All Recommendations
Samurai Rebellion
The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped away from her husband by the lord. The husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to get her back.
The Twilight Samurai
Seibei Iguchi leads a difficult life as a low ranking samurai at the turn of the nineteenth century. A widower with a meager income, Seibei struggles to take care of his two daughters and senile mother. New prospects seem to open up when the beautiful Tomoe, a childhood friend, comes back into he and his daughters' life, but as the Japanese feudal system unravels, Seibei is still bound by the code of honor of the samurai and by his own sense of social precedence. How can he find a way to do what is best for those he loves?
Secret Ceremony
A penniless woman meets a strange girl who insists she is her long-lost mother and becomes enmeshed in a web of deception, and perhaps madness.
Golgo 13
Live-action adaptation of the hit manga. Golgo 13, also known by the pseudonym Duke Togo, is a professional assassin. His age and birthplace are unknown and there is no consensus in the worldwide intelligence community as to his true identity. Most of his jobs are completed through the use of a customized, scoped M16 rifle. Golgo 13 is contracted to kill Boss Goa, the head of a worldwide crime syndicate responsible for drugs, weapons, and human trafficking.
The Invisible War
An investigative and powerfully emotional documentary about the epidemic of rape of soldiers within the US military, the institutions that perpetuate and cover up its existence, and its profound personal and social consequences.
The Blazing Sword
Set during the last days of the Tokugawa (Edo) Period, Moeyo-ken tells the story of Hijikata Toshizo and the Shinsengumi. Hijikata Toshizo is a samurai eager to test his skills and sword and make his first kill. The dojo he belongs to practices the Tennen Rishin style and teaches this to farmers. Not considered real samurai by other dojo's, they receive a request for a duel by a rival dojo practicing the Kogen Itto style. Sohaku Rokusha, a teacher there, challenges them and fights with Hijikata Toshizo. The outcome of the fight creates a deadly animosity between them that lasts through the ages.
Imaginary Flying Machines
Kuso no Sora Tobu Kikaitachi (Imaginary Flying Machines) is a 2002 Japanese animated short film produced by Studio Ghibli for their near exclusive use in the Ghibli Museum. It features director Hayao Miyazaki as the narrator, in the form of a humanoid pig, reminiscent of Porco from Porco Rosso, telling the story of flight and the many machines imagined to achieve it.
Samurai Banners
Kansuke Yamamoto is a samurai who dreams of a country united, peaceful from sea to sea. He enters the service of Takeda, the lord of Kai domain. He convinces Takeda to kill the lord of neighboring Suwa and take his wife as a concubine. He then convinces the widow, Princess Yu, to accept this arrangement and to bear Takeda a son. He pledges them his life. He then spends years using treachery, poetic sensibility, military and political strategy to expand Takeda's realm, advance the claim of Yu's son as the heir, and prepare for an ultimate battle with the forces of Echigo. Has Kansuke overreached? Are his dreams, blinded by love, too big?
The Burmese Harp
In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW.
Tad Jones and the Basement of Doom
Tad, a foolish and stubborn adventurer, seeks for a disappeared cute dog and finds a mysterious basement where a terrible secret is hidden.
Equinox Flower
Wataru Hirayama's outwardly liberal views on marriage are severely tested when his daughter declares that she is in love with a musician and is adamant to live life her own way, instead of agreeing to an arranged marriage. Outwitted by his female relatives, Hirayama stubbornly refuses to admit defeat.
Harakiri
Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin’s resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.
Kamikaze Girls
Momoko is an ordinary girl, living an ordinary life. Ordinary, that is, if you define ordinary as wearing elaborate lolita dresses from the Rococo period in 18th Century France. However, when punk girl and self-styled 'Yanki' Ichiko comes calling, her days as 'ordinary' are most certainly numbered...
Red Beard
Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.
Lady Snowblood
Yuki's family is nearly wiped out before she is born due to the machinations of a band of criminals. These criminals kidnap and brutalize her mother but leave her alive. Later her mother ends up in prison with only revenge to keep her alive. She creates an instrument for this revenge by purposefully getting pregnant. Yuki never knows the love of a family but only killing and revenge.
Batman
The Dynamic Duo faces four super-villains who plan to hold the world for ransom with the help of a secret invention that instantly dehydrates people.
Masculin Féminin
Paul, a young idealist trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life, takes a job interviewing people for a marketing research firm. He moves in with aspiring pop singer Madeleine. Paul, however, is disillusioned by the growing commercialism in society, while Madeleine just wants to be successful. The story is told in a series of 15 unrelated vignettes.
The Guns of Navarone
A team of allied saboteurs are assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.
Kelly's Heroes
A misfit group of World War II American soldiers goes AWOL to rob a bank behind German lines.