue but through space, stillness, and looming dread.

7. Yojimbo (1961)

A nameless ronin (Toshiro Mifune), wandering through a town torn apart by rival gangs, manipulates both sides to destroy each other while staying just one step ahead of their treachery. The town becomes his personal chessboard as he pits the power-hungry factions against each other.

Yojimbo is where Kurosawa fully embraces genre playfulness while maintaining razor-sharp craftsmanship. The humor is dry, the violence sudden, and Mifune’s swaggering performance laid the groundwork for the modern antihero. The film influenced everything from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns to Quentin Tarantino’s crime sagas.

Yojimbo offers a clinic on tonal balance. Kurosawa manages to fuse comedy, brutality, and tension into a cohesive whole.

6. High and Low (1963)

King Gondo (Toshiro Mifune), a wealthy shoe executive, becomes the target of a kidnapper who mistakenly abducts the chauffeur’s child instead of Gondo’s. As the investigation unfolds, the film transitions from a tense domestic drama to a methodical police procedural.

High and Low may not have swords or sweeping battles, but its psychological intensity is razor-sharp. The high-contrast black-and-white cinematography heightens the divide between Gondo’s luxurious hilltop home and the seedy streets below.

High and Low is a lesson in orchestrating tonal shifts without losing cohesion. Kurosawa’s camera follows scenes with surgical precision.

5. Sanjuro (1962)

Following the events of Yojimbo, the wandering swordsman Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune) stumbles into a conflict involving corrupt officials and a group of naïve young samurai. He reluctantly becomes their mentor, cutting through both bureaucracy and enemies with brutal efficiency.

Sanjuro refines everything Yojimbo introduced—sharper humor, tighter plotting, and even more precise action. The final duel, with its sudden, explosive blood geyser, remains one of Kurosawa’s most shocking moments. While lighter in tone, Sanjuro quietly critiques blind idealism, showing that good intentions aren’t always enough.

Sanjuro demonstrates how sequels can deepen characters and themes without resorting to recycled beats.

4. Rashomon (1950)

After a murder and sexual assault in a forest, multiple witnesses—including the bandit Tajomaru (Toshiro Mifune), the samurai’s wife (Machiko Kyō), and a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura)—offer wildly different accounts of what happened. The truth, if it exists, remains elusive.

Rashomon rewired how filmmakers thought about narrative. The fragmented storytelling and unreliable narration broke conventions, raising questions about perception, bias, and the nature of truth. Its international success introduced Japanese cinema to the world and won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

If you are a storyteller or want to be one, Rashomon is the ultimate lesson in perspective. Kurosawa forces viewers to confront the subjectivity of storytelling, making them participants in the search for truth.

3. Ran (1985)

In Ran, Lord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai) divides his kingdom among his sons, triggering betrayal, war, and ruin. Inspired by Shakespeare’s King Lear, Kurosawa transforms the source material into a sweeping medieval apocalypse.

Ran is Kurosawa at his most operatic. The color design, from the vibrant banners to the blood-soaked battlefields, is breathtaking. The battle sequences unfold like nightmares. Created late in his career, Ran feels like the summation of Kurosawa’s lifelong obsessions: power, chaos, and the fragility of human order.

Watching Ran is an opportunity to understand how scale doesn’t have to sacrifice emotional weight. Kurosawa balances epic grandeur with intimate tragedy, crafting visual compositions that feel both painterly and brutal.

2. The Bad Sleep Well (1960)

Koichi Nishi (Toshiro Mifune) infiltrates a powerful corporation to expose the corrupt executives responsible for his father’s death. As he digs deeper, personal relationships and institutional rot close in on him.

The Bad Sleep Well swaps samurai for boardrooms, but the power struggles remain deadly. The film’s opening wedding sequence is a masterclass in tension, while its critique of postwar Japan’s industrial elite remains painfully relevant. Kurosawa draws from noir and tragedy to expose how corruption erodes everything.

With this film, Kurosawa shows how genre can serve social commentary without feeling preachy. He blends suspense with moral complexity.

1. Seven Samurai (1954)

A poor farming village hires seven ronin—led by Kambei (Takashi Shimura) and including the explosive Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune)—to defend them from marauding bandits. What follows is a careful buildup of trust, training, and sacrifice, culminating in an unforgettable final battle.

Seven Samurai is cinematic engineering at its finest. The pacing is deliberate, allowing us to get to know these characters before unleashing the storm. Kurosawa's use of multiple cameras revolutionized action filmmaking. Each samurai carries distinct motivations. The film’s influence stretches from The Magnificent Seven to The Avengers—it’s the original prototype for the ensemble action film.

Seven Samurai is the holy grail of balancing character depth with large-scale spectacle. Kurosawa juggles complex narrative threads while delivering kinetic set pieces that never lose emotional weight. It’s great, and it’s foundational.

What Defines a Kurosawa Masterpiece?

Kurosawa’s magic sits in his perfect balance of scale and soul. Whether it’s a rain-soaked duel or a silent office, every frame feels deliberate. His camera, aside from capturing action, guides emotion.

What really sticks, though, are his characters. They face moral struggles that feel painfully real.

Yes, a few later works stumbled (Dodes’ka-den comes to mind), but even then, his ambition never dimmed. At his best, Kurosawa made movies that are admired and copied.