Seven Samurai (1954), directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshiro Mifune, follows a group of masterless samurai hired to defend a poor farming village from bandits. At over three hours, it is a masterwork of action, character, and humanist drama.

Why It Matters

• The most influential action film ever made — directly remade as The Magnificent Seven and copied countless times
• Kurosawa's dynamic multi-camera shooting and editing techniques transformed action cinema
• Toshiro Mifune's performance as the wild, unpredictable Kikuchiyo is one of cinema's greatest

The film synthesizes Western genre tropes with Japanese samurai tradition and classical tragedy. Its structure — assembling a team, training for battle, fighting — has been replicated across virtually every genre in world cinema.

Reference:

Wikipedia: Seven Samurai

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Samurai