Regularly cited as one of the greatest films ever made, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai has inspired remakes aplenty (The Magnificent Seven, Battle Beyond the Stars, The Seven Magnificent Gladiators) thanks to its enduring and universal appeal. Knowing that bandits will inevitably steal their crops after the next harvest, a small village in 16th century Japan hires a small band of smaurai to protect them — though they can’t afford the best. Its expensive and masterly choreographed battle scenes in the rain and mud remain some of the most thrilling sequences ever put on film, and Toshiro Mifune’s charming charlatan samurai is perhaps the most iconic character in all of Japanese cinema.