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      Ikiru

      Released Mar 25, 1956 2 hr. 23 min. Drama LGBTQ+ List
      98% 55 Reviews Tomatometer 97% 10,000+ Ratings Audience Score Mr. Watanabe suddenly finds that he has terminal cancer. He vows to make his final days meaningful. His attempts to communicate his anguish to his son and daughter-in-law lead only to heartbreak. Finally, inspired by an unselfish co-worker, he turns his efforts to bringing happiness to others by building a playground in a dreary slum neighborhood. When the park is finally completed, he is able to face death with peaceful acceptance. Read More Read Less Watch on Fandango at Home Premiered May 25 Buy Now

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      Ikiru

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      Ikiru

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      Critics Consensus

      Ikiru is a well-acted and deeply moving humanist tale about a man facing his own mortality, one of legendary director Akira Kurosawa's most intimate films.

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      Audience Reviews

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      Alec B Yes its deeply moving and beautifully filmed but it's also worth mentioning what an incisive and continually relevant critique of bureaucratic cowardice this movie is Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/26/24 Full Review Merick H A masterpiece from one of the greatest directors of all time. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/10/24 Full Review A R The 'what would you do if you only had X amount of time to live?' trope is pretty tired at this point, but Ikiru takes an incredibly inventive approach and has beautiful performances and excellent cinematography to bolster it. The third act in particular could've been skipped altogether, but does a great job engaging the audience further - sure you think you would change how you live, but would you really? It goes without saying that Shimura crushed this role - his consistently deflated expression holds so multitudes and it's genuinely hard to look at it. He was so pitiful it made me mad - I did not want to see his face anymore. I'm particularly fond of the scene where he goes to the parks department and just sits there making everyone uncomfortable with his tragic face. I also loved Odagiri's performance - she's such a real person despite a character archetype that often feels unreal, undeveloped, and fantastical (obviously the writing takes some credit for this as well). Rated 4 out of 5 stars 10/23/23 Full Review Mikey H This film was so incredible. I resonated with that ending on a spiritual level. Easily my favorite from Kurosawa. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 08/12/23 Full Review Matteo P Those are the kind of movies which change your life. A masterpiece. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 07/17/23 Full Review Il B Ikiru: “To Live” We are all alive, each and every one of us. But are we truly living? As individuals, we are caught up working, for hours, months, years, decades without realising, we are not truly living. Life is precious, yet we are wasting it. Ask yourself, in all of these years you have been alive, have you truly “lived”? How many hours of your life have you wasted? How much could you have accomplished in that wasted time? Yet we ask ourselves, why we shouldn’t waste time, why should we work, when we will all eventually succumb? What is the purpose of life? We shall never find out in this life, but perhaps we shall in the next. Kanji Watanabe is a bureaucrat, who has been working in the same boring department for the past 30 years. His life has so far been meaningless, monotonous and dull. After continuous pain in the stomach, he proceeds to visit a physician, where he finds out he has less than a year’s time to live, due to stomach cancer. After days of depression, Kanji sets out to spend his remaining time truly “living”, yet it is not quite enough. He wishes to leave something behind... Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Ikiru is a hauntingly beautiful film with a variety of meaningful and realistic concepts. Ikiru is a film quite unlike any other. Despite dealing with petrifying themes, the film has a rather peaceful tone and sequences of joy. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 07/10/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

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      Critics Reviews

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      Keith Uhlich (All (Parentheses)) Kurosawa’s masterpiece endures, still finding new ways to scare me and speak to me after all this time. —Guest post by Kenji Fujishima Jun 10, 2022 Full Review Dorothy Masters New York Daily News [Kurosawa] is implemented with satirical brilliance and fine human interest... Lassitude in bureaucracy and skullduggery in politics are here to stay, he concedes, and only does the soul of man transcend his frailties. Rated: 3/4 Sep 22, 2021 Full Review James Berardinelli ReelViews A thoughtful, existential meditation about the meaning of life and what constitutes a life well-lived, Ikiru is almost guaranteed to prod the viewer to examine his or her own mortality and ponder how, in the end, the scales will tip. Rated: 4/4 Jun 7, 2021 Full Review Sean Axmaker Stream on Demand Kurosawa directs his story without resorting to sentiment or rousing scenes of inspirational drama and Shimura delivers a quiet, introspective performance. It’s a beautiful, touching film... Jul 1, 2023 Full Review Howard Waldstein CBR Ikiru is a rare, potent film that earns every moment. Even with its carpe diem messaging, it does away with schmaltz and looks very seriously at the contradictions of earning a living, versus making a life. Jun 27, 2023 Full Review Robert Koehler Cinema Scope Sadness, inside a story of how a single man changes the course of his remaining days, has rarely been expressed with such grace and beauty. Aug 1, 2022 Full Review Read all reviews

      Movie Info

      Synopsis Mr. Watanabe suddenly finds that he has terminal cancer. He vows to make his final days meaningful. His attempts to communicate his anguish to his son and daughter-in-law lead only to heartbreak. Finally, inspired by an unselfish co-worker, he turns his efforts to bringing happiness to others by building a playground in a dreary slum neighborhood. When the park is finally completed, he is able to face death with peaceful acceptance.
      Director
      Akira Kurosawa
      Screenwriter
      Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni
      Distributor
      Cowboy Pictures, Brandon Films Inc.
      Production Co
      Toho Company Ltd.
      Genre
      Drama, LGBTQ+
      Original Language
      Japanese
      Release Date (Theaters)
      Mar 25, 1956, Wide
      Release Date (Streaming)
      Oct 27, 2015
      Box Office (Gross USA)
      $55.2K
      Sound Mix
      Mono
      Aspect Ratio
      Academy (1.33:1)
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