Japan submissions to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
A list of all the Japanese movies submitted to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film since 1956 (+ Honorary Awards).
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- DirectorAkira KurosawaStarsToshirô MifuneMachiko KyôMasayuki MoriThe rape of a bride and the murder of her samurai husband are recalled from the perspectives of a bandit, the bride, the samurai's ghost and a woodcutter.1951 | Honorary Award
- DirectorTeinosuke KinugasaStarsMachiko KyôKazuo HasegawaIsao YamagataA samurai pursues a married lady-in-waiting.1954 | Honorary Award
- DirectorHiroshi InagakiStarsToshirô MifuneMariko OkadaRentarô MikuniDepicts the early life of the legendary warrior Musashi Miyamoto; his years as an aspiring warrior, an outlaw and finally a true samurai.1955 | Honorary Award
- DirectorKon IchikawaStarsRentarô MikuniShôji YasuiTatsuya MihashiA conscience-driven Japanese soldier traumatized by the events of WWII adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.1956 | Nominated
- DirectorMikio NaruseStarsHideko TakamineKen UeharaDaisuke KatôA woman marries, gives birth to a stillborn child, and divorces, falls in love with a hotel-keeper, only to find herself subordinated to his drive for success, takes up with a tailor who cannot console himself with her strong personality.1957 | Not Nominated
- DirectorKeisuke KinoshitaStarsKinuyo TanakaTeiji TakahashiYûko MochizukiA kabuki theatre-inflected story about a poor village whose people have to be carried to a nearby mountain to die once they get old.1958 | Not Nominated
- DirectorKon IchikawaStarsEiji FunakoshiMantarô UshioYoshihiro HamaguchiIn the closing days of WWII, remnants of the Japanese army in Leyte are abandoned by their command and face certain death by starvation.1959 | Not Nominated
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsSetsuko HaraYôko TsukasaMariko OkadaA widow tries to marry off her daughter with the help of her late husband's three friends.1960 | Not Nominated
- DirectorKeisuke KinoshitaStarsHideko TakamineKeiji SadaTatsuya NakadaiA young woman is forced by circumstance into a loveless marriage while still in love with another. This episodic tale follows their story through three decades of bitter conflict which engulfs their children and those around them.1961 | Nominated
- DirectorKon IchikawaStarsFujiko YamamotoHiroo SuzukiEiji FunakoshiHusband and wife Gorô and Chiyo, and their only offspring, an infant son named Tarô, go through the ups and downs of family life living in a cramped modern apartment building in suburban Tokyo. Their story is told in Tarô's second year of life. Many of their issues stem from both Gorô and Chiyo being unsure of themselves as parents, and being different in their perspectives of parenting, Gorô who believes in the traditional roles in which Chiyo is tasked with most of the child rearing responsibilities especially around the home. They also differ in the number of children they want, Gorô who believes Tarô is enough of a handful, while Chiyo really wants at least one more child in the general joy she feels in being a mother despite the problems. The unsurety that Gorô and Chiyo feel about their parenting is confirmed by Tarô, openly in his frequent crying fits when he is unhappy in what his parents or other adults around him have done wrong, and in secret as Tarô provides an inner voice narrative of what he wants and believes as a baby which is often contrary to what Gorô or Chiyo believe Tarô wants or needs. Their situation gets more complicated as Gorô's aged and thus stuck in her ways mother Ino gets directly involved in Gorô, Chiyo and Tarô's home life and thus Tarô's upbringing.1962 | Not Nominated
- DirectorNoboru NakamuraStarsShima IwashitaHiroyuki NagatoSeiji MiyaguchiTwo twin girls are separated at birth. One grows up in a loving family. The other one doesn't. They finally meet by complete accident on a town fair. No one ever told them about the other one so they begin familiarizing with each other.1963 | Nominated
- DirectorHiroshi TeshigaharaStarsEiji OkadaKyôko KishidaKôji MitsuiAn entomologist on vacation is trapped by local villagers into living with a woman whose life task is shoveling sand for them.1964 | Nominated
- DirectorMasaki KobayashiStarsRentarô MikuniMichiyo AratamaMisako WatanabeA collection of four Japanese folk tales with supernatural themes.1965 | Nominated
- DirectorTomotaka TasakaStarsYoshiko SakumaKatsuo NakamuraGanjirô Nakamura1966 | Not Nominated
- DirectorNoboru NakamuraStarsTetsurô TanbaShima IwashitaTakamaru SasakiTakamura, poet and sculptor, is married to Chieko, who also has artistic desires. However, she is becoming increasingly aware that she can not match her husband's work.1967 | Nominated
- DirectorKei KumaiStarsToshirô MifuneYûjirô IshiharaOsamu TakizawaKitagawa is an engineer charged with construction of a gigantic tunnel through the Japan Alps for the transportation of equipment in the building of the massive Kurobe Dam. The tunnel crosses an earthquake fault and Kitagawa is beleaguered not only by cave-ins and flooding, but by strife between management and the workers's union. Adding to Kitagawa's stress is the knowledge that as his attention is pulled inexorably toward the tunnel construction, his youngest daughter is dying from leukemia.1968 | Not Nominated
- DirectorShôhei ImamuraStarsRentarô MikuniChôichirô KawarasakiHideko OkiyamaAn engineer from Tokyo arrives on a drought-ridden tropical island to drill a well to power a nearby sugar mill. He meets the inbred Futori family, hated by the locals for breaking religious customs.1969 | Not Nominated
- DirectorMasahiro ShinodaStarsTatsuya NakadaiShima IwashitaShôichi OzawaAn outlaw pushes the residents of Edo's red light district to rebel against a growing number of stifling, moralistic laws.1970 | Not Nominated
- DirectorAkira KurosawaStarsYoshitaka ZushiKin SugaiToshiyuki TonomuraVarious tales in the lives of Tokyo slum dwellers, including a mentally deficient young man obsessed with driving his own commuter trolley.1971 | Nominated
- DirectorKinji FukasakuStarsTetsurô TanbaSachiko HidariShinjirô EbaraOne woman's search to find the truth about her husband's death in World War II.1972 | Not Nominated
- DirectorYoshishige YoshidaStarsRentarô MikuniYasuo MiyakeAkiko KuranoA freestyle biopic of Ikki Kita, the ultranationalist intellectual whose ideas inspired the failed military coup in 1936.1973 | Not Nominated
- DirectorMasaki KobayashiStarsShin SaburiMayumi OgawaKeiko KishiA detailed look at a Tokyo business tycoon (played by Shin Saburi) given a diagnosis of terminal cancer who must now re-assess his life and values.1974 | Not Nominated
- DirectorKei KumaiStarsKomaki KuriharaYôko TakahashiKinuyo TanakaA journalist interviews an old woman who was forced into prostitution, just like many other Japanese women working in Asia outside of Japan during the first half of the 20th century. She worked in a Malaysian brothel called Sandakan 8.1975 | Nominated
- DirectorShirô MoritaniStarsShôgo ShimadaKen TakakuraHideji ÔtakiTwo infantry regiments of the Imperial Japanese Army tackled Mount Hakkoda in the winter of 1902 to prepare for war with Russia.1977 | Not Nominated
- DirectorNagisa ÔshimaStarsTatsuya FujiKazuko YoshiyukiTakahiro TamuraA married woman and her lover murder her husband and dump his body into a well. After a while, his ghost comes to haunt them while the local gossip grows stronger.1978 | Not Nominated