Cool thread. Starting with directors, I have to go over the big three: Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Yasujiro Ozu.
Kurosawa: You have most of his major films on there already, but don't sleep on his early "Judo Saga,"
Sanshiro Sugata (1943) and
Sanshiro Sugata II (1945), or his post-WWII drama
I Live in Fear (1955), which is not only Kurosawa's best non-Samurai film in my book but which features courtesy of Toshiro Mifune quite possibly the GOAT non-English-language film performance.
Mizoguchi: You have his two biggest postwar films,
Ugetsu (overrated IMO but still good) and
Sansho the Bailiff (his best IMO and underrated in my book considering how incredible I think it is), but his entire postwar run is the stuff of legend in Japanese film history, particularly
The Life of Oharu (1952), which is probably the biggest film to add to your list. I personally also enjoy a lot of his earlier prewar stuff, most notably his two excellent 1936 films
Osaka Elegy and
Sisters of the Gion. And then there's his nearly four-hour
Kill Bill-esque two-part epic
The 47 Ronin (1941-1942).
Ozu: I was shocked to see nothing from the legendary Ozu. Even though I'm not particularly fond of him (certainly less fond than any major critics/scholars) you can't explore Japanese cinema and ignore Ozu.
Tokyo Story (1953) is his
Citizen Kane, it's not just one of the most revered films of his or even the most revered Japanese films but simply one of the consensus GOATs, although I've never liked it much. I prefer
Late Spring (1949),
Early Summer (1951),
The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952), and
An Autumn Afternoon (1962).
The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice is my favorite of his.
Beyond the big three, I'd also recommend the following filmmakers' work.
Kon Ichikawa: Along with the big three, I'd say Ichikawa is the big fourth. He was incredibly prolific, but very few of his films made it to the West, so his stature is much larger in Japan than it is outside of Japan. His movies are amazing, though, from the films that he made with his wife (who was also his main screenwriter/collaborator) to the films that he made solo after she retired. He worked from 1948 to 2006, so there's a lot of ground worth covering, but his standout films in my book are
Mr. Pu (1953),
The Heart (1955),
The Burmese Harp (1956),
Bridge of Japan (1956),
The Crowded Streetcar (1957),
Conflagration (1958),
Odd Obsession (1959),
Fires on the Plain (1959),
Her Brother (1960),
Ten Dark Women (1961),
An Actor's Revenge (1963),
The Inugami Family (1976),
The Makioka Sisters (1983),
Princess from the Moon (1987), and
The 47 Ronin (1994). Interestingly,
Bridge of Japan is a remake of a lost Mizoguchi film. I wish we could compare-and-contrast. But Ichikawa's version of
The 47 Ronin is superior IMO.
The Burmese Harp and
Fires on the Plain have also recently received the 4K treatment from Criterion.
Shohei Imamura: Very interesting social commentary, perhaps even a more caustic and nihilistic satirist than Ichikawa and his wife in their black comedies. I'd recommend
Stolen Desire (1958),
Endless Desire (1958),
Pigs and Battleships (1961), and
The Insect Woman (1963).
Nagisa Oshima: Perhaps the king of Japanese provocateurs (certainly of the New Wave crew), Oshima loved to push the envelope, and some of his later work is notoriously controversial for its sexual content while in his early days he focused more on political issues. I'd recommend
Street of Love and Hope (1959),
Cruel Story of Youth (1960),
Night and Fog in Japan (1960),
Violence at Noon (1966),
Sing a Song of Sex (1967),
Death by Hanging (1968),
In the Realm of the Senses (1976), and
Empire of Passion (1978).
I also think it'd be worth your time to check out other films of the Japanese New Wave like Koreyoshi Kurahara's
I Am Waiting (1957),
Intimidation (1960),
The Warped Ones (1960), and
Black Sun (1964); Hiroshi Teshigahara's
Pitfall (1962),
Woman in the Dunes (1964), and
The Face of Another (1966); Masahiro Shinoda's
Pale Flower (1964),
Assassination (1964), and
Samurai Spy (1965); Seijun Suzuki's
Tokyo Drifter (1966) and
Branded to Kill (1967); and Takashi Nomura's
A Colt is My Passport (1967).
I'd also feel stupid not mentioning the iconic Zatoichi films, which include awesome Avengers-type crossover films like
Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo and
Zatoichi and the One-Armed Swordsman. And then, of course, the more recent J-horror stuff that was used so often as remake material for Hollywood in the 2000s, specifically the original versions of films like
The Ring,
The Grudge, and
One Missed Call. And speaking of
One Missed Call, I have to shout-out director Takashi Miike's
Audition (1999) and
Ichi the Killer (2001).
I think that's enough for one post
