7. Akira Kurosawa
I don't know about you but I'm beginning to sense a pattern here. Some of our greatest directors are obsessed with death. Akira Kurosawa spent much of his career examining the hero and what made him tick. This examination usually involved extraordinary amounts of violence, especially in his samurai epics. Films like, Throne of Blood (his version of MacBeth), Kagemusha, Yojimbo and High & Low (adaptation of Ed McBain) all examined violence and death but it was his masterpiece, Seven Samurai, that took it to a legendary level. Seven Samurai told the story of a community of farmers who were being abused by a band of outlaws. They hired a group of mercenaries to protect them but the real story was how the relationship of the mercenaries developed over the course of the film. These were men from various walks of life who found a common bond and became better men for it. The fact that four of the seven heroes perished by the end was both heartbreaking and devastatingly honest. Seven Samurai was remade as a western and filled with stars, namely, Steve McQueen, Yul Brenner, James Coburn and Charles Bronson. An effective film, it never quite reached the heights of Kurosawa's masterwork.