Film Forum

A complete retrospective of Yasujirō Ozu's extant work, commemorating the 120th anniversary of the director’s birth and the 60th anniversary of his death. 

Though the most honored director in his own country, Yasujirō Ozu (1903-1963) achieved acclaim in the West only after his death on his 60th birthday. For most of his career, this greatest of world filmmakers worked in the uniquely Japanese shomin-geki genre: uncomplicated stories about ordinary people. His favorite themes included families, fathers, and the remembered joys of childhood and college life — little of which he experienced himself. He was separated from his own father at a very young age, and never married or went to college. Ozu’s techniques are among the most eccentric and austere in cinema history: little-to-no camera movement, straight cutting from scene to scene, the unvarying low camera angle (aka “the tatami shot,” from the eye level of someone sitting on a tatami mat), unpeopled "still life" shots bridging sequences — a deceptively simple style, yet one that no other director has been able to replicate.

Films in this series presented in both 4K restorations (courtesy Janus Films and Shochiku Films) and 35mm prints (courtesy Japan Foundation and Janus).
All films are 4K restorations, unless indicated as 35mm.

“If there were something like a sacred treasure of the cinema,
that would have to be the work of Ozu.” 
– Wim Wenders

"Film Forum pulls off a program of epic proportions with this complete retrospective of Yasujirō Ozu."
– The Wall Street Journal

The films of Yasujirō Ozu are distributed by JANUS FILMS.

With the collaboration of the Harvard Film Archive.  Special thanks to Haden Guest and Alexandra Vasile.

Selected titles with support from the Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film.

Programmed by Bruce Goldstein, Repertory Artistic Director.

Films in this Series