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Seven Samurai (1954)

8.5 IMDb 100% RT 98/100 MC
IMDb Trailer

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.

Best Release

Criterion Collection · 4K + Blu-ray

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Upcoming Release
Announced

Label

BFI

Edition

Restored

Street Date

TBA

Director

Akira Kurosawa

Genre

Action, Drama

Box Office

$820,278

Runtime

3 hours and 27 minutes (207 minutes)

More movies over 3 hours

Editor's Notes

Note

The BFI vs. Criterion debate dominated every thread. BFI has HDR and what people call the best authoring house in the world (Fidelity in Motion), while Criterion has the deeper extras catalog. Most people who already own the Criterion Blu-ray went BFI for the encode quality bump. The BFI hardbox at $35 USD from OrbitDVD was considered a steal compared to the typical $42-60 USD range for rigid box editions. Criterion's 4K is SDR, which stung given BFI was offering HDR of the same restoration. Seeing it in theaters during the 4K restoration tour was almost too sharp for some viewers, with bald cap seams visible for the first time.

noted Apr 9, 2026

Mentions

Seven Samurai 4K Restoration Trailer Coming From Janus Films 83 Seven Samurai 4K 109 Seven Samurai 4K 75 Which Seven Samurai 4K are you getting? The Criterion 4K the BFI 4K ? 226 Criterion November Announcements: Seven Samurai (1954), Godzilla (1954), Funny Girl (1968), Scarface (1932), Paper Moon (1973), and The Shape of Water (2017) all being released in 4K UHD 63

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