Samurai

1954 · Akira Kurosawa · 207 min · Action / Drama

Akira Kurosawa's 1954 epic runs over three hours and earns every minute. Seven warriors defend a farming village against bandits, and from that simple premise Kurosawa built one of the most influential films in cinema history. The action sequences remain thrilling, the characters are drawn with precision and warmth, and the final message about who truly wins and loses in war resonates across decades and cultures. Its length is a commitment, but there's a reason this is the film other filmmakers keep coming back to.

2024 · 1 Season · FX · Drama / Historical

Shogun turns James Clavell's brick-sized novel into ten hours of political chess so gripping that a mostly subtitled period drama became the most awarded single season in television history. Hiroyuki Sanada's Lord Toranaga plays the long game of feudal succession while Anna Sawai's Lady Mariko delivers the season's devastating heart, and the English pilot-turned-pawn John Blackthorne learns he's a minor piece on a board he can barely see. Patient, sumptuous, and ruthless about spectacle expectations, it denies you the climactic battle on purpose. What it gives you instead is better.

2023 · Action

Katana Zero on mobile delivers one of the sharpest action experiences on the platform, with one-hit-kill precision combat, a gripping neo-noir story, and a flawless premium package through Netflix Games that loses nothing in the transition from PC.

2023 · 1 Season · Netflix · Animation, Action, Drama

Blue Eye Samurai is a stunning achievement in adult animation, combining gorgeous hand-crafted visual design with a revenge narrative that hits hard and rarely lets up. The fight choreography alone would justify a watch, but the layered exploration of identity, belonging, and the cost of vengeance elevates this far beyond a simple action series. Some character choices lack consistency and the show occasionally leans too heavily on graphic content, but these are minor blemishes on an otherwise exceptional first season. For anyone who's ever wished animated storytelling for adults would aim higher, this is proof that it can.

2001 · 5 Seasons · Cartoon Network / Adult Swim · Animated Action-Adventure / Science Fantasy

Samurai Jack remains one of the most visually inventive animated series ever produced. Genndy Tartakovsky's masterful use of minimal dialogue, cinematic composition, and bold graphic design pushed the medium forward in ways that still haven't been surpassed. The original four seasons are nearly flawless in their execution. The revival's final season delivers darker themes and a satisfying character arc for Jack, but a rushed finale and uneven pacing in its back half prevent it from reaching the heights of what came before. As a complete work, this is still a landmark achievement in animated storytelling.

1961 · Akira Kurosawa · 110 min · Action / Drama

Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai film created a character archetype that reshaped action cinema across cultures. Toshiro Mifune plays a wandering swordsman who strolls into a corrupt town and systematically destroys both warring factions from within, and his performance is one of the coolest things ever committed to film. The blend of dark humor, sudden violence, and moral ambiguity influenced everything from spaghetti westerns to modern action films. It's leaner and more purely entertaining than Kurosawa's deeper works, and that's not a criticism.

2020 · Action Adventure · PC / Steam

Ghost of Tsushima is the best samurai game available on PC, and one of the most visually striking open worlds ever built. Sucker Punch crafted a combat system that makes sword fighting feel both deadly and elegant, and the wind-guided exploration strips away the clutter that drags down so many games in the genre. It follows the open-world formula closely enough that fatigue sets in during the back half, and the story takes fewer risks than its setting deserves. But the moment-to-moment experience of riding through autumnal forests, cutting down Mongol patrols, and discovering hidden shrines carries a quality that makes the familiar structure feel fresh. The PC port by Nixxes is excellent, making this the definitive way to play.

2019 · Action-Adventure · PC / Steam

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice features the best combat system FromSoftware has ever built, a razor-sharp deflection mechanic that turns every boss fight into a duel you'll remember long after the credits roll. The lack of character builds, multiplayer, and difficulty options means it won't work for everyone, and replay value drops once you've mastered the system with no new weapons or playstyles to explore. But that singular focus is also what makes it special. FromSoftware bet everything on one sword, one moveset, and one very steep skill curve, and the result is a game that, once it clicks, makes every other action game's combat feel just a little bit slower.

2021 · Action RPG · PC / Steam

Nioh 2: Complete Edition is the refined version of Team Ninja's already excellent combat formula, adding Yokai abilities and a character creator to an action RPG that was already one of the most mechanically rich in the genre. The three-player co-op and three included DLC expansions make this the definitive package for players who want depth, challenge, and hundreds of hours of content. Its complexity will overwhelm some players, and the PC port launched with issues that still linger in spots, but for those who push through the learning curve, the payoff is extraordinary. This is one of the best action RPGs available on PC.

2004 · 1 Season · Fuji TV · Action / Comedy / Adventure

Samurai Champloo fuses Edo-period Japan with hip-hop culture in a show that's as stylish as it is entertaining. Shinichiro Watanabe's follow-up to Cowboy Bebop delivers gorgeous fight choreography, one of anime's best soundtracks, and a trio of characters whose chemistry carries the show through its episodic adventures. The overarching narrative takes a back seat to the vibes, and not every episode hits with the same force, but when Samurai Champloo is cooking, nothing else in anime looks, sounds, or feels quite like it.

2019 · 1 Season · Tokyo MX · Action, Dark Fantasy, Animation

The 2019 Dororo adaptation brings Osamu Tezuka's classic dark fantasy to life with stunning action and a haunting premise about a young warrior reclaiming his stolen body parts from demons, one fight at a time.

2017 · Action RPG · PC / Steam

Nioh: Complete Edition packs Team Ninja's demanding samurai action RPG and all three DLC expansions into a single package that offers hundreds of hours of content for players willing to invest in its systems. The stance-based combat is faster and more technical than most games in the genre, and the loot system adds a layer of build crafting that keeps progression rewarding well into the endgame. Level design stumbles and late-game repetition prevent it from reaching the peaks of its best fights, but the combat alone makes it essential for anyone who wants their action RPGs sharp and unforgiving. It's a rougher experience than its sequel, but the foundation it laid is remarkable.

1958 · Akira Kurosawa · 139 min · Adventure / Comedy

Akira Kurosawa's 1958 adventure comedy is his most purely entertaining film, a rousing tale of two bickering peasants, a fierce general, and a disguised princess trying to smuggle gold through enemy territory. It's the film that directly inspired Star Wars, and watching it, you can see exactly where George Lucas found his template. The humor lands, the action thrills, and Mifune commands every scene he's in. It lacks the depth of Kurosawa's masterworks, but as sheer crowd-pleasing cinema, it delivers.

2017 · Nikita Thorn · 329 pages · LitRPG

Bushido Online stands out with its feudal Japan setting and a protagonist who is a blind MMA fighter rather than a typical gamer. The prose is surprisingly polished for the genre, but the pacing bogs down in social drama and the game mechanics raise questions the book never answers.

2022 · Action-Adventure / Side-Scrolling · PC / Steam

Trek to Yomi is a stunning visual achievement that channels classic samurai cinema with extraordinary fidelity, but its shallow combat and brief runtime leave its gameplay unable to match the ambition of its presentation.