Based on a real-life story, this drama focuses on a small group of Allied soldiers in Burma who are held captive by the Japanese. Capt. Ernest Gordon, Lt. Jim Reardon and Maj. Ian Campbell are among the military officers kept imprisoned and routinely beaten and deprived of food. While Campbell wants to rebel and attempt an escape, Gordon tries to take a more stoic approach, an attitude that proves to be surprisingly resonant.

Jinpachi Nezu who lost both his wife and daughter during a feud against the yakuza 10 years ago while he was an accountant for their organization. One day he comes across a young idol and rescues her from being kidnapped by the yakuza.

Kai—an outcast—joins Oishi, the leader of 47 outcast samurai. Together they seek vengeance upon the treacherous overlord who killed their master and banished their kind. To restore honour to their homeland, the warriors embark upon a quest that challenges them with a series of trials that would destroy ordinary warriors.

Keito Myose (Yuya Yagira) and Yuichi Saeki (Masato Yano) were involved in a horrible case when they were young. They are now all grown up, but still suffering from that incident. At night, Keito and Yuichi meet again. A woman who is an acquaintance of Keito is killed in Keito's room. While the police investigates, a detective tells him "... you know Yuichi Saeki is a suspect and is on the country's most wanted list..."

Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.

The background to and depiction of a watershed battle in Japanese history, at Sekigahara in 1600, when Tokugawa Ieyasu's Army of the East defeated the Army of the West of Ishida Mitsunari. The story includes the intrigues and shifting loyalties of the various retainers, family members, and samurai.

An unstable young woman pines for the ex-boyfriend who nearly beat her to death – and who has mysteriously disappeared.

Kazuomi Nara lost his job due to the bankruptcy of his company and Shiori, his fiancé, is pregnant. Running away from reality, he steals a car and ends up in a field with four strangers, Joe, Marco, Santa and Tokie. An old man who can't ride a bike, a con artist, a virgin and a shop keeper. As confused as he is, Kazuomi decides to stay with these four strangers.

In July 1945, during the end of World War II, Japan is forced to accept the Potsdam Declaration. A cabinet meeting has continued through days and nights, but a decision cannot be made. The U.S. drops atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. General Korechika Anami is torn over making the proper decision and the Emperor of Japan worries about his people. Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki leads the cabinet meeting, while Chief Secretary Hisatsune Sakomizu can't do anything, but watch the meeting. At this time, Major Kenji Hatanaka and other young commissioned officers, who are against Japan surrendering, move to occupy the palace and a radio broadcasting station. The radio station is set to broadcast Emperor Hirohito reading out the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War.

In postwar Tokyo, beloved writer-professor Hyakken Uchida retires and is buoyed through hardship by the fierce devotion of his former students, who honor him each year with a raucous “Not yet!” birthday toast. Told in warm, gently comic vignettes, Kurosawa’s farewell celebrates aging, friendship, and the sustaining ritual of teacher and pupils refusing to say goodbye.