$85 General Admission
$40 Members

Northwest Film Forum is excited to present a year-long series of films by one of Japan’s greatest filmmakers, Yasujirō Ozu. Throughout 2026, we will be screening Ozu’s seasonally-titled films in their respective times of year.

All created after World War II, Ozu’s seasonal tackle a set of familiar and shared themes around family structures as they relate to greater societal shifts in the post-war era. Marked by conflict between old and new, East and West, and tradition and change, all of these films stand as a collective metaphor of life’s transitions as well as the pains and beauty that can come of them.

FILMS IN THIS SERIES:

Early Spring (1956) – April 3-5, 2026
In his first film after the commercial and critical success of  Tokyo Story, Ozu examines life in postwar Japan through the eyes of a young salaryman, dissatisfied with career and marriage, who begins an affair with a flirtatious co-worker.

Late Spring (1949) – May 30-31, 2026
One of the most powerful of Yasujiro Ozu’s family portraits, Late Spring tells the story of a widowed father who feels compelled to marry off his beloved only daughter. Eminent Ozu players Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara command this poignant tale of love and loss in postwar Japan, which remains as potent today as ever—and a strong justification for its maker’s inclusion in the pantheon of cinema’s greatest directors.

Early Summer (1951) – July 17-19, 2026
The Mamiya family is seeking a husband for their daughter, Noriko, but she has ideas of her own. Played by the extraordinary Setsuko Hara, Noriko impulsively chooses her childhood friend, at once fulfilling her family’s desires and tearing them apart. A seemingly simple story, Early Summer is one of Yasujiro Ozu’s most complex works—a nuanced examination of life’s changes across three generations.

The End of Summer (1961) – September 11-13, 2026
The Kohayakawa family is thrown into distress when childlike father Manbei takes up with his old mistress, in one of Ozu’s most deftly modulated blendings of comedy and tragedy.

Equinox Flower (1958) – September 30-October 1, 2026
Later in his career, Ozu started becoming increasingly sympathetic with the younger generation, a shift that was cemented in Equinox Flower, his gorgeously detailed first color film, about an old-fashioned father and his newfangled daughter.

An Autumn Afternoon (1962) – October 9-11, 2026
The last film by Yasujiro Ozu was also his final masterpiece, a gently heartbreaking story about a man’s dignified resignation to life’s shifting currents and society’s modernization. Though the widower Shuhei (frequent Ozu leading man Chishu Ryu) has been living comfortably for years with his grown daughter, a series of events leads him to accept and encourage her marriage and departure from their home. As elegantly composed and achingly tender as any of the Japanese master’s films, An Autumn Afternoon is one of cinema’s fondest farewells.

Late Autumn (1960) – November 28-29, 2026
The great actress and Ozu regular Setsuko Hara plays a mother gently trying to persuade her daughter to marry in this glowing portrait of family love and conflict—a reworking of Ozu’s 1949 masterpiece Late Spring.