Items16The creator’s order
  1. 1Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954)Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954) 7.4/10 on IMDbReleased Sep 25, 1954The place to begin. Hiroshi Inagaki adapts Eiji Yoshikawa's novel about the young Takezo, the hothead who will become the swordsman Musashi Miyamoto, and Mifune plays him as pure feral energy: shouting, bolting through forests, all instinct and no discipline yet. That rawness is the point, because…0
  2. 2Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955)Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955) 7.3/10 on IMDbReleased Jul 12, 1955The middle chapter is where Mifune's Musashi learns to hold still, and watching that wild body acquire discipline is the trilogy's real pleasure. The fights grow sharper too: an early bout against a chain-and-sickle fighter shows how inventive Inagaki gets with weapons and space. It also brings in…0
  3. 3Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island (1956)Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island (1956) 7.5/10 on IMDbReleased Jan 3, 1956The payoff. Musashi has turned his back on fame and settled in a village, and Mifune plays this older, quieter man with a calm that would be unthinkable in the first film. Everything builds toward the famous duel with Kojiro on the beach of Ganryu Island, where Musashi uses the sun against his…0
  4. 4The Rickshaw Man (1958)The Rickshaw Man (1958) 7.5/10 on IMDbReleased Apr 21, 1958If you only know Mifune as a sword, this is the film that will surprise you. He plays Matsu, a gruff, hard-drinking rickshaw puller who becomes a devoted protector to a widow's young son, and the swagger slowly gives way to a tenderness he can never say out loud. Inagaki was remaking his own 1943…0
  5. 5Samurai Saga (1959)Samurai Saga (1959) 6.9/10 on IMDbReleased Apr 28, 1959Cyrano de Bergerac moved to feudal Japan, with Mifune under a prosthetic nose as the poet-swordsman who answers insults with verse and a blade. It is a rare chance to see him play wounded vanity and romantic longing for laughs and then for tears, often in the same scene. Inagaki keeps the play's…0
  6. 6Samurai Pirate (1963)Samurai Pirate (1963) 6.3/10 on IMDbReleased Oct 26, 1963Released in the US as The Lost World of Sinbad, this Toho fantasy casts Mifune as Luzon, a merchant loosely based on a real historical figure, who is branded a pirate, escapes the stake and decides to become a real pirate out of spite. From there it is witches, palace plots, a princess and…0
  7. 7Samurai Assassin (1965)Samurai Assassin (1965) 7.4/10 on IMDbReleased Jan 3, 1965Kihachi Okamoto builds this around the real Sakuradamon Incident of 1860, when conspirators killed the shogunate's chief minister Ii Naosuke outside the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle. Mifune plays Niiro, a shabby ronin among the plotters, and the film unpacks through flashbacks how he came to join…0
  8. 8Samurai Rebellion (1967)Samurai Rebellion (1967) 8.3/10 on IMDbReleased May 27, 1967The strongest single performance on this list. Mifune plays Isaburo, an aging retainer who has spent his life obeying, until his lord demands the return of the woman his son has married and grown to love. Watching a man of total self-control decide that conscience matters more than service is…0
  9. 9Japan's Longest Day (1967)Japan's Longest Day (1967) 7.7/10 on IMDbReleased Aug 3, 1967No sword in sight, and one of his most commanding turns. Okamoto dramatizes the hours in August 1945 when Japan's cabinet argued over surrender and young officers attempted a coup to stop the Emperor's recorded broadcast. Mifune plays War Minister Korechika Anami, torn between the army's pride and…0
  10. 10Admiral Yamamoto (1968)Admiral Yamamoto (1968) 6.6/10 on IMDbReleased Aug 14, 1968Mifune as Isoroku Yamamoto, the cultured admiral who opposed the drift toward war and was then chosen to plan the attack on Pearl Harbor. The interest is in that contradiction: Mifune plays a man doing his duty with full knowledge of where it leads, especially once Midway turns the tide. Seiji…0