Nobuo Takagi

The Human Condition I: No Greater Love

Masaki Kobayashi

Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama

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 Manchuria, which also grants him exemption from military service. He accepts, and moves to Manchuria with his newly-wed wife Michiko, but when he tries to put his ideas of more humane treatment into practice, he finds himself at odds with scheming officials, cruel foremen, and the military police.

二十四の瞳

Keisuke Kinoshita

Hideko Takamine, Hideki Gôko

Schoolteacher Hisako Oishi struggles to imbue her students with a positive view of the world despite the fact that war is looming.

Pale Flower

Masahiro Shinoda

Ryō Ikebe, Mariko Kaga

Muraki, a hardboiled Yakuza gangster, has just been released from prison after serving a sentence for murder. Revisiting his old gambling haunts, he meets Saeko, a striking young upper-class woman who is out seeking thrills, and whose presence adds spice to the staid masculine underworld rituals. Muraki becomes her mentor while simultaneously coping with the shifts of power that have affected the gangs while he was interred. When he notices a rogue, drug-addicted young punk hanging around the gambling dens, he realizes that Saeko's insatiable lust for intense pleasures may be leading her to self-destruction.

A Distant Cry from Spring

Yoji Yamada

Ken Takakura, Hidetaka Yoshioka

The quiet life of a mother and her young son living on a farm in Hokkaido is changed by the arrival of a man who ignites flames of romance in the heart of the mother and shows her boy the importance of grit and kindness, but then he leaves with the autumn wind.

野菊の如き君なりき

Keisuke Kinoshita

Noriko Arita, Shinji Tanaka

On the way back to his childhood home, a septuagenarian man recalls his childhood and adolescence, in particular his love for a young woman.

永訣

Hideo Oba

Kazuo Funaki, Mayumi Ôzora

During the early days of the war a young student, Makito (Kazuo Funaki), falls in love with Yuko (Mayumi Ozora), the widow of a naval officer. She, however, is living with the memories of her husband and it is her younger sister, Yumiko (Nana Ozaki), who grows fond of the student. Then, one day, a young naval officer, Tadayuki (Ken Ogata), a friend of her late husband, comes to see the widow and she becomes attracted to him. Though Makito is inspired to study for the navy, he is much upset when he learns that Yuko and Tadayuki are to marry.

Miyamoto Musashi

Tai Katô

Hideki Takahashi, Jirō Tamiya

In Part I we see the young would-be swordsman setting out to achieve greatness in war, achieving nothing because fighting on the losing side, & then beginning his long period of wandering & training, with the goal always in mind of his duel with Kojiro. Part II builds toward that great duel on Ganryu Island, with considerable focus on Musashi's planning & forethought as to how to gain an advantage.

風花

Keisuke Kinoshita

Keiko Kishi, Ineko Arima

After surviving the double suicide pact she made with her lover, a woman gives birth to their child.

愛と希望の街

Nagisa Ōshima

Fumio Watanabe, Yuki Tominaga

A young man runs a scam selling pigeons that always return to his home. He falls under the wing of Kyoko, an older student whose heart is touched after Masuo sells his pigeons to her. However, after his scam is revealed, can these feelings truly remain the same?

男はつらいよ 寅次郎夕焼け小焼け

Yoji Yamada

Kiyoshi Atsumi, Chieko Baisho

Tora-san arrives in Shibamata on Mitsuo's first day of school only to find that on his account, Mitsuo was embarrassed. After a fight with his family, he goes to a bar to drink, then brings home a surly old man with a sad story, whose identity will surprise everyone. Later, Tora meets Botan, a geisha.

笛吹川

Keisuke Kinoshita

Takahiro Tamura, Hideko Takamine

In a time of continuous civil wars ravaging the fields of feudal Japan, the eldest son of a very poor peasant family, living alongside the bridge over the Fuefuki river, decides to serve a warlord to escape his miserable condition, being soon followed by his younger brothers. Although not all the men of the family take this tragic path of death, women of the family will be doomed to endure the pain of loss during the next five generations.

男はつらいよ 寅次郎ハイビスカスの花

Yoji Yamada

Kiyoshi Atsumi, Chieko Baisho

When cabaret singer Lily writes Toraya about her illness, Tora-san rushes to Okinawa to be by her side.

Zero Focus

Yoshitaro Nomura

Yoshiko Kuga, Hizuru Takachiho

One week into newlywed Teiko Uhara's marriage, her husband, Kenichi, leaves on a short business trip and never returns. Teiko travels across Japan to search for him, and along the way discovers some surprising facts about her husband's past. With only a pair of old photographs among his belongings to go off of, Teiko tries to figure out what has happened to him.

Tora-san, Our Lovable Tramp

Yoji Yamada

Kiyoshi Atsumi, Chieko Baisho

Tora-San, an itinerant peddler who is thrown out of his father's house twenty years before but reconnects with his aunt, uncle and sister Sakura. Tora wreaks some havoc in their lives, like getting drunk and silly at a marriage meeting and ruining Sakura's chance to marry someone, as well as just being a real pain to those around him. There is a sentimental side to him also, and the best way to describe him is that he grows on you.

わが闘争

Noboru Nakamura

Yoshiko Sakuma, Masakazu Kuwayama

By a Man's Face Shall You Know Him

Tai Katô

Noboru Andô, Ichirô Nakatani

Also known as "History of a Man’s Face" and "By a Man's Face Shall You Know Him" . Immigrant gangs terrorize a Japanese town with their threats, loud jazz, and tasteless fashion sense, and only the tough but suave Dr. Amamiya (Ando) can stop them, as long as he gets rid of his silly peace-loving ideals.