The Kurosawa Digital Archive

Our collection of Free Online Movies is the gift that keeps on giving. It led us unexpectedly to discover the wealth of World War II propaganda films made by some of America’s greatest directors. It also turned up (among other things) the Kurosawa Digital Archive. Opened last year by Kyoto’s Ryukoku University, the archive honors Akira Kurosawa, Japan’s celebrated filmmaker who brought us The Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Ikiru, etc. and won an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1989. What will you find here? A good 20,000 items. Screenplays, manuscripts, photos, sketches, newspaper clippings, notes, etc. You won’t find a larger Kurosawa collection on the web. The one downside is that you’ll need to read Japanese to take full advantage of the archive. But even if you have no Japanese under your belt, you can still surf the site, click on random links, and experience a good deal of what the archive offers.