21.	View Larger Image	Shall We Dance (Japanese Version) Actors: Kôji Yakusho, Tamiyo Kusakari, Naoto Takenaka Director: Masayuki Suo
		From Amazon.com On his evening commute, bored accountant Sugiyama (Koji Yakusho) always looks for the beautiful woman who gazes wistfully out the window of the Kishikawa School of Dancing. One night he gets off the train, walks into the studio, and signs up for a class. Soon Sugiyama is so engrossed in his dancing he practices his steps on the train platform and ... more Buy from Amazon

22.	View Larger Image	Rashomon - Criterion Collection Actors: Toshirô Mifune, Machiko Kyô Director: Akira Kurosawa
		From Amazon.com essential video This 1950 film by Akira Kurosawa is more than a classic: it's a cinematic archetype that has served as a template for many a film since. (Its most direct influence was on a Western remake, The Outrage, starring Paul Newman and directed by Martin Ritt.) In essence, the facts surrounding a rape and murder are told from four different and contradictory ... more Buy from Amazon

23.	View Larger Image	Steamboy - Director's Cut (Widescreen Edition) Actors: Anna Paquin, Patrick Stewart, Alfred Molina Director: Katsuhiro Ôtomo
		From Amazon.com The first feature Katsuhiro Otomo has written and directed since his watershed Akira (1988), Steamboy offers a fantastic, sepia-toned vision of the past-as-future. In place of the dystopic Neo-Tokyo of Akira, Steamboy is set in England in 1866. Young Ray Steam receives a Steam Ball, a mysterious, powerful device, from his inventor grandfather. Governments and businesses covet the Steam Ball, and ... more Buy from Amazon

24.	View Larger Image	Audition (Uncut Special Edition) Actors: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina Director: Takashi Miike
		From Amazon.com If you want the full sledgehammer-to-the-stomach effect of Audition, stop reading this review now. Just watch it and take the consequences. At first glance, Takashi Miike's jack in the box of a movie works like a romantic comedy: amiable widower Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) decides it's time to find a new wife, and a friend suggests holding a fake audition to ... more Buy from Amazon

25.	View Larger Image	Visitor Q Director: Takashi Miike
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26.	View Larger Image	Inu-Yasha - The Movie - Affections Touching Across Time Director: Toshiya Shinohara
		From Amazon.com The first Inu-Yasha theatrical feature plays like an extended episode of the popular television series. Kagome, Inu-Yasha, Shippo, Miroku, and Sango are pitted not against Naraku, but against the moth-demon Menomaru, who was awakened by a falling shard from the enchanted Shikon Jewel. Menomaru seeks to recapture the power of his father Hyoga, who was defeated by Inu-Yasha's father when Hyoga ... more Buy from Amazon

27.	View Larger Image	Ran (Masterworks Edition) Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryu Director: Akira Kurosawa
		From Amazon.com essential video As critic Roger Ebert observed in his original review of Ran, this epic tragedy might have been attempted by a younger director, but only the Japanese master Akira Kurosawa, who made the film at age 75, could bring the requisite experience and maturity to this stunning interpretation of Shakespeare's King Lear. It's a film for the ages--one of the few genuine ... more Buy from Amazon

28.	View Larger Image	Grave of the Fireflies (Collector's Edition) Actors: Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, Akemi Yamaguchi Director: Isao Takahata
		From Amazon.com essential video Isao Takahata's powerful antiwar film has been praised by critics wherever it has been screened around the world. When their mother is killed in the firebombing of Tokyo near the end of World War II, teenage Seita and his little sister Setsuko are left on their own: their father is away, serving in the Imperial Navy. The two children initially stay ... more Buy from Amazon

29.	View Larger Image	Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Director: Hayao Miyazaki
		From Amazon.com Hayao Miyazaki gained widespread attention in Japan for his complex ecological manga series, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1982), which he adapted for the screen two years later. One thousand years after a war devastated much of the Earth, humanity clings to existence at the fringes of a vast, polluted forest inhabited by monstrous insects. Only Nausicaä, the princess ... more Buy from Amazon

30.	View Larger Image	Lupin the 3rd - The Castle of Cagliostro Director: Hayao Miyazaki
		From Amazon.com Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro) achieved his first international hit with this delightful 1979 adventure yarn. Quick-paced, high-spirited, and loaded with wit, Cagliostro is a dandy throwback to the caper pictures of the '60s. International man of mystery Lupin III stumbles back into the picturesque European duchy of Cagliostro with his faithful and gruff sidekick, Jigen. They will encounter, in ... more Buy from Amazon