Mikio Naruse

Two in the Shadow (1967)

A man is involved in a fatal car accident, and though he is blameless, his company transfers him to a remote branch in a small town. Before he leaves, he gives the man's widow a large sum of money that she uses to move back to her hometown. ...

Moment of Terror (1966)

When the only son of a working class woman is fatally struck by a car driven by the adulterous wife of a company president in a hit-and-run, the victim's mother changes her identity and infiltrates the couple's home to work as their maid, plotting to murde ...

The Stranger Within a Woman (1966)

Tashiro coincidentally meets his best friend Sugimoto in a bar very close to the apartment in which Sugimoto's wayward wife is found dead. Although Tashiro is not a suspect in the police investigation, he is racked with guilt and confesses to his wife, Mas ...

Yearning (1964)

War widow Reiko rebuilds and runs the grocery shop in the house of her husband's family. Many years later, their business is threatened by a newly built supermarket and Reiko's in-laws plan to convert their small shop into a supermarket, to her detriment. ...

A Woman's Life (1963)

A woman remembers her own marriage when dealing with the love life of her son. ...

A Wanderer's Notebook (1962)

Based on the life and career of novelist Fumiko Hayashi, she bitterly struggles for literary recognition in the first half of the 20th-century – her affairs with feckless men, the jobs she took to survive (peddler, waitress, bar maid), and her arduous, o ...

The Wiser Age (1962)

Drama about the lives of the five daughters and daughter-in-law of a store owner. ...

The Other Woman (1961)

The real mother of the two children of a respectable university professor is not his wife, but his mistress, the hostess of a Ginza bar the family frequents. ...

The Approach of Autumn (1960)

A single mother from the country raising a 6th grade boy comes to Tokyo, leaves the boy to live with his uncle's family, runs a struggling grocery store, and works a local inn. The boy befriends a girl, the daughter of the innkeeper. ...

The Lovelorn Geisha (1960)

A woman and her daughter are in love with the same man, a chef at the restaurant that the mother manages. He is slightly crippled from frostbite in his years in Siberian labor camps and considers himself 'already dead'. ...

Daughters, Wives and a Mother (1960)

Sanae is left a widow after her prestigious husband dies, but holds the proceeds of a million yen insurance policy. Being childless, her former in-laws have no objection to her return to her own family. ...

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)

Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for her d ...

A Whistle in My Heart (1959)

The story is about the social problems faced by Japan's indigenous Ainu, mostly centered on the reactions of the characters to their oppressed state. ...

Summer Clouds (1958)

A war widow with a young boy manages a farm with her bossy mother-in-law. When a reporter comes to interview her, the two begin an affair. He turns out to be married and won't leave his wife. Her older brother tries to marry off his children and hang on to ...

Little Peach (1958)

Anzukko (Little Peach) is the daughter of a successful writer. She turns down each one of her suitors, until she marries a beginning writer named Ryokichi. Their life quickly sinks into despair. ...

Untamed Woman (1957)

A woman marries, gives birth to a stillborn child, and divorces, falls in love with a hotel-keeper, only to find herself subordinated to his drive for success, takes up with a tailor who cannot console himself with her strong personality. ...

Flowing (1956)

Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Her daughter Katsuyo doesn't see any future in her mother's trade in the late days of geisha. But Otsuta will not give up. This film portrays the day time life of geisha wh ...

A Wife's Heart (1956)

A young woman tries to raise money to open her own coffee shop. She arranges a loan when her rigid family won't help and then her husband becomes jealous of the loan officer. ...

Sudden Rain (1956)

Fumiko and Ryōtarō Namiki's marriage has gone stale, with both constantly arguing over what to do on a day off, or about her cutting out recipes from the newspaper before he finishes reading it. Their animosities are witnessed by Fumiko's niece Ayako, wh ...

The First Kiss (1955)

Portmanteau film about young lovers. ...

Floating Clouds (1955)

A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes. ...

Late Chrysanthemums (1954)

What is the life of a Geisha like once her beauty has faded and she has retired? Kin has saved, and become a wealthy money-lender, spending her days coldly collecting debts. Even her best friends, fellow Geisha Tomi, Nobu, and Tamae, are now indebted to he ...

Sound of the Mountain (1954)

An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman. ...

Brother and Sister (1953)

The eldest daughter of a rural family Mon returns home from Tokyo pregnant after an affair with a college student Kobata, which causes a scandal that will threaten the marriage prospects of the younger sister San, in her cash-strapped family. The ill-tempe ...

Wife (1953)

Ten years into a marriage, the wife is disappointed by the husband's lack of financial success, meaning she has to work and can't treat herself and the husband finds the wife slovenly and mean-spirited: she neither cooks not cleans particularly well and is ...

Husband and Wife (1953)

A married couple looking for an apartment move in with the husband's co-worker, a widower. The husband becomes jealous of the widower and his wife. ...

Lightning (1952)

The story of Kiyoko, a young woman who has successfully managed to make a break with her dysfunctional family who have been trying to arrange a marriage for her with a disagreeable man whom she has rejected. ...

Mother (1952)

A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family. ...

Okuni and Gohei (1952)

A high-born woman named Okuni travels around the country with Gohei, a samurai retainer who is in service to her. They are in search of Tomonojo, who has killed the man who was Okuni's husband and Gohei's master, and they cannot return to their lord's home ...

Repast (1951)

In post-WWII Osaka, a middle-aged woman is forced to examine her dreary life and marriage when her husband's young and flirtatious cousin arrives for a brief stay to escape an arranged marriage. ...

Dancing Girl (1951)

The troubled relationship between a writer and his ballet teacher wife, who has for years loved another man, finally leads to the breakup of the family. ...

Ginza Cosmetics (1951)

A few days in the life of a quiet geisha, single mother of a smart young boy, in the lively Tokyo quarter of Ginza. A woman devoted to others' needs, she'll end by taking part herself in one of the many disguises of Ginza. ...

Battle of Roses (1950)

Following the death of Mr Masago, his wife Satomi loses the family's cosmetics company to Mr Mogy due to huge amount of withdrawal debt caused by her husband. Mogy blackmails Satomi's sister Hinako into marrying him, so he will not send Masago to jail, and ...

White Beast (1950)

Keiko Yukawa is a former prostitute and the newest inmate at White Lily, a female rehabilitation facility. ...

The Angry Street (1950)

University students Sudo and Mori make money by picking up rich girls in dance clubs and conning them into giving them cash. Mori is the brains of the operation, and Sudo is the suave dancer who picks up the girls. Sudo becomes gradually involved with thre ...

Conduct Report on Professor Ishinaka (1950)

Three humorous love stories set in rural Japan. ...

Delinquent Girl (1949)

A melodramatic love story, a would-be apprenticeship between the titular bad girl and the optimistic scholar returning from the big city. It is presumed to be a lost film. ...

Spring Awakens (1947)

Slice of life film centered on a couple of years in the life of a rural high school girl. ...

Four Love Stories (1947)

Omnibus of love stories from 1947 directed by famous directors, featuring big stars. ...

Both You and I (1946)

A comedy about two salarymen who routinely degrade themselves for their boss. ...

A Descendant of Urashima Taro (1946)

Reputedly based on Frank Capra's 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, A Descendant of Tarô Urashima is about a repatriated soldier who becomes populist politician in the Japanese Happiness Party. ...

A Tale of Archery at the Sanjusangendo (1945)

Young, timid bowmaster Kazuma seeks to beat the archery record set by Hoshino Kanzaemon, a mysterious figure who, it is rumoured, drove the previous champion—Kazuma's father—to suicide. Possessed of much raw talent, Kazuma is very much a coward, holing ...

Until Victory Day (1945)

An Invention laboratory is working on the creation of a performance 'bomb' in the shape of a rocket that could be delivered to the front in order to entertain and amuse the national troops. Inside this rocket would be tiny performers. Once launched from th ...

The Way of Drama (1944)

The Way of Drama unfolds in the world of kabuki in Osaka, but also addresses the politics of popular culture and the rivalry between theatrical styles like those used by amateur actors to dramatise contemporary events. ...

This Happy Life (1944)

A small community in wartime Japan learn how to make do with less. ...

The Song Lantern (1943)

A self-absorbed young actor humiliates an elderly Noh performer, who then commits suicide. His act of cruelty compels his father to disown him, leading the once promising actor to a life on the streets. But his desire to win back the respect of his father ...

Mother Never Dies (1942)

The premature death of a young mother serves as inspiration for her husband and son. ...

Hideko the Bus Conductor (1941)

Okoma, a witty young woman working as a conductor in an old, rickety bus in Kōfu, Yamanashi (rural Japan), has a creative idea that could avert the dwindling number of passengers when her job and the bus company itself are at stake. ...

Shanghai Moon (1941)

In 1937 fighting erupted between Japanese and Chinese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge. A team of Japanese spies broadcasting radio programs to promote pro-Japanese sentiment were searching for a Chinese speaking announcer. Only 53 minutes of the film survi ...

A Fond Face from the Past (1941)

A Fond Face from the Past is also set in a rural community, specifically a village outside Kameoka, near Kyoto. In some ways this short, thirty-six-minute film is Naruse's most moving negotiation of the militarist restrictions of the time, perhaps because ...

Travelling Actors (1940)

This film depicts a troupe of wandering kabuki players traveling through rural Japan. ...

A Gentle Breeze With Father (1940)

9th directorial work by Yamamoto Satsuo. ...

Keshô yuki (1940)

Sincerity (1939)

Two young girls, Nobiko and Tomiko, go to the same school. The less fortunate girl Nobiko is one of the top students, while the rich girl Tomiko is not. At one time Tomiko's father was quite fond of Nobuko's mother. ...

The Whole Family Works (1939)

A large family scrapes by on the meager salaries of the father and three eldest sons, who left school in order to work and support the family. The fourth eldest is soon to graduate and follow in their footsteps, though he'd rather continue schooling. The e ...

Tsuruhachi and Tsurujiro (1938)

Mr. Tsurujiro is a Japanese folk singer assisted by Ms. Tsuruhachi on the shamisen. The pair is popular, but he often nitpicks her music and so they split. She marries a benefactor, but after a joint show, feels music is above marriage. ...

Learn from Experience, Part Two (1937)

Toyomi is pregnant -- and while Shintaro and Yurie are on their extended honeymoon, she bears his child, a girl named Kiyoko. She is supported in adversity by close friend Michiko and her mother but also, surprisingly, Shintaro's mother and siblings. Even ...

Learn from Experience, Part One (1937)

Wealthy young Toyomi and Shintaro are in love. However, Shintaro's father is arranging for him to marry Yurie, the scion of an even wealthier family. The two lovers flee to Tokyo, but when Shintaro returns to proclaim his intent to marry Toyomi, his father ...

Avalanche (1937)

The study of a one-year marriage that begins to crumble. A married man is torn between the love of his wife, and the attraction to a cousin of his wife. ...

A Woman's Sorrows (1937)

Young Hiroko's conservative principles place her at odds with most modern women, as she has already submitted to her mother's choice of man for any marriage prospect. Wed into an affluent family that practically treats her as a housemaid, locked away like ...

Morning's Tree-Lined Street (1936)

After some fruitless career hunting in downtown Tokyo, Chiyo accepts a job as a bar hostess in Shiba ward. Well away from glamorous Asakusa and Ginza, this is a neighbourhood tavern where the women are dirt poor, each having only one kimono to their name.. ...

The Road I Travel with You (1936)

Otherwise promising young man Asaji and his younger brother Yuji face blighted lives due of society's disapproval of their illegitmacy and déclassé family. ...

Man of the House (1936)

This film is based on a real Meiji era performer -- and tells of Tochuken's partnership with his wife (played by Chikako Hosokawa) who played shamisen for his songs/recitations), his affair with a geisha (Sachiko Chiba), and the deterioration of his partne ...

The Girl in the Rumor (1935)

A story of two sisters, the older being more traditional, the younger a "moga" ("modern girl"). Their widowed father runs the family sake shop, but is running into financial trouble, causing him to tamper with his stock; Meanwhile, his long-time mistress y ...

Five Men in a Circus (1935)

A five member circus runs into problems while touring rural Japan. ...

Wife! Be Like a Rose! (1935)

Kimiko, a Tokyo white-collar working girl, lives with her serious, intellectual, haiku-writing mother. Kimiko seeks to marry her boyfriend but needs her absent father to act as the go-between and negotiate the marriage. Kimiko travels and finds her father ...

The Actress and the Poet (1935)

Among the tight-knit neighbours are a poet, his actress wife, a bachelor budding author, a tobacco shop owner-cum-landlady, an insurance salesman and his nosy and greedy wife. Enter a young and seemingly high-class couple who just so happens is open to pur ...

Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts (1935)

Three sisters earn money for their bossy mother by being samisen street musicians. This means mainly playing a banjo type instrument for tips in bars... ...

Street Without End (1934)

Mikio Naruse's final silent film is a gloriously rich portrait of a waitress, Sugiko, whose life, despite a host of male admirers and even some intrigued movie talent scouts, ends up taking a suffocatingly domestic turn after a wealthy businessman accident ...

Sôbô (1933)

Directed by Mikio Naruse. It is presumed to be lost. ...

A Man with a Married Woman's Hairdo (1933)

Directed by Mikio Naruse. It is presumed to be lost. ...

Every-Night Dreams (1933)

In Depression-era Tokyo, the life of a single mother and her young son are disrupted by the return of her ex-husband, who fathered the child and walked out on her years earlier. ...

Apart from You (1933)

An aging geisha, whose angry teenage son is ashamed of her profession, works alongside a young geisha, resentful of her family for forcing her into a life of ignominy. ...

No Blood Relation (1932)

An actress returns to Tokyo after a successful stint in Hollywood to reclaim—with the help of her gangster brother—the daughter she abandoned years before. ...

Chocolate Girl (1932)

Directed by Mikio Naruse. It is presumed to be lost. ...

Moth-eaten Spring (1932)

Directed by Mikio Naruse. It is presumed to be lost. ...

Crying to the Blue Sky (1932)

After losing their parents, Eiichi and his sister Kikue are taken in by their aunt and uncle. Kikue is sent to Tokyo to work as a servant. Left alone, Eiichi wants a model airplane that a friend at school has, but finds found solace in reading the model-ma ...

The Strength of a Moustache (1931)

Kato's splendid mustache is an obstacle when it comes to finding a job. However, he gets a job as a security guard at a construction site. The president of the construction company tries to grow a mustache like Kato's and, failing, orders Kato to shave off ...

Flunky, Work Hard! (1931)

A short concerning an impoverished insurance salesman and his scrappy son, whose fisticuffs with the other boys of their village put his father's livelihood in jeopardy. ...

Mikio Naruse 100th Birth Anniversary (2005)

Because his style was similar to that of Yasujiro Ozu, who was already active at Shochiku, he moved to PCL (currently Toho) in 1933, where he appeared in the talkie works "My Wife, Like a Rose" and "Tsuruhachi Tsurujiro." It got attention. There were times ...