Akira Kurosawa: Every Movie Ranked Worst To Best
19. Dersu Uzala (1975)
Following the commercial failure of Dodes'ka-den, Kurosawa struggled from both depression and a severe lack of funding until 1975, when he was offered the chance to adapt the memoirs of Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev.
His only film produced outside of Japan, Dersu Uzala had been something of a passion project of Kurosawa's since the early '50s, and given its hearty themes of companionship and the pains of old age, it's easy to see why.
The story of two profoundly different men forming a deep and endearing friendship in the hills of Russia, the drama is hauntingly beautiful - if slightly overlong - and stands tall as one of the Emperor's most thoughtful musings on the unpredictability of life.