Sightlines · reception
How The Bad Sleep Well was received
1960 · Akira Kurosawa · The Bad Sleep Well on Sightlines
The arc
A modest performer in Japan on release — and Kurosawa himself later admitted he'd pulled his punches, saying he couldn't expose corruption at the very top — it's since been reappraised as one of his great modern-day films, the corporate-noir sibling to High and Low.
What’s debated
The perennial fight is whether this is 'minor Kurosawa' or his most underrated film — with the famously bleak ending splitting viewers between devastating and deflating.
Its footprint
Its 20-odd-minute opening wedding reception is legendary among cinephiles — routinely cited as one of the great opening sequences in cinema, a whole conspiracy thriller set up over cake and toasts.
Where it stands
The classic 'underrated Kurosawa' pick — the deep cut Letterboxd users love to champion over the samurai staples.
Did you know? It was the very first film produced by Kurosawa's own independent company, Kurosawa Productions — and he chose to inaugurate it not with a samurai epic but with an attack on corporate corruption.