Ken Watanabe

Explore Ken Watanabe’s films. Browse credits and ratings, see where to watch, and find your next movie with ReelBot.

Acting

Ken Watanabe (born October 21, 1959) is a Japanese stage, film, and television actor. To English-speaking audiences he is known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima and Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu in The Last Samurai, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Among other awards, he has won the Japan Academy Prize for Best Actor twice, in 2007 for Memories of Tomorrow and in 2010 for Shizumanu Taiyō. He is also known for his roles in director Christopher Nolan's Hollywood blockbusters Batman Begins and Inception.

Filmography

• Yamazaki Riverside - Over an Actor's Shoulder - (2026)
• Samurai Vengeance (2026)
• The Final Piece (2025)
• LA PANTHÈRE DE CARTIER (2025)
• Kokuho (2025)
• All Lives (2024)
• Kensuke's Kingdom (2024)
• True Love: Making The Creator (2023)
• The Creator (2023)
• 劇場の灯を消すな！PARCO劇場編 (2020)
• Fukushima 50 (2020)
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
• Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019)
• An Artist of the Floating World (2019)
• The King and I (2018)
• Bel Canto (2018)
• Isle of Dogs (2018)
• 7 Guardians of the Tomb (2018)
• Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
• Dirty, Clean, & Inbetween (2017)
• The Memories of Happiness (2017)
• Rage (2016)
• The Sea of Trees (2016)
• Evolution Within Extinction (2014)
• Snow Jack (2014)
• Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
• Godzilla (2014)
• Unforgiven (2013)
• Hayabusa: The Long Voyage Home (2012)
• Ai inochi - Shinjuku Kabukicho Kakekomi Dera - (2011)
• A School Behind Bars (2010)
• Inception (2010)
• Shanghai (2010)
• Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009)
• The Unbroken (2009)
• Earth (2007)
• 星ひとつの夜 (2007)
• Red Sun, Black Sand: The Making of 'Letters from Iwo Jima' (2007)
• Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
• Memories of Tomorrow (2006)
• Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
• Batman Begins (2005)
• Ashes and Snow (2005)
• Year One in the North (2005)
• The Last Samurai (2003)
• 第三の時効 (2003)
• Another Battle/Conspiracy (2003)
• T.R.Y. (2003)
• Dawn of a New Day: The Man Behind VHS (2002)
• Love of a Thousand Years - Story of Genji (2001)
• Drowning Fish (2001)
• Proof of the Man 2001 (2001)
• The Whispered City (2000)
• Space Travelers (2000)
• Bonds (1998)
• Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald (1997)
• Baian the Assassin: Showdown (1993)
• Hanzo, the Razor (1993)
• Chronicle of the Town Magistrate (1992)
• Oda Nobunaga (1992)
• Ganryujima: Kojiro and Musashi (1992)
• A Naive History of the Bakumatsu Era (1991)
• Takeda Shingen (1991)
• Baian the Assassin (1990)
• Harimao (1989)
• Commando Invasion (1987)
• The Sea and Poison (1986)
• The Making of "Tampopo" (1986)
• Tampopo (1985)
• Kekkon Annai Mystery (1985)
• MacArthur's Children (1984)