The Cinematheque

Free Admission

“The glorious vigour and strength of this film is presented with such theatrical relish and flair: its energy flashes out of the screen like a sword.”

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Kick off the summer season with a celebration of all things Cinematheque! Take a tour of the projection booth and join our Learning & Outreach team for a kid-friendly photo activity. Check out our spiffy new renovations and grab a free popcorn before settling in to watch Kurosawa’s epic Seven Samurai on 35mm. 

Set in 16th-century Japan, Seven Samurai follows a group of swordsmen hired to defend a village against 40 marauding bandits. Its debt to the Hollywood Western was openly acknowledged by Kurosawa; Seven Samurai, in turn, influenced a wide range of films from Spaghetti Westerns to Star Wars. Kurosawa pioneered the use of multiple cameras and the telephoto lens for the tour-de-force battle sequences. Kurosawa mainstays Mifune Toshiro and Shimura Takashi head the large cast.

In Japanese with English subtitles

The greatest foreign-language film of all time
2018 BBC Poll

“Rich in detail, vivid in characterization, leisurely in exposition, this 207-minute epic is bravura filmmaking—a brilliant yet facile synthesis of Hollywood pictorialism, Soviet montage, and Japanese theatricality that could be a B‑Western transposed to Mars.”

J. Hoberman, Village Voice