96
Seven Samurai review
A farming village hires seven wandering swordsmen to defend it from bandits. Seventy years on, it is still the most influential action film ever made.
★★★★½ 4.9/5
Akira Kurosawa
Kurosawa is the most internationally influential Japanese director in history and the filmmaker most responsible for establishing the grammar of the modern action film. His work spans samurai drama, contemporary crime, and literary adaptation, and his use of weather, telephoto lenses, and multiple cameras transformed what action cinema could look like.
Signature and approach
- Action staged in weather and mud
- Ensemble structure with distinct character introductions
- Telephoto and multi-camera coverage
- Pessimism about the cost of heroism
- 1Films reviewed
- 96.0Average score
- 1910Born
- JapaneseNationality
Films by Akira Kurosawa in our collection
Ordered by release date. Every entry links to the full review.
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96
Filmography reviewed
Year, genre, runtime and score for each film.
| Film | Year | Genre | Runtime | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seven Samurai | 1954 | Action | 207 min | 96 |
Reading Akira Kurosawa in context
This page collects every film by Akira Kurosawa that we have reviewed in full, along with our average score across that body of work. It is not a complete filmography: our library is curated, and we only list films we have written about at length.
For a wider view, the genre hubs place this work alongside films by other directors, and the ranked lists show where these titles sit against the rest of their decade or genre.
Explore the wider collection
Genre hubs and ranked lists are the fastest way to read around a director's work.