While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever...

A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.

Airline captain saves passengers from a brutal murderer on a plane during four hours of terror.

The tragic, true story about Hachikō, an Akita dog who was loyal to his master, Professor Ueno, even after Ueno's death.

Doctor Sanada treats gangster Matsunaga after he is wounded in a gunfight, and discovers that he is suffering from tuberculosis. Sanada tries to...

In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai...

A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of inter­generational relationships, Good Morning tells the story...

In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone should...

A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu is on the run from the police.

Two young women must come to terms with the fact that a man they're deeply linked to is a murdering rapist.

A woman, Tome, is born to a lower class family in Japan in 1918. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle....

Rica wanting a fresh start leaves her friends and past life behind or at least that is what she thinks as trouble always seems to find her. Rica's...

A sex-obsessed young woman, a suicidal young man she meets on the street, a gun-crazy wannabe gangster—these are just three of the irrational,...

In a small Japanese village at the end of the 19th century, a rickshaw driver's wife takes on a much younger lover and the two conspire to murder him.

Set in Kawaguchi in the early 60s, this simple story chronicles the lives of foundry families and one girl's dreams of higher education.

The film tells the story of four orphans living in an impoverished mining town. An adaptation of a best-selling book based on the diary of a...

An errant salaryman's son gets lost until a man from the Tokyo tenements brings him to vendor Tane, who's reluctant to let the kid board.

Murase is a bodyguard of yakuza group. Ochiai is a police officer who once was a student activist. When they meet, they are surprised how identical...

Shows the devastation caused by the atomic bomb, and by use of a fictional storyline, portrays the struggle of the ordinary Japanese people in...

The world-famous woodblock artist Hokusai (1760-1849), a widower in need of a steady income, lives with his daughter Oei in the house of his friend...

Reform schools are a way of protecting society by ridding it of lawless juvenile delinquents. But who's protecting the juvenile delinquents from...

The ship Kaijin Maru is left adrift after losing all means of navigation in a storm. The four people on the ship are becoming increasingly desperate...

Three students spend their holidays at the seaside where they are mistaken for Koreans, a minority which is looked down on in Japan. The action...

Saheji, a man-about-town, gets stuck at a high-class brothel when he can’t pay the bill. He makes the best of his situation by performing various...

Two boys, whose parents ply their trade by the mouth of a muddy river in Osaka, become close friends.

A truck driver is reunited with friends from his youth in a seedy bar and gets drawn into a web of crime.

It's the evening before the day all brothels must be shut-down, according to the new law, in 1958. At the Kofukuya's (literally, the house that sells...

A blind traveling musician is abused and oppressed wherever she goes, even as the modern world imposes change around her.

Shipwrecked African-American slaves arrive in the midst of Bakumatsu-era Japan; they soon carve out a niche in the market with their musical talents.

A woman takes revenge on her husband after he leaves her for a younger woman by harassing the couple with unwanted phone calls at night.

Nikkatsu Roman Porno

The world of secret sex performers is shown through the lives of a husband and wife team. Their manager must contend with pesky customers and a...

A college professor wants to bring the joys of sex to his frigid wife. He convinces his son in law to sleep with her because the idea arouses him,...

A sly gangster hatches a plot against his own wife, who works at a brothel-cum-bathhouse, with the help of the bathhouse owner’s wife.

Based on a true story, an elderly woman resiliently spends nine months attempting to retrieve her husband's dead body, fighting government...

Toku, a factory worker gives food to a starving woman, Tsuru, who then follows him home. He shares a shack in a shanty village in Kawasaki with his...

A writer haunted by the death of his wife and threatened by the imagined infidelities of his lovers uses his affairs for the subjects of his novels.

About an establishment where old men pay to sleep besides young girls that had been narcotized and happen to be naked, the sleeping beauties. The old...

Kawai Midori's father left the family a long time ago and since her mother passed away, she has taken care of her younger siblings by herself by...

Experienced shipyard worker Shimazaki gets an offer of free lodging from his employer in the company seaside rest house if he agrees to see to its...

The evil Hikita clan rises from the dead to fulfill a curse on the Satomi clan by restoring the face of their warlord by using the skin of Princess...

The film depicts carnivalesque atmosphere summed up by the cry "Ei ja nai ka" ("Why not?") in Japan in 1867 and 1868 in the days leading to the Meiji...

A couple originally from Okinawa run an inexpensive restaurant in Kobe, with their grade-school daughter, Fuuchan. The movie depicts the warm...

Seeking revenge against the guard who tormented him, a young man returns to the island where he was imprisoned in reform school. But his plans for...

A celebrity photograph sparks a court case as a tabloid magazine spins a scandalous yarn over a painter and a famous singer.

A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual...

To satisfy her lover's fetish for tattooed women, Akane agrees to have her body covered in eloborate tattoos by Kyogoro, an old craftsman. Kyogoro...

At the time between the World Wars, Japan is involved in empire-building throughout East and Southeast Asia. After a brief career as a low-level...

Yoshida’s first big-budget production and colour film is a haunting tale of unrequited love and postwar disillusion. The story of the fatal...

Loosely based on a 1926 short story by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, the film opens as an artist and a young woman are in a dentist's waiting room. Though he...

Sunaoko come to Okinawa to find his brother Tsuruo. Her searching is not very painless because it tears up old wounds in complicated relationships,...

Shigematsu Shizuma, who lives with his family in a village near Fukuyama, was in Hiroshima with his wife and niece just after the devastating atomic...

Michio Yamada, a recent school graduate, is sent to Tokyo to work as a fruit-packer in a department store as part of a government programme. He takes...

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...

Japan, 1159. Moritō, a brave samurai, performs a heroic act by rescuing the lovely Kesa during a violent uprising. Moritō falls in love with her,...

The story tells of the adoration of Sasuke for his mistress, the blind samisen-teacher Shunkin, who treats him imperiously and subjects him to cruel...

Two Jesuit priests encounter persecution when they travel to Japan in the 17th century to spread Christianity and search for their mentor.

Koharu, a young geisha, is in love with Kenichi, an apprentice carpenter to her father Masagoro. Their love life comes to a sudden halt after an...

When his pistol is stolen, police detective Murakami is humiliated, especially when the gun is later implicated in a crime. Working with his...

During a Soviet circus tour in Japan, a small street musician, Ken, meets a clown, Yuri Nikulin. Upon learning that his sick father is being treated...

A group of five rookie insurance salespersons, driven to desperation by the impossibility of their work in Japan's failing postwar economy, form a...

After a businessman is murdered, an investigation identifies a suspect who is then put on trial for that crime.

Personal tale of Okita Soji who fights to survive in a world without pity in the merciless era of the downfall of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

The film marked Yōko Mihara's debut as the star of Shintoho's series of ama films, a role she took over from Michiko Maeda.

Set in the time of steam locomotives and covering a period of almost 30 years, this sensitive film tells the story of the wife of a railroad worker...

1950s Japanese drama.

Japanese film based on the life of Zen Master Tetsugen Doko.

“Quit working as a nurse!” “All right, I will!” thus began the married life of Yasuo and Keiko. But the reality is harsh. Keiko even had to...

Following a yearlong attendance upon his shogun in Edo, samurai Hikokuro makes a long-awaited return to his home and doting wife, Dane. Initially...

In 1906, after finishing a tough migrant job in the Philippines, Takichi has returned to Japan. He starts to work as a rickshaw driver, but his lover...

Lending money, job hunting for civilians and babysitting. All these things are usually not listed on a policeman's job description. But for the...

The film depicts the youth of Kinzo, a heretic painter who worked in Tosa during the late Edo period, and the hurricane-like inner side of his life.

Model Reiko Higa is injured after being hit by a car pursued by motorcycle cop Tomishima. Tomishima's supervisor refuses his request to apologize to...

Adaptation of Natsume Soseki's classic novel in a modern setting.

Based on a novel by Tsutomu Mizukami, this haunting melodrama focuses on a young bamboo worker who takes his father's prostitute as his wife.

Set in post-war Japan, a group of five, four men and one woman, gathers in the basement of a butcher shop to dig up a cache of morphine buried during...

Shinko Terasawa was always considered to be the odd ball of the bunch. At a time when romance was against school regulations, Shinko was the first to...

Drama which shows the struggle of Fumiko, a female teacher, at work and at home.

Ayako, a young woman from a rural fishing village, is sold by her family into a brothel when her father takes ill. There, she is quickly stripped of...

Ayako is a 7-year-old girl with a dark, tanned face and a somewhat mysterious expression on her face. She shows up at the elementary school and acts...

During the winter in Toyama in 1962, Tatsuo Mizushima is fretting about his feelings for his classmate Eiko Tsujisawa while agonizing about his...

A young rock singer is not appreciated by her band, and gets a postcard from Japan saying "wish you were here". She takes what little money she has...

Provincial 14th century governor Moronao, attracted to the wife of a court magistrate, tries to seduce her and when she rejects his advances plots to...

Haru, an aging scriptwriter, has isolated himself somewhere in the woods of Nagano to work on his first novel. As the last surviving member of his...

Story of a Beloved Wife is an autobiographical work based on Shindo's first marriage. Jūkichi Uno stars as a struggling screenwriter, and Nobuko...

A scrap iron carrier arrived at Tokyo bay. The ship swarmed with the stevedores, the souvenir seller and the hookers. The crews of ship were...

A man is inspired to build a hospital after his mother falls ill and becomes a host to swindle money out of women.

Kiku and her brother Isamu are social outcasts, children of a prostitute mother and black GI father, in postwar Japan.

A sake factory worker on holiday returns to his home town, where he rapes the wife of one of his co-workers in the forest. The other man returns home...

Japanese “kayo” film based on the song by "Namida koi" by Aki Yashiro.

An attempt is made to suppress a journalist's investigation of collusion between a rural police chief and the local gangster bosses.

Poor Yoko knows she is getting played and used by a playboy, but she loves him with all her heart and soul.

Live-action adaptation of Yoshiro Kato’s manga.

aka Libido.

A comedy of a high-spirited geisha, Koharu, who is at risk of being trapped in a conspiracy to take over a lucrative diamond mine business.

Popular geisha Koharu suspects that Yusaku, a handsome stranger she falls in love with, is involved in a robbery of precious diamond.

The melodramatic story of a pink crew’s tragi-comedic adventures on location. A fictionalized adaptation of set photographer Ichiro Tsuda's 1980...

After Japan's defeat in the war, the Anjo family lose their peerage and wealth. Since their mansion is due to pass into the hands of a creditor, the...

A 1948 Japanese film.

The Taisho era was a time of turbulence in Japan. From new marks of modernity to full-blown riots, a sense of revolution filled the air. The Dam Dam...

In the summer of 1947, various men and women gather at a mansion in the countryside at the invitation of Kazuma Utagawa. They are artists,...

Japanese drama.

In the backstreets of Ginza, the boss of a hairdressing salon is found dead, killed by strangulation. The detective on the case soon hears rumors...

On the eve of the Russo-Japanese war at the beginning of the 20th century, small-town girl Okane has married an old wealthy man to escape a life of...

A touching story of a girl who sails away from her love to keep her family together.

A chance meeting between two traveling gamblers leads to a case of mistaken identity when the farmers transporting gold to the governor think they...

Shochiku's popular series of gang films, this one has the hero returning from prison bent on revenge. He runs into Chinese hoodlums, blackmailers and...

Pinku from 1971.

Hiroshi (Tatsuo Umemiya) has the biggest penis in all of Japan and everyone who touches (or is touched by) it, is blessed by good fortune. After...

A divorced woman enters a marriage arranged by her mother in exchange for money to save the life of her seriously ill son.

Late romance by acclaimed filmmaker Kinugasa Teinosuke.

Minoru visits his home on Okinoerabu island for the first time in thirty years. Seeing the old man who used to be in love with his mother, Minoru...

Tatsuhiko and Shofumi are hoodlums living in downtown Hawaii, having flown out of Japan and entered the country illegally for a reason. The two make...

The men who surround and torment the young protagonist (demanding teacher, owner of the company that rapes his own daughter, despotic and...

About a girl who marries in the middle of the Pacific War, is widowed at 18, and her unflagging struggle to survive during and after the war with her...

In the autumn of 1945, Petty Officer Tadashi Yamaji is among the numerous war crimes suspects facing death on the gallows for maltreatment of Allied...

This epic depicts the battle between Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen. The focus of the story is the struggle by the unit leader in charge of the...

Military doctor Leutenant Hanada deserts during the war in the Philippines with a local girl. The officer in command orders Lieutenant Uji to shoot...

Eikichi Yamashiro, who is a former contender for the boxing title, works as a manager at a Club Champion owned by his fiancé Natsuko’s father. He...

Police beat a murder confession out of four innocent men who are then sentenced to death. Based on a true story.

Rivalry between a hoodlum group and a gangster organization.

Life and love in corrupt postwar Tokyo, as a young couple struggles against both the law and the mob.

After the bankruptcy of her foster-father's condom factory, Tamae sets out to make a living on her own and ends up working as a geisha at a hot...

In the city of Yokosuka, Kinta and his lover Haruko, both involved with yakuza, brave the post-occupation period with a goal to be together.

The story of two sisters in post-war Japan. One is a geisha and the other works for the tourist board.

Based on the novel by Torahiko Tamiya.

The culturally isolated, nomadic Seburi people of western Japan are the subject of this tragedy about a few of the community's members who especially...

The man has a monotonous job punching tickets for the Japanese railway. One night, while walking home, he saves Jun from getting raped by two...

Natsuko is so good at using that super-strong vagina of hers that she can fuck guys to death. In the end, she’s pitted against a sexual superman...

A young girl in an industrial town is saving her money to enter college. But her drunken father loses his job, her mother cannot make ends meet, and...

A member of the jieitai ("Self-Defense Force"; i.e. Japanese military) is on leave and finds a woman giving birth in a graveyard in the former...

Based on the original novel by Tokuda Shusei, adapted by frequent Masumura scribe (and renowned director in his own right) Kaneto Shindo, this...

A young outlaw can’t escape his rebellious past despite connections to a well to do family.

Handsome young Katsuta tries to follow the yakuza code, but even his boss doesn't believe in it. Diamond Fuyu is less ethical, and allows the idiotic...

A well-respected drama teacher confesses to his housekeeper that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima has left him impotent. With the coming of spring,...

Keiko is pretty and intelligent but her home life is not a happy one. Never having known a father's love, she develops a possessive attachment to Mr....

BJ is a relatively unknown blues singer who scraps some bars in Yokohama. He does not earn much with it and to make ends meet he also acts as a...

Kohei Misugi works in a vegetable market, but his ambition is to be a photographer. He is given his first opportunity to demonstrate his talent by...

Intellectual collegue professor Sasa becomes obsessed with beautiful Sugiko, a virgin. Eventually, luring her to a love hotel.

The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect...

Mr. Mito, a former president of an instant food company, with two young men’s help, solves the quality problems and wins a big ramen contract with...

Two inmates are simultaneously released from jail, but go their separate ways, only to cross paths again in the nearest brothel. There they make the...

Not too long ago, Soichiro was considered one of the most powerful men in business. But his business had failed, his granddaughter had committed...

A Tokyo student transfers to a rural school and finds it difficult to adjust himself to its customs and traditions. One of the customs is the wearing...

A 1956 alien invasion tokusatsu film directed by Shinichi Sekizawa, the screenwriter noted for his immense contributions to Toho's Godzilla series by...

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...

A group of Okinawan high school girls are drafted as nurses during the American invasion of the island. As the enemy army advances further, the...

Ginko, a poor cobbler's daughter, becomes a geisha to support her family. She passes from one geisha house to the next, trying to find love and hope...

High school student Keiko struggles with the pressures of college entrance examinations and a chaotic home life, ultimately succumbing to alcohol,...

Nobuo is a hot-headed hoodlum fresh out of reform school who struggles to make a clean break with his tearaway past.

For a girl who works in a 3rd rate bar, Ayuko is full of vanity. Nomura, her patron, is besotted by her and it is their habit that they cannot reach...

The female members of the family of the Minister of Health and Welfare, who has just proposed a program of birth control, become pregnant one after...

Picked up and raised on an island in the Seto Inland Sea, Yasukichi's only trait is his innate mischievousness. However, because his love for his...

Sen Rikyu is a ceremonial tea master who advises warlord Hideyoshi in sixteenth-century feudal Japan. His daughter, the beautiful Lady Ogin, has an...

Japanese drama film.

Misawa Ihei (Nagato) is traveling with his wife Tae (Iwashita Shima) who abhors the practice of sword fighting for prize money. Tae is the daughter...

Taro Kuroki, 42, is a stuntman with a samurai's heart. He loves adventures, plays pranks with the police, tries to cure a cat lady by reversing her...

Tora-san gets into an argument with his uncle and sets out on the road again. In Kyushu he meets a young woman named Keiko and the shy zoologist...

Tora-san's opinions about Americans get challenged when another wandering peddler Michael Jordan stops by Shibamata.

A Japanese adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's short story Boule de Suif, directed by Kimura Keigo

Directed by Senkichi Taniguchi

Kiyohime, a daughter of Tokugawa Ienari is married-off to Tadateru Ogura, the lord of a Kyushu clan. However, the lord's sexual inexperience and...

A documentary about the lives of actors in the Sakura-tai theatrical troupe, which had arrived in the island of Hiroshima to begin preparations for...

On August 9, 1945, the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. This film, based on a story by Mitsukaru Inoue, describes the daily life of...

Hoshino Bunzo raises up his orphan grandson, Keiji whose right leg gets paralyzed when he was an infant. Bunzo loves Keiji so much that he does every...

Shokichi, the owner of the clothing store, lives with his daughter Hideko and plans to open an art gallery. One day, Hideko led a handsome art...

1957 drama from director Kôzaburô Yoshimura

Subu makes pornographic films. He sees nothing wrong with it. They are an aid to a repressed society, and he uses the money to support his landlady,...

Former boxer Daishiro lost his wife, and his only son, Kaoru, went missing, it was a heavy blow for Daishiro. One day, Daishiro got a call from his...

A young lawyer falls in love with the daughter of his former professor, whom he's hired to tutor his children.

Dedication of the Great Buddha is a 1952 Japanese film directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa. It was entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival.

From runaway brides to a typhoon, the continued adventures of Ushikata police station.

2 years ago, Kumi broke up with Shuhei and decided to forget everything about him for good. However, after being told that her younger sister, Junko,...

Kabuki adaptation: A princess, a figure from the literary past who anticipates a modern woman, tempts a self-righteous priest.

A film dealing with the trials and tribulations of a primary school before and after the Pacific War, set in Fukashima Prefecture.

Hideo is sold in marriage to a Japanese farmer in San Francisco to settle her family's debt. Over the next 20 years, the couple works hard and raises...

An ageing fishing boat, Dai-go Fukuryu Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") sets out from the port of Yaizu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It travels around the...

Based on Kakuko Mori's autobiography, about her life and retirement from acting due to her increasing blindness.

Shigeki Kachi, Tosuke Satomura, and Nanako, who belong to the theater company Vuanbert around Dosa, withdrew at the indignation of the chairman...

Five years have passed since the three comrades who saved their lives on the Burma Campaign-Kenichiro Kishi, Eiji Shiga, and Daizo Kobayashi promised...

A gripping and entertaining historical drama that follows the actions of the thief Nezumi Kozo Jirokichi during the Edo period.

Part 4 in a long running (8+1 films) action/comedy/melodrama series about a pair of short tempered, amoral, but not evil chinpira (Bunta Sugawara and...

Dotanba - Last Minute

Office worker comedy by Nobuo Nakagawa

Third film of the yoidore hakase series

Film by director Kenji Misumi

Ayame, a courtesan, attracts the attention of street vendor Kisuke and decides to run away with him to America. Unfortunately, a crazed tattoo artist...

Fresh out of prison a manager of live sex shows decides to take his show on the road. He persuades one of his former performers to join his troupe...

The film takes place at the junction of the two eras of Meiji and Taisho. Sakata Sankichi, an uneducated zori sandal maker, becomes a professional...

Two detectives are tasked to investigate the murder of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a Tokyo rail yard.

Harsh film about a car dealer who gets into financial trouble.

A family of Kyoto textile workers struggles after tragedy.

Rokurō starts a part-time job on a fishing boat, but the ship has an engine failure in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

A noir drama depicting the downfall of a veteran detective who hates evil and falls into its depths. Ace detective Sugai (Oki Minoru) pursues Chiyo...

Sex & Fury chronicles Ocho's exploits as she searches for her father's killers, each identified by unique tattoos on their backs (a deer, a boar, and...

April 1954. 12 year old schoolgirl Sadako thinks her main problem is being unable to pass the baton in relay races. But just as her team starts...

Eros Eterna tells the story of a legendary immortal nun who wanders around encountering several people of various conditions.

A crime film released in 1962

Saotome Mondonosuke is Hatamoto (a high-class warrior who is allowed to see the Shogun in person) who has a crescent-moon-shaped scar on his forehead...

The brief love story of an attentive young man and a beautiful woman who meet, fall in love and part during the course of a train ride.

When a broadcasting company takes away its financial support from a symphony orchestra, some of the members refuse to admit defeat. The first...

The tale of a feudal swordsman who cynically takes no responsibility for anything, relegating it to others, and then taking the credit.

Kazuo Miyagawa’s prizewinning black-and-white cinematography draws out the moral shadings of Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata’s 1952 novel...

1962 Japanese movie

Many persons visit the hot springs resort to try out Reiko's famous vagina with quivering walls, "the sensation of worms wiggling about"... that won...

After a mine collapses and leaves her husband employed, Fumiko moves to Kyoto with her daughter Kimiko and becomes a hostess.

Senko Tamagawa is a third-year junior high school student, and she is the captain of the badminton club. Her father, Kinzo, remodeled her barn and...

1954 Japanese movie

A girl named O loves a rich, and much older man. She is subjected to a variety of humiliating experiences to prove her unconditional obedience to him...

Shinji, a young man who accidentally met a successful model, moves to Tokyo because of his admiration for her. However, a harsh reality awaits him in...

A motorcycle cop and a freelance photographer, having learned the location of 1 billion yen's worth of the Imperial Navy's gold, team up to salvage...

1956 Japanese film, originally released in two parts.

The rich punk Junya has only one thing in mind: to race with the police on his motorcycle. That makes him unpopular, not only with the police, even...

Minoru delivered newspapers to earn money for high school, but when his mother came down with illness he decided to use this money for her doctor's...

Oshima’s magisterial epic, centering on the ambivalent surviving heir of the Sakurada clan, uses ritual and the microcosm of the traditional family...

A daughter of Hatamoto (high-ranked soldier) Otsuyu (Akiko Kana) and a Ronin living in Choya (cheap apartment) Shinzaburo Hagihara (Yoichi Hayashi)...

Japanese Drama film about the female experience during the war years.

A villager's family is ostracized after he makes an accusation of rigged elections

The Yoshikawa family is a typical small town family. With only the father's and daughter's salaries to support the family's six members, life is not...

1962 Japanese movie

Is it the sin of a woman's heart that casts ripples unexpectedly among peaceful people? In the bustling streets of dazzling colors, where revelry...

The anonymous partnership Investment Economic Association, led by its president Ryuichi Amano, collected money from many ordinary people and paid out...

Barbara, a dancer, is coming home to Nagoya after a long absence. She lives above a bar in an area whose inhabitants are mainly from Okinawa. Upon...