The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025

72. 1954 - Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai
Toho

Honourable Mentions: Godzilla, On the Waterfront, Rear Window

Akira Kurosawa was one of the most breathtaking and innovative filmmakers of the 20th century, and no film within his oeuvre embodies those traits more than his 1954 masterpiece, Seven Samurai.

One of a number of collaborations with legendary Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune (many of which are equally as deserving of the 'masterpiece' label, particularly Throne of Blood), Seven Samurai is the modern birthplace of the "men-on-a-mission" movie and one of Kurosawa's most technically accomplished productions.

Rain-soaked, fiery, and as balletic as it is frenetic, it's hard to describe Seven Samurai as anything but the definitive jidaigeki picture, as well as the high point of Kurosawa and Mifune's long-running and unimpeachable partnership.

 
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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.