A boy's lucrative con game consists of continually reselling his pet pigeon—a homing pigeon—to fund his mother's medical expenses. Then the boy befriends a well-to-do businessman's daughter and his life seems to improve. "A prime example of the socially critical eye that would guide all of Oshima’s work"—Tony Rayns. (1959, 35 mm, Japanese with subtitles, 62 minutes)

Diary of Yunbogi is a moving evocation of a Korean boy's plight through a striking montage of still photographs taken by Oshima during a 1964 visit to Korea. In dramatic voiceover, the director reads from the boy's diary, reminding the viewer that Japan's wartime occupation of Korea continues to have an effect. (1965, 35 mm, Japanese with subtitles, 30 minutes)

A thrill-seeking teenager is rescued by a sometime student when her reckless hitchhiking turns ugly. Then, the two start playing this badger game for real. The popularity and notoriety of Oshima's second film, with its dramatically lurid urban night scenes, jump cuts, hand-held traveling CinemaScope camerawork, and blaring color scheme, made him the "darling of the age." (1960, 35 mm, Japanese with subtitles, 96 minutes)

In the wake of riots over Japan's security pact with the United States, a marriage between demonstrators turns sour when two generations of opposing factions erupt in acrimony. Night and Fog in Japan's hypnotic combination of endless and constantly moving takes (forty-three shots compose the entire film) and its passionate, dramatic denunciations compelled the horrified studio to pull the film from theaters during its first week. (1960, 35 mm, Japanese with subtitles, 107 minutes)

In the depths of a Tokyo slum a young girl makes ends meet by selling blackmarket blood by day and her body by night, even as her right-wing father runs a gang of thieves. Could the film's title perhaps be a metaphor? "Oshima's focus here is not the romanticism of disillusionment, but the politics of despair in postwar Japan"—Pacific Film Archive. (1960, 35 mm, Japanese with subtitles, 87 minutes)

Villagers gloat over the bounty they might be able to collect after capturing a black American pilot, even as he becomes their whipping boy for feuds and jealousies. One thing they have not considered—what if Japan loses the war? (1961, 35 mm, Japanese with subtitles, 97 minutes)

A rare historical film from Oshima's oeuvre, Shiro Amakusa is based on a true event, a seventeenth-century uprising in which a young boy known as Shiro (played by popular actor Hashizo Okawa) led the poor and exploited Christian peasantry against the Shogunate. (1962, 35 mm, Japanese with subtitles, 100 minutes)

Chronicling the history of a powerful provincial family, The Ceremony is a satirical allegory of Japan's postwar predicament told through flashbacks at the family's yearly ceremonial gatherings. By requiring orderliness and obedience at all costs, the patriarch clearly caused ensuing generations to crack under pressure. With three major Kinema Jumpo awards (Japan's highest film honor) bestowed in 1972, the film is seen by many as Oshima's masterpiece. (1971, 35 mm, Japanese with subtitles, 122 minutes)