Film Forum

東京物語 (Tokyo monogatari)

Director Yasujirô Ozu
Cast Setsuko Hara, Chishû Ryû, Chieko Higashiyama
Screenplay Yasujirô Ozu, Kôgo Noda | Cinematography Yûhara Atsuta
1953 | Japan | 35mm | approx. 136 min. | In Japanese with English subtitles

The generation gap in post-war Japan as an elderly couple, shunted aside when they visit their children in Tokyo, are befriended only by their daughter-in-law, continually-smiling Setsuko Hara–but when she stops… Voted the greatest film of all time in the 2012 Sight & Sound directors poll.

Reviews

“So Japanese and at the same time so personal, and hence so universal in its appeal, that it becomes a masterpiece.”
– Donald Richie

“One of the manifest miracles of the cinema.”
– The New Yorker