Seven Samurai
Directed by Akira KurosawaA veteran samurai who has fallen on hard times answers a village's request for protection from bandits. He gathers six other samurai to help him. They teach the townspeople how to defend themselves, and the townspeople supply the samurai with three small meals a day. The film culminates in a giant battle when 40 bandits attack the village.
Seven Samurai Ratings & Reviews
- AngusMcNutzJune 19, 2025My feelings towards Kurosawa's filmography are similar to Lynch in that I adore his lesser work but still recognize the impact of his magnum opus and this film is, without question, Kurosawa's greatest project. I love Stray Dog personally but this movie has such a raw power inside it that it doesn't leave any room for doubt. Despite going through a literal hell of a production (there are several good biographies that get into this deeper. It is insane.), this film ended up laying the groundwork for the modern action movie as well as continuously serving as the gold standard for camerawork. Kurosawa's eye has been studied to death at this point but it is entirely warranted as he was massively ahead of his time when it came to cinematographic innovation. Mandatory viewing if you want the best of the best of film making.
- vladmateescu8December 11, 2025Must watch. A stunning piece of storytelling. The whole cast is absolutely marvellous. Kurosawa and the actors are truly masters of their craft.
- liamhastings508July 18, 2025Probably my favourite movie of all time, this movie unlike recent movies had a battle without fast paced action and cuts I could tell what was happening the entire time.
- MikeOctober 11, 2024Seven Samurai is a captivating film, that has an interesting story, great and diverse characters and beautiful cinematography "This is the nature of war. By protecting others, you save yourself. If you only think of yourself, you'll only destroy yourself." This film is heavily focussed on the story and characters, luckily both these aspects were very interesting. This might actually be one of my favorite stories in a film. Usually in a film there are certain sequences that feel dragged or unnecessary, especially in a film this long, but Seven Samurai kept me captivated for the entire runtime. All characters had destinctive characteristics and their own strong personalities, which made every single one of the Samurai very interesting. It also created an emotional connection to, not only the characters, but more so their strong personalities. What was even more interesting, is the chemistry between the Samurai. The chemistry between them, which all have very different characteristics and personalities, resulted in some interesting and funny dialogue. The cinematography was beautiful and visually strong, but never distracts from the story. The blocking of characters was one of the best I've seen and created some beautiful strong pyramid, diagonal and circular compositions. The film being black and white, combined with the use of static framing during most conversations, moved the focus to these compositions which enhanced them even further. The compositions, that got mostly created by the blocking of the characters, felt naturally within the scenes and still created a strong abstract visualization. This caused the scenes to not only look visually pleasing, but also kept me captivated in the story and characters at the same time. The film was shot with a telephoto lens, which created telephoto compression that enlarges the background without enlarging the foreground. This provided the ability to shoot scenes in deep focus, which keeps the foreground, middleground and background in focus. This especially helped with the blocking of all the characters within a scene. Every shot had a destinctive look, where something would simultaneously happen in the fore- and background, which I really liked because it makes the scene come alive. Some scenes were more dynamically staged, by focussing on moving characters. These scenes sometimes included a combination of dynamic and static blocking and framing, which has been done in other films, but felt really fluent in Seven Samurai. Keeping a character center framed creates a focus point, which holds the viewer's attention onto that character, every movement he makes and every word he says. Read full review at Letterboxd: Mike_v_E
- FenrisfilNovember 23, 2025Lets be honest. If you are reading this, you probably don't need me to tell you Seven Samurai is a good movie. What I will say is it surprised me with how much of the humour still lands and how much I liked the characters. The real question is: Do I prefer it to Battle Beyond the Stars? I'll leave that one as a mystery ;)
- TheChefski333November 18, 2025One of the most important movies ever made
- Jovon VillarasaOctober 28, 2025Wow. An absolute masterpiece. A journey of a movie. You can see the clear blueprint of character archetypes that went on to inspire countless films, shows, and stories after it. Every moment of character building feels earned, fully justifying its nearly four-hour runtime. It all culminates in a happy, yet not-so-happy ending that hits perfectly. You can feel the passion poured into every frame.
- Ray HopkinOctober 27, 2025This is an absolute masterpiece. There's a reason it makes most Top 10 film lists around the world. I've not watched this for many, many years, and it's quite phenomenal how it never fails to grab my attention, and how my love of this movie never wavers, it stands up to the test of time remarkably well. The actors, such as Mifune and Shimura, are absolutely amazing, the cinematography is perfect, with Kurosawa utilising some amazing shots, the story and build up to the finale are sublime, and then that finale, wow, what a fantastic sequence of scenes. As I say, a masterpiece.
- mickerdooJuly 12, 2025Amazing they were able to make such a small scale battle entertaining. Smart strategies. Great characters - Kikuchiyo, Simada and Kyuzo.
- thev0yagerJuly 6, 2025Just really really good, a bit long but good.
- Michael SurberJune 10, 2025No reviews necessary on this classic film. Rivals Citizen Kane and 2001 as one of the best films ever made. That's enough for me.
- conbargeMay 3, 2025I don’t need to tell you how epic this movie is - the fact it’s considered one of the greatest movies of all time says it all. Strong characters, a gripping story, a cinematography masterpiece - in the way only Akira Kurosawa can!! A definite watch, and one that should be on everyone’s watch list.
- AlperMarch 30, 2025Feels really real even after all thoose years…
Seven Samurai Trivia
Seven Samurai was released on April 26, 1954.
Seven Samurai was directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Seven Samurai has a runtime of 3h 27m.
Seven Samurai was produced by Sōjirō Motoki.
The key characters in Seven Samurai are Kikuchiyo (Toshirō Mifune), Kambei Shimada (Takashi Shimura), Gorobei Katayama (Yoshio Inaba).
Seven Samurai is rated Not Rated.
Seven Samurai is an Action, Drama film.
Seven Samurai has an audience rating of 9.7 out of 10.