Stray Dog

Stray Dog 1949

7.50

A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.

1949

Jigoku

Jigoku 1960

6.40

A group of sinners involved in interconnected tales of murder, revenge, deceit and adultery all meet at the Gates of Hell.

1960

The Life of Oharu

The Life of Oharu 1952

7.80

In Edo Period Japan, a noblewoman's banishment for her love affair with a lowly page signals the beginning of her inexorable fall.

1952

Black Cat Mansion

Black Cat Mansion 1958

6.60

The descendant of the servant of a cruel and vicious samurai returns to the town where she was born, only to find that a cat who is possessed by the spirits of those murdered by the samurai is trying to kill her.

1958

The Lady Vampire

The Lady Vampire 1959

4.90

Tamio takes Itsuko to an art gallery and the two find one painting is a nude portrait of Itsuko's mother, who disappeared twenty years ago when she was just a baby. No one knows the first thing about the artist who painted it, but he goes by the name Shiro Sofue, and he's always wearing shades in the daytime...

1959

The Ghost of Yotsuya

The Ghost of Yotsuya 1959

6.60

This horror tale relates the consequences of a Japanese legend which tells of a man who has to betray his wife in order to achieve power.

1959

Ghost Cat of Nabeshima

Ghost Cat of Nabeshima 1949

6.50

Tanuma Kandayuu is a high class samurai of the house of Nabeshima. He finds a lavish board of Go (a Chinese Board game) at Kinbei's store. He recommend Kinbei to offer it to his lord. Kinbei hesitates at first, since he knows the board has a mysterious legend surrounding it; it's believed that for every game played on the board, one death is required.

1949

Portrait of Madame Yuki

Portrait of Madame Yuki 1950

6.70

A young woman takes up her new job as the servant of a noblewoman and soon discovers that underneath her facade of luxury lies great unhappiness.

1950

Attack from Space

Attack from Space 1965

4.80

The superhero Starman is sent by the Emerald Planet to protect Earth from belligerent aliens from the Sapphire Galaxy. The Sapphireans (or "Spherions") kidnap Dr. Yamanaka and force him to use his spaceship against the Earth.

1965

Mother

Mother 1952

6.80

A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.

1952

Where Chimneys Are Seen

Where Chimneys Are Seen 1953

6.40

Where Chimneys Are Seen focuses primarily on the interconnected lives of two couples in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Senju, a poor industrial section of Tokyo.

1953

The Munekata Sisters

The Munekata Sisters 1950

6.90

Setsuko is unhappily married to Mimura, an engineer with no job and a bad drinking habit. She had always been in love with Hiroshi but both of them failed to propose when Hiroshi left for France a few years ago. Now he is back and Mariko tries to reunite them. She too is secretly in love with Hiroshi.

1950

Mole Alley

Mole Alley 1953

1

33-year-old poor writer Ogata was able to endure his miserable life cheerfully thanks to Yoshie, a 19-year-old innocent young wife. After graduating from a girls' school in Hokuriku, she immediately moved to Tokyo to meet and marry Ogata. After neatly writing Ogata's manuscript, he would buy dorayaki as a gratuity and devour it.

1953

Love Letter

Love Letter 1953

6.80

A sad and troubled man finds a new job five years after the end of WWII, where he writes love letters for other people.

1953

Black Line

Black Line 1960

5.50

Freelance reporter “Scoop” Machida is hot on the trail of a prostitution ring called the Black Line, when he is framed for the murder of a young woman. Forced to clear his own name, the handsome journalist sinks deeper into the Black Line’s rotten swamp of drugs, prostitution, and murder and finds unexpected help in Maya, a steamy female gambler familiar with the neon-lit streets, shadowy alleyways, and seedy nightclubs he must navigate. The closest film in the Line series to classic American film noir, Ishii’s Black Line is a pulpy assortment of crime film conventions including the starkly expressionistic black and white cinematography by Jûgyô Yoshida, a jazzy music score by Michiaki Watanabe, and a sleazy screenplay by Ishii and Ichirô Miyagawa.

1960