# The 14 Greatest Setsuko Hara Performances

> Serene Ozu daughters, restless Naruse wives and one fierce postwar firebrand add up to a career of quiet devastation. Cast your vote!

*By YPB Team · Published September 8, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-14-greatest-setsuko-hara-performances*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Late Spring (1949)** — score 1000/1000
   The first Noriko, a daughter reluctant to marry and leave her widowed father.
2. **Tokyo Story (1953)** — score 1000/1000
   Her luminous turn as the widowed daughter-in-law Noriko in Ozu's most revered film.
3. **Chushingura (1962)** — score 771/1000
   Her final screen appearance, in Inagaki's epic retelling of the 47 ronin.
4. **The New Earth (1937)** — score 771/1000
   Her breakout role as a teenager in the Japanese-German co-production that made her a star.
5. **Daughters, Wives and a Mother (1960)** — score 709/1000
   An ensemble Naruse drama in which she plays a widow squeezed by family obligation.
6. **Early Summer (1951)** — score 692/1000
   A quietly rebellious Noriko who chooses her own husband against her family's plans.
7. **The End of Summer (1961)** — score 600/1000
   Her penultimate Ozu collaboration, as a widow in a fading sake-brewing family.
8. **Sudden Rain (1956)** — score 491/1000
   Naruse's wry study of a strained marriage, carried by Hara's understated comedy.
9. **No Regrets for Our Youth (1946)** — score 360/1000
   Her fierce, transformative role as Yukie in Kurosawa's postwar political drama.
10. **Sound of the Mountain (1954)** — score 360/1000
   A restrained, aching performance as a young wife in Naruse's Kawabata adaptation.
11. **The Idiot (1951)** — score 360/1000
   A striking turn as the tormented Taeko Nasu in Kurosawa's Dostoevsky adaptation.
12. **The Blue Mountains (1949)** — score 200/1000
   The hugely popular postwar hit that made her a symbol of a new, liberated Japan.
13. **Late Autumn (1960)** — score 200/1000
   Ozu's reversal of Late Spring, with Hara now playing the mother marrying off a daughter.
14. **Tokyo Twilight (1957)** — score 200/1000
   A darker Ozu role as an unhappily married daughter returning to her father's home.

Tags: movies, japan, performances, setsuko hara