Kurosawa's best film?

I think it's his masterpiece.

I think it's his best.

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I don't really understand how someone could put it even in the best 5 of Kurosawa.
Here's my top 5:
1.Shichinin no samurai
2.Nora Inu
3.Tsubaki Sanjuro
4.Rashomon
5.Yojinbo

I honestly feel in Ran, he tried too hard to make his masterpiece and it didn't really work. The movie isn't bad (i rated it a 7) but it's very far from his real masterpiece movies like Shichinin no samurai. And there are a lot of movies from Kurosawa i haven't seen yet (some are pretty hard to get). He made a lot of non-samurai movies...Nora Inu really is a personnal favorite from those movies.
If you coompare Shichinin no samurai to the magnificient seven, or Yojinbo/sanjuro to their eastwood counterparts, you can really appreciate Kurosawa's genius in screenplay and directing. Well that's only my opinion, though.

Personally, I prefer The Seven Samurai and Kagemusha , but it is a great movie.

Gordon P. Clarkson

1. Seven Samurai
2. Rashomon
3. Ikiru
4. Throne of Blood
5. Yojimbo
6. Ran
7. High and Low
8. Sanjuro
9. Hidden Fortress
10.Kagemusha

*I don't generally care for his color films as much the black and whites, and I do feel his career generally declined from 1965 on, especially considering his very low output from then on. BUT - and this is a big but - he did have two towering masterpieces (Kagemusha and Ran) during that period, but even those two don't equal his best from the 50's and 60's. Dersu Uzala was a good movie, but clearly inferior to Kagemusha and Ran, not to mention his black and white work

I think it's his only overrated work. I watched all his movies in a month and wanted to finalise this awesome session with Ran and it was a big disappointment for me.

I think it's his best. It feels like the culmination of his life's work, with all of his remaining energy being put into this one film. Considering his eyesight was poor and he was 75 while mounting something this epic, it makes me appreciate the film even more.