The Ballad of Narayama

In Kabuki style, the film tells the story of a remote mountain village where the scarcity of food leads to a voluntary but socially-enforced policy in which relatives carry 70-year-old family members up Narayama mountain to die. Granny Orin is approaching 70, content to embrace her fate. Her widowed son Tatsuhei cannot bear losing his mother, even as she arranges his marriage to a widow his age. Her grandson Kesa, who's girlfriend is pregnant, is selfishly happy to see Orin die. Around them, a family of thieves are dealt with severely, and an old man, past 70, whose son has cast him out, scrounges for food. Will Orin's loving and accepting spirit teach and ennoble her family?

Cast

Kinuyo Tanaka

as Orin

Teiji Takahashi

as Tatsuhei

Yūko Mochizuki

as Tamayan

Seiji Miyaguchi

as Matayan

Yūnosuke Itō

as Matayan's son

Ken Mitsuda

as Teruyan

Danko Ichikawa

as Kesakichi

Keiko Ogasawara

as Matsu-yan

Eijirō Tōno

as Messenger

Kō Nishimura

as One of the villagers who Teaches Narayama's Manners (uncredited)

Reviews

Similar Movies

An Indivisible Heaven

Noel struggles to accept his father's remarriage to Agnes and the arrival of his step-sister, Melody. The two grow up harboring a bitter hatred for each other. When their parents die, Noel becomes Melody's legal guardian, much to her dismay. Later, each now married, the two become business partners and eventually grow closer.

⭐ 6.6

The Evening Star

Continuing the story of Aurora Greenway in her latter years. After the death of her daughter, Aurora struggled to keep her family together, but has one grandson in jail, a rebellious granddaughter, and another grandson living just above the poverty line.

⭐ 6.0

Tim

Handsome but backward gardener Tim Melville has a new woman in his life. She is Mary, his widowed employer, a woman who had given up on love until she had found Tim. At first they are friends. But soon they become lovers, as Mary, drawn to Tim's innocence and magnetism, begins to teach him all about life - and love.

⭐ 6.3

Sticks & Stones

For three high school friends, growing up takes a dangerous turn when the local bully targets them with his aggression. With no one to turn to but each other, they muster the courage to take a shot at settling the score.

⭐ 5.7

A Streetcar Named Desire

A disturbed, aging Southern belle moves in with her sister for solace — but being face-to-face with her brutish brother-in-law accelerates her downward spiral.

⭐ 7.6

Little Miss Sunshine

A family loaded with quirky, colorful characters piles into an old van and road trips to California for little Olive to compete in a beauty pageant.

⭐ 7.7

The Straight Story

A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.

⭐ 7.7

Caché

George, host of a television show focusing on literature, receives videos shot on the sly that feature his family, along with disturbing drawings that are difficult to interpret. He has no idea who has made and sent him the videos. Progressively, the contents of the videos become more personal, indicating that the sender has known George for a long time.

⭐ 7.1

Meet Me in St. Louis

Young love and childish fears highlight a year in the life of a turn-of-the-century family up to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

⭐ 7.0

Hearts of Gold

An old-fashioned love story set in the South Wales valleys during the 1930s. Well-to-do doctor Andrew joins his father's infirmary, and in miner's daughter Bethan finds a spirit lacking in his previous girlfriends. The two fall in love, but their differing backgrounds prove a major sticking point.

⭐ 5.5

A History of Violence

An average family is thrust into the spotlight after the father commits a seemingly self-defense murder at his diner.

⭐ 7.2

The Party

A thirteen-year-old French girl deals with moving to a new city and school in Paris, while at the same time her parents are getting a divorce.

⭐ 6.6

The Party 2

A young French teenage girl after moving to a new city falls in love with a boy and is thinking of having sex with him because her girlfriends have already done it.

⭐ 6.4

Caligula

After the death of the paranoid emperor Tiberius, Caligula, his heir, seizes power and plunges the empire into a bloody spiral of madness and depravity.

⭐ 6.0

Four Christmases

Brad and Kate have made something of an art form out of avoiding their families during the holidays, but this year their foolproof plan is about go bust -- big time. Stuck at the city airport after all departing flights are canceled, the couple is embarrassed to see their ruse exposed to the world by an overzealous television reporter. Now, Brad and Kate are left with precious little choice other than to swallow their pride and suffer the rounds.

⭐ 5.8

Everyone Says I Look Just Like Her

Two sisters, one white and one black, spend a week together at their famous father's summer home. A microscopic examination of the new American family unit, it's a deeply personal film about the human connections that bond us all together.

⭐ 5.0

Horn of Plenty

An unclaimed fortune, grown for centuries in a British bank account, becomes a potential windfall for Bernadito Castiñeiras and the residents of the tiny village of Yaragüey, Cuba. To receive his massive inheritance check, Bernadito must prove his lineage to the Castiñeiras nuns who first populated the region. In an isolated and impoverished town where many residents share the same surname, a feud breaks out between the "Castiñeiras" and "Castiñeyras" families.

⭐ 5.3

Still Walking

A family gathers together for a commemorative ritual whose nature only gradually becomes clear.

⭐ 7.8

A Taste of Honey

While out to avoid spending time with her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, sixteen-year-old Jo has a brief affair that leaves her pregnant and abandoned. When her mother remarries, Jo's only support becomes her friend Geoffrey, a homosexual.

⭐ 7.0