Sachiko Murase

佳人

Eisuke Takizawa

Ryōji Hayama, Izumi Ashikawa

翼は心につけて

Hiromichi Horikawa

Frankie Sakai, Kyōko Kagawa

Tragedy about a terminally ill girl.

Jônetsu - Ra pashion

Hiroshi Shimizu

Hideo Fujino, Kikuko Hanaoka

Film by Hiroshi Shimizu, featuring an early role for frequent Ozu and Naruse collaborator Hideko Takamine.

姿なき目撃者

Shigeaki Hidaka

Hiroshi Koizumi, Fubuki Koshiji

Japanese crime film

続思春期

Ishirō Honda

Kyōko Aoyama, Tatsuyoshi Ehara

A story of unhappy youths and the perils of lack of sex education.

Nippon no obaachan

Tadashi Imai

Chôchô Miyako, Tanie Kitabayashi

Two obaachans become fast friends listening to music in front of a record store. They both boast about their loving sons but in reality, one had just escaped a retirement home and the other was looking for an escape from her son and daughter-in-law. With nowhere to go, the two wander around, befriending a cosmetics salesman and a kind waitress who give them beer. This biting social satire starring two memorable grandmothers, scripted by Yôko Mizuki, picked up on Japan’s aging population problem far ahead of its time.

塩狩峠

Noboru Nakamura

Seiya Nakano, Tetsuo Hasegawa

Based on a novel by Ayako Miura.

女人の館

Masahisa Sunohara

Rentaro Mikuni, Mie Kitahara

After Shuichiro moved to Tokyo, the Tanno family became completely female, including Mrs. Tanno, Shuichiro's daughter-in-law Manzuko, painter Takashiro Egi, Shizu Kazemaki, Mitsue Nanbu, an intellectual who works in a university laboratory, and an old woman.

偽大学生

Yasuzō Masumura

Ayako Wakao, Jun Fujimaki

A youth drama set in a Japanese university which is home to a group of active, leftist students.

A Promise

Yoshishige Yoshida

Rentaro Mikuni, Chōichirō Kawarasaki

An old woman has died and her widower with dementia confesses to killing her. After this, the story goes back in time to show the events leading up to her death.

Kinokawa

Noboru Nakamura

Yôko Tsukasa, Shima Iwashita

Epic saga of an idealistic land-owning family dealing with militarism, war, social change and economic reform.

くちづけ

Yasuzō Masumura

Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Hitomi Nozoe

Kinichi and Akiko meet when they visit their fathers in prison. After successfully gambling on a bicycle race, they spend an enjoyable day together at the beach.

ひまわり娘

Yasuki Chiba

Toshirō Mifune, Ineko Arima

Young Setsuko Fujino begins a new job at Tokyo Chemical Company. She likes her boss, Ippei Hitachi, and enjoys serving him tea, despite the fact that her fellow workers think the women employees should not have to act in such a servile manner. When the women go on strike over the issue, Setsuko finds herself caught in the middle. When the heir to the company, Ryosuke Tanabe, proposes marriage to Setsuko, she is honored, but realizes that her real affection is for Hitachi.

怪談雪女郎

Tokuzō Tanaka

Shiho Fujimura, Izumi Hara

A master sculptor and his apprentice are trapped in a bad snow storm after finding a special tree for carving a statue for the local temple. Finding refuge in an abandoned hut they celebrate their luck in finding the tree but soon they are visited by the Snow Witch who freezes the sculptor to death but takes pity on the apprentice. He must promise to never speak of this or she'll return and kill him.

座頭市兇状旅

Tokuzō Tanaka

Shintarō Katsu, Miwa Takada

After arriving in the town of Shimonita, Ichi finds that a price has been put on his head by a local yakuza boss. He's drawn into a trap, but after hearing of the slaying of a former love, Ichi furiously fights his way through the entire clan to face the killer, a hired ronin.

Rhapsody in August

Akira Kurosawa

Sachiko Murase, Hidetaka Yoshioka

The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, whose husband was one of 80,000 human beings killed in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies.