

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.
Acting
Takashi Shimura's face contains multitudes. Watch him eat cake.
Direction
Kurosawa's ruthless editing: the bureaucratic montage is satanic.
Writing
That screenplay structure—stealing the ending from yourself. Cruel genius.

Director
Akira Kurosawa
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Kurosawa shot the bureaucratic paperwork sequence for seven minutes straight, then cut it to two—still feels eternal.
The film's bureaucratic critique was so sharp that Japanese government officials initially tried to suppress it; today it's required viewing for civil service reform.