Time Out's The 50 Best Japanese Movies of All Time

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"Thanks to the likes of Hirokazu Kore-eda, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Mamoru Hosoda, Japanese cinema is in rude health. It’s the home of one of the greatest filmmakers to ever stride the planet in Akira Kurosawa, but he’s not the only GOAT candidate Japan has produced – heck, there’s a whole field’s worth of them. Yasujirō Ozu, Hayao Miyazaki, Kenji Mizoguchi and the chin-stroking cineaste’s pick, Kon Ichikawa, all deserve a place in the firmament too. Between them, they’ve made a vast contribution to the movie canon and bridged the gap between east and west with classics as varied as Tokyo Story, Seven Samurai and My Neighbor Totoro.

The country’s booming silent era gave way to a post-war golden age, which in turn spawned a punky, provocative ’60s New Wave and an explosion in anime. Masterpieces abound, many of them vastly influential in the US and Europe, and a cultural osmosis has seen ideas exchanged between like-minded creators like Kurosawa and John Ford and Studio Ghibli and Pixar. Tarantino and Scorsese are apostles of this remarkable national cinema, and Godzilla continues to roar in Hollywood blockbusters. But there’s so much to get stuck into, it’s not always easy to know where to begin.

To coincide with a special Akira Kurosawa season at London’s BFI Southbank, we’ve taken a deep dive into the best of this god-level national cinema. Allow us to take you on a tour of the ultimate Nihon gold nuggets." --Time Out