The incomparable Toshiro Mifune stars in Akira Kurosawa’s visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo. To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily masterless samurai Sanjuro turns a range war between two evil clans to his own advantage. Remade twice, by Sergio Leone and Walter Hill, this exhilarating genre-twister remains one of the most influential and entertaining films of all time.

“Kurosawa has made the first great shaggy-man movie. YOJIMBO is a glorious comedy-satire of force: the story of a bodyguard who kills the bodies he is hired to guard.” – Pauline Kael

“Kurosawa knew and loved American westerns, but deploying their conventions in feudal Japan he utterly transformed them—to our utter fascination and delight.” – Richard Schickel, TIME