Cannes Film Festival: 20 Best Palme D'Or Winners Ever

For about ten years leading up to Kagemusha, master director Akira Kurosawa had stayed clear of the samurai genre that had made him famous, and in his twilight years had found his output not nearly as intense and constant as it once was.

Kagemusha ended a long drought for the filmmaker, allowing him to settle back into a familiar story of warlords, warriors and the convergence of dreams and reality.

Following a thief (Tatsuya Nakadai) who is hired as a political decoy in a time of brewing conflict between warring clans, the three-hour epic charts the thief's attempts to fulfill his duty and confront the ghosts left in his wake.

With bracing action sequences that effortlessly give way to dream-like intermissions where the unnamed thief comes face-to-face with his predecessors, Kagemusha is a late-career masterclass from Akira Kurosawa, and an unconventional Palme d'Or winner for the ages.