I love jidai-geki, I don’t have the list right now but I’ve seen more than a hundred easily. A combination of living next to an old theatre in Osaka, years of piracy and an autistic special interest in feudal Japan ?
Kurosawa was definitely a gateway and easily the most accessible director when I got into Japanese cinema in the early 2000s. Still one of my favorite directors who deserves all the praise he gets and more, but by now I almost have to give his non period pieces like Stray Dog the win by a hair. Do yourselves a favor and check them out, they’re seriously underwatched and underappreciated.
The genre is really endless. A couple of different recommendations that I find worthwhile:
The original castle of owls (on par with the shinobi no mono series)
Hanzo the razor
Twilight Samurai
Inagaki‘s version of the 47 ronin
Sword of doom
Samurai fiction
Blind woman’s curse
Samurai assassin
When the last sword is drawn
The magic serpent (fun cheesy mix of kaiju and samurai movie)
The lone wolf and cub series
The original harakiri
Gohatto
Humanity and paper balloons
17 ninja
Onibaba
There have been a couple decent recent jidaigeki:
Samurai marathon
Mumon land of stealth
The floating castle
Castle under fiery sky
Goemon (very fantastical take on the mythical Goemon but a fun watch)
Snow on the blades
Sanada 10 braves
Killing (not one of tsukamoto‘s best films but a different take on the genre that‘s worth seeing)
Not all of these are chanbara although the term is often incorrectly used interchangeably with jidai-geki
