Rashomon (1950)

In 9th century Kyoto in a mountain forest, there's an encounter between a bandit (Toshiro Mifune), a samurai (Masayuki Mori) and his wife (Machiko Kyo). The wife was raped and the husband is found dead. Those facts are not disputed. But what really happened between those three is unclear. When the stories of the bandit, the samurai, the wife and a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) who watched from behind the trees are heard, each of them tells a different story. Akira Kurosawa's landmark film asked the question, "What is truth?" but the question was never answered. Kurosawa's concept (by way of a story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa) was influential enough to be usurped in the ensuing years by other films and film makers (George Cukor's LES GIRLS comes to mind). The film's wrap around framing device is rather heavy handed but it's a minor annoyance in a beautifully crafted film. Mifune is really amazing here. His animalistic bandit is like a simian creature, constantly jumping around, braying while picking bugs off himself or slapping them off. Winner of the best foreign language film Oscar. With Minoru Chiaki and Kichijiro Ueda.