Seven Samurai tops Collider’s ranking of the best epic films since 1951

Collider has published a ranking of the 10 greatest epic movie masterpieces released since 1951, placing Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai at number one.

The list treats multipart projects as eligible, limits entries to one masterpiece per director, and acknowledges inevitable omissions. Selections include Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, the three-part World War II epic The Human Condition, James Cameron’s romantic-disaster Titanic, Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, The Right Stuff (about the U.S. Space Race), Sergei Bondarchuk’s multi-part War and Peace, Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings taken as a single project, The Godfather as the quintessential gangster epic, and David Lean-era staples such as Lawrence of Arabia.

The ranking notes that some films were filmed as one overall work but released in multiple parts. The top entry, Seven Samurai, is listed with a release date of April 26, 1954, runtime 207 Minutes, Director Akira Kurosawa, Writers Akira Kurosawa Toshiro Mifune Takashi Shimura.

Key Topics

Culture, Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa, Titanic, The Irishman, The Godfather