The Booker Prize–winning author of “A Brief History of Seven Killings” on a lifetime of moviegoing

Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1953 • Japan
Starring Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko Hara

A profoundly stirring evocation of elemental humanity and universal heartbreak, TOKYO STORY is the crowning achievement of the unparalleled Yasujiro Ozu. The film, which follows an aging couple’s journe...

Directed by Akira Kurosawa • 1957 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Minoru Chiaki

A vivid, visceral “Macbeth” adaptation, THRONE OF BLOOD, directed by Akira Kurosawa, sets Shakespeare’s definitive tale of ambition and duplicity in a ghostly, fog-enshrouded landscape in feudal Japan....

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville • 1967 • France, Italy

In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays a contract killer with samurai instincts. A razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture--with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology--mav...

Directed by Kenji Misumi • 1972 • Japan

The inaugural film in the LONE WOLF AND CUB series immediately thrust Itto Ogami into the ranks of the all-time great samurai movie icons. In this installment, the Shadow Yagyu clan plots to solidify its power by taking Ogami's coveted position of shogun's...

Directed by Errol Morris • 1988 • United States

Among the most important documentaries ever made, The Thin Blue Line, by Errol Morris, erases the border between art and activism. A work of meticulous journalism and gripping drama, it recounts the disturbing tale of Randall Dale Adams, a drifter ...