The Ballad of Narayama
In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone should refuse they would disgrace their family. Old Orin is 69. This winter it is her turn to go to the mountain. But first she must make sure that her eldest son Tatsuhei finds a wife. From TMDB
30 reactions from 4 sources (Bluesky, TMDB reviews, Lemmy, Mastodon) · newest Sep 13, 2026 · last updated Oct 11, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
Sentiment labels for these sources are still being hand-checked; no score yet.
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| TMDB reviews * | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
29 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
What people are saying
A written summary appears once the title has a score.
Reactions
30 of 30 · most liked first#LetterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched 📽️ boxd.it/94Euv 1. The Ballad of Narayama – Survival as tradition, mercy as crime 2. Short Cuts – Altman unravels a whole city 3. The Remains of the Day – Repression, regret, perfect posture 4. Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster – Rubber suits, cosmic chaos
unlabelledView post →Keisuke Kinoshita (with scenes from his film " The Ballad of Narayama") - BOTD
unlabelledView post →#NowWatching THE BALLAD OF NARAYAMA (1983). Director: Shohei Imamura. Ken Ogata, Sumiko Sakamoto. Cannes Palme d'Or winner from Japan about village whose elders are taken away to die when they reach 70yo. First watch. #filmsky 📽
unlabelledView post →I believe the first suicides were due to feeling like a burden because of old age or physical damage/disability. Like, there are a lot of disconnected myths about elderly traveling elsewhere to die. I recall watching japanese The Ballad of Narayama (1983) [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Narayama_%281983_film%29) about that this year, but I've heard folk stories and tales about such phenomenon since I was a slav child. I believe it started to happen when life of humans became…
unlabelledView post →Watching The Ballad of Narayama (1958) rn and it's a good movie to watch if you wanna get mad at other movies for not looking as good
unlabelledView post →Tonight’s movie: The Ballad of Narayama (1983). Incredibly beautiful film, very bleak subject matter throughout. I imagine that combination was not accidental.
unlabelledView post →Went to a showing of The Ballad of Narayama at Japan House. Features snow, but definitely not a Christmas movie.
unlabelledView post →Movie years project Year 1983 (97/122) Now Watching 📽️ #8/14 The Ballad of Narayama dir. Shohei Imamura rec'd by @staggerlee42.bsky.social, @lanius.bsky.social, @stevequick.bsky.social
unlabelledView post →Kesiuke Kinoshita's The Ballad of Narayama (1958) is a film about complying in advance, that I suppose you could read as advocating acceptance of an inevitable fate, but you'd be wrong.
unlabelledView post →Second film of the night and 175th of the year, from my list of re-watches one each year 1930-2024, #NowWatching The Ballad of Narayama, 1983, Shōhei Imamura, Japan #filmsky 📽️
unlabelledView post →Just finished reading this collection of Japanese stories 'The Old Man, the Wife, and the Archer'. Very interesting and surprising stories. Very happy to read the original story which inspired the movie 'The Ballad of Narayama'. #JapaneseLiterature vishytheknight.wordpress.com/2025/02/23/b...
unlabelledView post →in the hopes of getting more good people such as yourselves to read this fine Letterboxd review of Shohei Imamura's (greatest?) film, THE BALLAD OF NARAYAMA, here's the link again but no preview card, which earlier was tagged for being disgusting smut by a robot letterboxd.com/sallitt/film...
unlabelledView post →I tried watching that One Night Only movie but I stopped after the first 20 mins and randomly put on The Ballad Of Narayama. It’s possibly one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen #filmsky
unlabelledView post →"The Ballad of Narayama" cstpdx.com/event/the-ba... Meet LAIKA animators, Portland tickets.omsi.edu/oregonmuseum... "Batman '66: The Movie" hollywoodtheatre.org/show/batman-... "Waiting for Godot" everout.com/portland/eve... "Tony", "Teen Sex & Death at Camp Miasma" www.cinema21.com
unlabelledView post →#TerCinema (Filmes Japoneses) A Balada de Narayama (Narayama Bushiko, 1958) Este filme trouxe, ao mesmo tempo um alento e um lamento. Suas cores vibrantes, em especial a cena que mostra uma pedra caindo no lago, nos remetem à etimologia de "motion picture" (fotografia em movimento). Algo que, cada vez mais, veremos cada vez menos nas novas produções. Tomei conhecimento da obra pelo livro de Ignácio de Loyola Brandão, "Desta Terra Nada Vai Sobrar, a Não Ser o Vento Que Sopra Sobre Ela" (2018),…
unlabelledView post →Is there such a thing as a "slice of death" movie? The Ballad of Narayama, maybe? Itami's "The Funeral"?
unlabelledView post →Good for you, Kyle. You reminded me of the Japanese film, "The Ballad of Narayama," which dramatized the practice of 'ubasute,' where elderly people were carried to a mountain to die.
unlabelledView post →Each had certain aspects/strengths I found worthwhile though in a couple of cases the weaknesses tended to considerably drag the film down for me. I probably would say the Ballad of Narayama was my fave of the 7 for its brutal depiction of a life and society I found myself invested in.
unlabelledView post →West coast premier of "The Ballad of Narayama", Japanese film fans of #portland https://cstpdx.com/event/the-ballad-of-narayama-1983/ Lesbian Cinema Club nearly sold out https://tomorrowtheater.org/ Meet LAIKA creatives […] [Original post on mastodon.social]
unlabelledView post →Oh hey, the Imamura version of The Ballad of Narayama is on there! It’s a stone cold masterpiece, and superior to the more well-known 1958 film, imo.
unlabelledView post →Oof, have you seen The Ballad of Narayama? It's a Japanese film about the practice of leaving elders to die once they reached their 70th year. Having taken many Asian content classes, it really is a poetic description of how a wealthy Confucian-Buddhist education could not be practised in poverty.
unlabelledView post →My ★★★★★ review of The Ballad of Narayama (1983) on @letterboxd.social: boxd.it/eVGmLx
unlabelledView post →The polar opposite of The Ballad of Narayama 楢山節考, a Japanese movie about an ancient poor village with a sad tradition that the young would carry their elderlies up the mountain to leave them to die as a way to preserve resources. It's a sad lovely story. The great 1983 version won Palme d'Or.
unlabelledView post →It’s been 43 years since I first saw The Ballad of Narayama. Haven’t seen a better film since; but I’m still watching, and there have been a few worth it.
unlabelledView post →My 4-star review of The Ballad of Narayama #filmsky
unlabelledView post →The (movie) The Ballad of Narayama (HD) is available today on (iTunes)(UK) for £3.99 Cast: Kinuyo Tanaka, Teiji Takahashi, Yûko Mochizuki, Seiji Miyaguchi, Eijirō Tōno, Ken Mitsuda Genre: (Foreign) Trailer & Reviews : www.rottentomatoes.com/m/narayama_b...
unlabelledView post →#bestfilminlondontoday Apr 8 at capitalcelluloid.blogspot.com guide to London movies. 'harsh and beautiful 1983 film' THE BALLAD OF NARAYAMA in Japanese Golden Age season at Garden Cinema capitalcelluloid.blogspot.com/2024/03/capi...
unlabelledView post →are you a fan of Sallitt? ( @sallitt.bsky.social) here's a double treat first off, THE BALLAD OF NARAYAMA letterboxd.com/sallitt/film...
unlabelledView post →The short review is "life's a bitch, then you die" LOL, that doesn't do this absolutely brilliant film any justice, though. Imamura has crafted a rather sardonic, brutally honest mirror of humans. Like humans, it is both hard to watch, and simultaneously invokes emapthy. Few directors every achieve this level of mastery of the audience's emotions. It holds a well-deserved Palme d'Or. The legend upon which the movie is based is called Ubasute (姥捨て) in Japanese, or "abandoning an old woman".…
positive · AI labelView post →It's weird- I realize there are probably obvious visual references to Bergman and Dreyer, but the movie I kept thinking of was a Japanese film called the Ballad of Narayama from 1958, where everything is outdoors, but it's all on very stylized soundstages and feels like a weird dream as a result.
unlabelledView post →
Posts are quoted from public profiles with links to the original. Want yours removed? Contact us.
This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.