In seinem posthum erschienenen Buch „Yume wa tensai de aru“ (A dream is a genius), von dem es meines Wissens nur eine japanische Ausgabe gibt, listet Akira Kurosawa seine Lieblingsfilme auf. Eine Reise durch die Filmgeschichte unter Führung eines der größten Regisseure überhaupt, in der deutlich wird, wie stark Kurosawa in seiner Jugend wohl von deutschen Filmemachern beeinflusst wurde:

  • Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl (Griffith, 1919) USA
  • Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari [The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari] (Wiene, 1920) Germany
  • Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler €“ Ein Bild der Zeit [Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler] (Lang, 1922) Germany
  • The Gold Rush (Chaplin, 1925) USA
  • La Chute de la Maison Usher [The Fall of the House of Usher] (Jean Epstein, 1928) France
  • Un Chien Andalou [An Andalusian Dog] (Bunuel, 1928) France
  • Morocco (von Sternberg, 1930) USA
  • Der Kongress Tanzt (Charell, 1931) Germany
  • Die Dreigroschenoper [The Threepenny Opera] (Pabst, 1931) Germany
  • Leise Flehen Meine Lieder [Lover Divine] (Forst, 1933) Austria/Germany
  • The Thin Man (Dyke, 1934) USA
  • Tonari no Yae-chan [My Little Neighbour, Yae] (Shimazu, 1934) Japan
  • Tange Sazen yowa: Hyakuman ryo no tsubo [Sazen Tange and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo] (Yamanaka, 1935) Japan
  • Akanishi Kakita [Capricious Young Men] (Itami, 1936) Japan
  • La Grande Illusion [The Grand Illusion] (Renoir, 1937) France
  • Stella Dallas (Vidor, 1937) USA
  • Tsuzurikata Kyoshitsu [Composition Classes] [Lessons in Essay] (Yamamoto, 1938) Japan
  • Tsuchi [Earth] (Uchida, 1939) Japan
  • Ninotchka (Lubitsch, 1939) USA
  • Ivan Groznyy I, Ivan Groznyy II: Boyarsky Zagovor [Ivan the Terrible Parts I and II] (Eisenstein, 1944-46) Soviet Union
  • My Darling Clementine (Ford, 1946) USA
  • It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra, 1946) USA
  • The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946) USA
  • Ladri di Biciclette [The Bicycle Thief] [Bicycle Thieves] (De Sica, 1948) Italy
  • Aoi sanmyaku [The Green Mountains] (Imai, 1949) Japan
  • The Third Man (Reed, 1949) UK
  • Banshun [Late Spring] (Ozu, 1949) Japan
  • Orphée [Orpheus] (Cocteau, 1949) France
  • Karumen kokyo ni kaeru [Carmen Comes Home] (Kinoshita, 1951) Japan
  • A Streetcar Named Desire (Kazan, 1951) USA
  • Thérèse Raquin [The Adultress] (Carné, 1953) France
  • Saikaku ichidai onna [The Life of Oharu] (Mizoguchi, 1952) Japan
  • Viaggio in Italia [Journey to Italy] (Rossellini, 1953) Italy
  • Gojira [Godzilla] (Honda, 1954) Japan
  • La Strada (Fellini, 1954) Italy
  • Ukigumo [Floating Clouds] (Naruse, 1955) Japan
  • Pather Panchali [Song of the Road] (Ray, 1955) India
  • Daddy Long Legs (Negulesco, 1955) USA
  • The Proud Ones (Webb, 1956) USA
  • Bakumatsu taiyoden [Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate] (Kawashima, 1957) Japan
  • The Young Lions (Dmytryk, 1957) USA
  • Les Cousins [The Cousins] (Chabrol, 1959) France
  • Les Quarte Cents Coups [The 400 Blows] (Truffaut, 1959) France
  • A bout de Souffle [Breathless] (Godard, 1959) France
  • Ben-Hur (Wyler, 1959) USA
  • Ototo [Her Brother] (Ichikawa, 1960) Japan
  • Une aussi longue absence [The Long Absence] (Colpi, 1960) France/Italy
  • Le Voyage en Ballon [Stowaway in the Sky] (Lamorisse, 1960) France
  • Plein Soleil [Purple Noon] (Clément, 1960) France/Italy
  • Zazie dans le métro [Zazie on the Subway] [Zazie on the Underground] (Malle, 1960) France/Italy
  • L’Annee derniere a Marienbad [Last Year in Marienbad] (Resnais, 1960) France/Italy
  • What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (Aldrich, 1962) USA
  • Lawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1962) UK
  • Melodie en sous-sol [Any Number Can Win] (Verneuil, 1963) France/Italy
  • The Birds (Hitchcock, 1963) USA
  • Il Deserto Rosso [The Red Desert](Antonioni, 1964) Italy/France
  • Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Nichols, 1966) USA
  • Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1967) USA
  • In the Heat of the Night (Jewison, 1967) USA
  • The Charge of the Light Brigade (Richardson, 1968) UK
  • Midnight Cowboy (Schlesinger, 1969) USA
  • MASH (Altman, 1970) USA
  • Johnny Got His Gun (Trumbo, 1971) USA
  • The French Connection (Friedkin, 1971) USA
  • El Espíritu de la colmena [Spirit of the Beehive] (Erice, 1973) Spain
  • Solyaris [Solaris] (Tarkovsky, 1972) Soviet Union
  • The Day of the Jackal (Zinneman, 1973) UK/France
  • Gruppo di famiglia in un interno [Conversation Piece] (Visconti, 1974) Italy/France
  • The Godfather Part II (Coppola, 1974) USA
  • Sandakan hachibanshokan bohkyo [Sandakan 8] (Kumai, 1974) Japan
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Forman, 1975) USA
  • O, Thiassos [The Travelling Players] (Angelopoulos, 1975) Greece
  • Barry Lyndon (Kubrick, 1975) UK
  • Daichi no komoriuta [Lullaby of the Earth] (Masumura, 1976) Japan
  • Annie Hall (Allen, 1977) USA
  • Neokonchennaya pyesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino [Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano] (Mikhalkov, 1977) Soviet Union
  • Padre Padrone [My Father My Master] (P. & V. Taviani, 1977) Italy
  • Gloria (Cassavetes, 1980) USA
  • Harukanaru yama no yobigoe [A Distant Cry From Spring] (Yamada, 1980) Japan
  • La Traviata (Zeffirelli, 1982) Italy
  • Fanny och Alexander [Fanny and Alexander] (Bergman, 1982) Sweden/France/West Germany
  • Fitzcarraldo (Herzog, 1982) Peru/West Germany
  • The King of Comedy (Scorsese, 1983) USA
  • Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (Oshima, 1983) UK/Japan/New Zealand
  • The Killing Fields (Joffé, 1984) UK
  • Stranger Than Paradise (Jarmusch, 1984) USA/ West Germany
  • Dongdong de Jiaqi [A Summer at Grandpa€™s] (Hou, 1984) Taiwan
  • Paris, Texas (Wenders, 1984) France/ West Germany
  • Witness (Weir, 1985) USA
  • The Trip to Bountiful (Masterson, 1985) USA
  • Otac na sluzbenom putu [When Father was Away on Business] (Kusturica, 1985) Yugoslavia
  • The Dead (Huston, 1987) UK/Ireland/USA
  • Khane-ye doust kodjast? [Where is the Friend€™s Home] (Kiarostami, 1987) Iran
  • Bagdad Café [Out of Rosenheim] (Adlon, 1987) West Germany/USA
  • The Whales of August (Anderson, 1987) USA
  • Running on Empty (Lumet, 1988) USA
  • Tonari no totoro [My Neighbour Totoro] (Miyazaki, 1988) Japan
  • A un [Buddies] (Furuhata, 1989) Japan
  • La Belle Noiseuse [The Beautiful Troublemaker] (Rivette, 1991) France/Switzerland
  • Hana-bi [Fireworks] (Kitano, 1997) Japan
    Im Criterion-Forum steht die Liste inklusive der übersetzten Kommentare des Tenno. Vielen Dank auch an Marcel für den Hinweis!