Tokyo Story (1953), Yasujirô Ozu

One of the most poignant films ever made, Yasujirô Ozu’s 1953 Tokyo Story, a melancholy meditation on parent-child relations, showcases an understated indictment of conflicting intergenerational perspectives in post-war Japanese society through a deceptively simple narrative.

The many layers and contrasting perspectives – parents versus children, old against young, town or city – make this masterpiece one of the greatest films ever made. At its most superficial level, Tokyo Story [Tôkyô monogatari] is about the self-importance middle class families attach to their lives. But the film is far more thought-provoking than that.