Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.
Nominated for 4 Oscars. 20 wins & 67 nominations total
Top Critics Reviews
rotten:
There are pleasures to be had in the handsome, heroic The Last Samurai. But they're all on the surface.
– David Ansen,
Newsweek,
16 Dec 2003
rotten:
Disappointingly content to recycle familiar attitudes about the nobility of ancient cultures, Western despoilment of them, liberal historical guilt, the unrestrainable greed of capitalists and the irreducible primacy of Hollywood movie stars.
– Todd McCarthy,
Variety,
23 Dec 2003
fresh:
The Last Samurai is an idyll in which the savageries of existence are transcended by spiritual devotion. That's a beautiful dream, and it gives the film a deep pleasingness, but the fullness of life and its blackest ambiguities are sacrificed.
– Peter Rainer,
New York Magazine/Vulture,
7 Aug 2004
rotten:
Competently mounted in its studiedly immersive, elongated way, Zwick's earnest costume epic dresses a knee-jerk, reactionary sensibility in exotic garb.
– Geoff Andrew,
Time Out,
24 Jun 2006
fresh:
It's easy to stand back and wax ironic about The Last Samurai. But it's not all that difficult to succumb to its full-spirited romanticism either.