Keisuke Kinoshita

Awards & Honours

Awards Won

Honours

Rankings

Covers

Records

Keisuke Kinoshita's achievements place him among the most honored Japanese directors of his generation. He is one of only two Japanese directors to win the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film twice (the other being Akira Kurosawa). Twenty-Four Eyes was ranked the number one Japanese film of all time by Kinema Junpo in 1999, and it placed 43rd in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll. In 1989, he received the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, one of Japan's highest civilian honors. His hometown of Hamamatsu named him an honorary citizen in 1990. The longevity of his films, regularly restored, screened at international festivals, and released on home video, testifies to their enduring emotional power.

AwardsKinoshita won two Golden Globe Awards for Best Foreign Film, for Twenty-Four Eyes (1955) and The Ballad of Narayama (1959). He also received multiple Mainichi Film Awards, including Best Film and Best Director for The Morning of the Osone Family, Twenty-Four Eyes, She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum, and The Ballad of Narayama. He won Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Film and Best Director for both Twenty-Four Eyes and The Ballad of Narayama.

Honours & Distinctions

Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette

Government of Japan·1989

Awarded for contributions to Japanese cinema.

Honorary Citizen of Hamamatsu

City of Hamamatsu·1990

Recognized for cultural achievements and bringing honor to his birthplace.

Mainichi Film Award Lifetime Achievement

Mainichi Film Awards·1988

Special award recognizing his entire career.

Japan Academy Prize Special Award

Japan Academy Prize·1998

Posthumous lifetime achievement award.

Rankings & Lists

#43 (critics), #22 (directors)

Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time

Sight & Sound (BFI)·2012

Kinema Junpo's Top 100 Japanese Films

Kinema Junpo·1999

Rolling Stone Japan's 100 Greatest Japanese Films

Rolling Stone Japan·2019

Magazine Covers

Kinema Junpo

March 1954

Twenty-Four Eyes issue

Kinema Junpo

July 1958

The Ballad of Narayama issue

Kinema Junpo

January 1999

Tribute issue after his death

Records & Feats

First Japanese director to make a feature-length color film

Historic First·1951

Directed Carmen Comes Home (1951) using the Fujicolor process, pioneering color cinema in Japan.

Only Japanese director to win two Golden Globes for Best Foreign Film

Awards·1959

Won in 1955 for Twenty-Four Eyes and in 1959 for The Ballad of Narayama.

Kinema Junpo's #1 Japanese Film of All Time

Career Milestone·1999

Twenty-Four Eyes was ranked the greatest Japanese film in a 1999 poll by Kinema Junpo magazine.