Shinji Tanaka

Cruel Story of Youth

A harsh young man seduces a freeloading young woman and eventually takes advantage of her knack for hitchhiking to rob middle-class men.

The Naked Island

A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.

Doronko tengoku

Volunteering for Villainy

Two outsiders start a relationship in a mining town.

Wakai nobara

The River Fuefuki

In a time of continuous civil wars ravaging the fields of feudal Japan, the eldest son of a very poor peasant family, living alongside the bridge over the Fuefuki river, decides to serve a warlord to escape his miserable condition, being soon followed by his younger brothers. Although not all the men of the family take this tragic path of death, women of the family will be doomed to endure the pain of loss during the next five generations.

A Flame at the Pier

A young dockworker who owes his life to his boss becomes embroiled in union activity on the Yokohama waterfront. The rebel Saburo works as an errand boy for a shipping company and vents his frustrations by plucking on the guitar.

Farewell to Dream

A coming-of-age story portrayed as the loss of all youthful illusions. Sixteen-year-old Yoichi dreams of becoming a sailor. His parents are fishmongers, and Yoichi lives together with them and his four siblings in cramped living conditions. His beloved younger sister is given to a wealthy, childless uncle; his best friend moves away; the girl he fell in love with from afar is with someone else: little by little, Yoichi loses all the people that are important to him.

Spring Dreams

When a wealthy, selfish family decides to take care of an elderly hobo who collapsed near their home, they are beset by visits from his numerous friends.

Our Marriage

When two sisters fall in love with the same man, one must decide to look elsewhere.

Youth in Fury

Young people are caught up in the political revolt that culminates in student riots against the 1960 Japanese-American mutual security treaty. Nihilist Takuya, politically engaged but also confused––he decorates his walls with pictures of political figures ranging from FDR to Hitler to Castro––becomes involved with Yoko, whose politician father has recently committed suicide, brought on by threats to expose his corruption. Her family is left penniless by his death and, with the consent of their mother, her older sister has agreed to sleep with a conservative pundit for monetary favors.

She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum

On the way back to his childhood home, a septuagenarian man recalls his childhood and adolescence, in particular his love for a young woman.

Glory on the Summit

A treasury official passed over for promotion and obsessed with careerism interferes in the lives of his three sons, who seek escape from his relentless pressure in the mortal danger of mountain climbing.

Sing, Young People!

A story about four best friends and their lives inside and outside college. Then suddenly one of them receives a surprising offer to be a movie star.

Parakin to Kyū-chan mōshiwakenai yarō-tachi

1962 Japanese movie

Thus Another Day

A father curries favor with his bosses to further his career, but his wife has lost faith in him. She returns to her family home while they rent out their house during the summer to pay off their mortgage, and there she meets a lonely old man...

The Sunshine Girl

A young factory worker struggles to figure out what she wants to do with her life.

The Shape of Night

Yoshie Nogami, a factory worker by day, works as a bar hostess at night. She begins a passionate affair with one of her regulars, but his changing demeanor and constant demands for money lead Yoshie down a dark path.

Uzu

1961 Japanese movie

Futari dake no toride

Portrait of Chieko

Takamura, a poet and sculptor, marries a budding artist named Chieko who dreams of becoming an oil painter. When a series of hardships befall her family, she finds herself unable to confide in her husband, and the pain she carries within begins to weigh heavily on her sanity...

Danger Stalks Near

The plans of a trio of burglars are continually thwarted by the arrival of visitors to the house they plan to rob.

Love New and Old

A woman brings her injured daughter to the hospital, only to realize that the doctor is the estranged father of her child.

The Rose on His Arm

Ignoring the protests of his working-class mother, a young man becomes wrapped up in the world of delinquents and yakuza.