Ikiru

11 yrs 143 minutes • 1952 • 8.3

Kanji Watanabe works as a clerk in the city hall. It is a meaningless and bureaucratic job, but he performs it dutifully and has not had a sick day in 30 years. One day he gets devastating news that changes everything - he has cancer and less than a year left to live. Faced with his own mortality, he begins to live in a way he has not done before, but there are also thoughts of what he wants to leave behind when he is gone. Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru is considered one of his most beloved films and he himself considered it to be his best work. It was awarded the Jury's Special Prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 1954.