Kill!

Samurai Rebellion

Sword Of the Beast

Samurai Spy

Samurai Assassin

Swords Of Vengeance: (The 47 Loyal Ronin)

The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi

Gojoe

Samurai Fiction

Red Shadow

The Seven Samurai

Hari Kiri

Zatoichi: The Outlaw

Zatoichi: The Festival of Fire

Zatoichi at Large

Zatoichi In Desperation

Zatoichi’s Conspiracy

Zaotichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman

Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo

Zatoichi 1: The Tale Of Zatoichi

Zatoichi 2: The Tale Of Zatoichi Continues

Zatoichi 3: New Tale Of Zatoichi

Zatoichi 6: Zatoichi and the Chest Of Gold

Zatoichi 10: Zatoichi’s Revenge

Zatoichi 11: Zatoichi and the Doomed Man

Zatoichi 13: Zatoichi’s Vengeance

Zatoichi 12: Zatoichi and the Chess Expert

Ran

Rashomon

The Hidden Fortress

Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto

Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple

Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island

Sanjuro

Yojimbo

Kagemusha

Onibaba

Shogun’s Shadow

Throne Of Blood

Aragami: The Raging God Of Battle

The Twilight Samurai

Shikoku

Onmyoji: The Yin-Yang Master

Onmyoji II

Sword of Doom

When the Last Sword is Drawn

Shinsengumi

Sansho The Bailiff

Incident at Blood Pass

Samurai Banners

Red Lion

Goyokin

Baian The Assassin 1-4

Shinobi: Heart Under Blade

Shadow Warriors Season 1

Shogun’s Shadow

Shogun’s Ninja

Chushingura

51 minutes ago, TheWanderingJewels said:

The Twilight Samurai

The Samurai Trilogy - see also;

The Hidden Blade

Love & Honour

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoji_Yamada

Beyond cinema, mangas are quite awesome. Kaze no Sho (samurai legend in English), illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi, lone wolf and cub, and Vagabond from Takehiko Inoue.

A good list. I'd add a few:

13 Assassins

I enjoyed the Sword of the Stranger anime. It's a little over the top at times.

Also, Heaven and Earth (1990) is a visually beautiful film, if somewhat drab in its story/characters and loose with its history. Features onna-bugeisha (samurai-ko) in the film too.

Also beyond cinema Usagi Yojimbo.

Surprised no one has said:

Last Samurai (maybe not Tom Cruises character, but the rest)

47 Ronin (again, not necessarily Keanau but the rest of the cast)

The Shogun Miniseries from the 70's (based upon James Clavell's novel) isn't horrible.

On 13/11/2017 at 8:31 AM, AK_Aramis said:

The Shogun Miniseries from the 70's (based upon James Clavell's novel) isn't horrible.

I specifically recommended this to my players to get a feel for the petty politics of minor daimyo, the kind of in-house intrigues, backstabbings and romances they can expect, and how the decisions of the top-ranking samurai affect the lives of lower-ranked ones and peasants.

Also worth mentioning, the anime Shigurui death frenzy. Careful, very violent and mature content.

It focus on Dojo life, kenjutsu secrets, mentality of the duellist.

2 hours ago, MaoYoruichi said:

I specifically recommended this to my players to get a feel for the petty politics of minor daimyo, the kind of in-house intrigues, backstabbings and romances they can expect, and how the decisions of the top-ranking samurai affect the lives of lower-ranked ones and peasants.

It also helps that the PoV character is a gaijin, and gets things explained to him.

On 11/12/2017 at 5:09 PM, BitRunr said:

The Samurai Trilogy - see also;

The Hidden Blade

Love & Honour

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoji_Yamada

I had no idea this was a trilogy
??

4 hours ago, Kakita Shijin said:

I had no idea this was a trilogy
??

Perhaps not in the traditional sense. It's three films by the same director with a unifying focus.

The Twilight Samurai is so good; I'm really looking forward to watching the other two #namaste

Regarding other items in the list:

Samurai Fiction is soooooo bad. I'm almost curious if it's supposed to be satire ...

Of the Zatoichi films, I have only seen The Blind Swordsman. It is excellent; probably any others with Takeshi Kitano are similarly good (if there are any).

Also, let me say for anyone who doesn't know, pay special attention to Akira Kurosawa (director).

For L5r you also can get some cool impressions out of

Drifters, Niho, Sengokuku Basara, Samurai Shamploo, Brave 10, Samurai 7 Gintama,
Red Cliff, The emperor and the assasin, the curse of the golden flower, Hero, Konfuzius (yes there is a Konfucious movie),
House of flying daggers. Crouching Tiger hidden Dragon and new Dragon gate Inn.

if you go for the more larger than life and magical aspect of L5r. There are also some nice
drama scenes in some of these movies.