From Seven Samurai to Yojimbo to Harakiri, this is Collider's ranking of the greatest samurai movies ever made.
There are a shockingly high number of great samurai movies out there, with the best of the best naturally coming from Japan. What the Western does for cowboys, the samurai film does for the warriors of old who lived in Japan, principally from late in the 12th century until the 1870s. Samurai films don't just focus on these swordsmen, much like how Westerns don't solely focus on gunslingers, but they are usually important.
It won't subvert expectations when it comes to the plot or how it unfolds, but the immense detail and work that went into the film - and the brutality of its final act, which is pretty much all action - makes it a spectacle. It's direct and no-nonsense, but executed in a way that it's hard to resist and not feel at least somewhat moved and/or shocked by.
11 'Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx' Of all the Lone Wolf and Cub movies, Baby Cart at the River Styx is commonly held up as one of the best. It was the second of six within the main series, all of which came out between 1972 and 1974, and continues the story of Ogami Itto going on a quest for revenge against the clan that betrayed him and murdered his wife.
Those who need their protagonists to be likable might want to sit a movie like The Sword of Doom out, because the main character here - played by Tatsuya Nakadai - is irredeemable, and much of the movie is from his point of view. Yet others will find the movie a challenge worth taking, because few samurai movies push quite as many boundaries as this one, making it a grim yet vital entry within the genre.
6 'Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril' The fourth Lone Wolf and Cub movie, 1972's Baby Cart in Peril, represents the series at its absolute peak. Narratively, it's more or less what you'd expect from these films, with the story here sending Ogami Itto off on various other missions, all the while he continues his series-long goal of revenge.
4 'Lady Snowblood' On the topic of influential samurai movies: Lady Snowblood. This is one of the most iconic of all Japanese samurai movies, and few revenge movies pack quite as powerful a punch as this one does, telling the story of a young girl who's trained to become a fearsome warrior in adulthood so she can avenge the family she never knew.
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