Box office
Seven Samurai was well received by Japanese audiences, earning a distribution rental income of ¥268.23 million,[3] within the first twelve months of its release.[2] It was Japan's third-highest-grossing film of 1954, out-grossing Godzilla,[35] which itself had sold 9.69 million tickets[36] and grossed an inflation-adjusted equivalent of ¥13.7 billion or $105,000,000 (equivalent to $196,000,000 in 2023) by 1998.[37]
Overseas, the box-office income for the film's 1956 North American release is currently unknown.[38] The film's 2002 re-release grossed $271,841 in the United States and $4,124 in France.[39] At the 2002 Kurosawa & Mifune Festival in the United States, the film grossed $561,692.[40] This adds up to at least $833,533 grossed in the United States.
Other European re-releases between 1997 and 2018 sold 27,627 tickets.[41]
Critical response
While it initially received mixed reviews from Western critics, Seven Samurai is now considered one of the greatest films in cinema history.[42] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a perfect approval rating of 100% based on 95 reviews, with an average rating of 9.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Arguably Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece, The Seven Samurai is an epic adventure classic with an engrossing story, memorable characters, and stunning action sequences that make it one of the most influential films ever made".[43] It currently ranks 18th on their action/adventure voting list,[44] and third on their top 100 art house and international films.[45] On Metacritic, it received a 98 out of 100 based on 7 critic reviews.[46] On Sensacine, the film received a 4.3 out of 5 based on 3 critic reviews.[47]
Upon its initial US release as The Magnificent Seven, film critic Wanda Hale reviewed the film in New York Daily News and rated it four stars in 1956. She noted it was very different from Kurosawa's previous film Rashomon (1950) in that it was "an action picture" but that Kurosawa "has exceeded himself" with "The Magnificent Seven." She praised Kurosawa's storytelling for "his deep perception of human nature" and "awareness that no two people are alike," his "sensitive, knowing direction" that "never lets audiences lose interest" in the plot development, his talent for making the battle scenes and violent action "terrifically exciting to audiences" and his ability to naturally weave humor and romance between the serious action. She also praised the "inspired performances" of the cast, including Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune, among other actors.[26]
Many critics outside of Japan have compared the film to westerns. Bosley Crowther, writing for The New York Times, said the film "bears cultural comparison with our own popular western High Noon. That is to say, it is a solid, naturalistic, he-man outdoor action film, wherein the qualities of human strength and weakness are discovered in a crisis taut with peril."[4] Film historian Peter Cowie quoted Kurosawa as saying, "Good westerns are liked by everyone. Since humans are weak, they want to see good people and great heroes. Westerns have been done over and over again, and in the process, a kind of grammar has evolved. I have learned from this grammar of the western." Cowie continues this thought by saying, "That Seven Samurai can be so seamlessly transposed to an American setting underlines how carefully Kurosawa had assimilated this grammar."[48]
In 1982, it was voted number three in the Sight & Sound critics' poll of greatest films. In the 2002 Sight & Sound critics' poll the film was ranked at number eleven.[49] In the Sight & Sound directors' poll, it was voted at number ten in 1992[50] and number nine in 2002.[51] It also ranked number seventeen on the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll,[52] in both cases being tied with Kurosawa's own Rashomon (1950). It also ranked at number seventeen in 2012 Sight & Sound directors' poll.
In 1998, the film was ranked at number five in Time Out magazine's Top 100 Films (Centenary).[53] Entertainment Weekly voted it the 12th Greatest film of all time in 1999.[54] In 2000, the film was ranked at No.23 in The Village Voice's 100 Greatest Films list.[55] In January 2002, the film was voted at No. 81 on the list of the "Top 100 Essential Films of All Time" by the National Society of Film Critics.[56][57]
In 2007, the film was ranked at No. 3 by The Guardian's readers' poll on its list of "40 greatest foreign films of all time".[58] The film was voted at No. 57 on the list of "100 Greatest Films" by the prominent French magazine Cahiers du cinéma in 2008.[59] In 2009 the film was voted at No. 2 on the list of The Greatest Japanese Films of All Time by Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo.[60] Seven Samurai was ranked number one on Empire magazine's list of "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010.[61]
Film critic Roger Ebert added it to his list of Great Movies in 2001.[62] Martin Scorsese included it on a list of "39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker."[63] It was also listed by Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky as one of his top ten favorite films.[64]
Kurosawa both directed and edited many of his films, including Seven Samurai. In 2012, the Motion Picture Editors Guild listed Seven Samurai as the 33rd-best-edited film of all time based on a survey of its members.[65] It was voted the greatest foreign-language film of all time in BBC's 2018 poll of 209 critics in 43 countries.[9] In 2019, when Time Out polled film critics, directors, actors and stunt actors, Seven Samurai was voted the second-best action film of all time.[66] In 2021, the film was ranked at number 7 on Time Out magazine's list of "The 100 Best Movies of All Time".[67]
Home media
As of 2017, Seven Samurai is the best-selling home video title ever released by the British Film Institute.[68]
