The seventh episode of our season on the awesome movie year of 1985 features our foreign film pick, Akira Kurosawa’s Ran. Directed and co-written by Akira Kurosawa and starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryu and Mieko Harada, Ran is adapted from William Shakespeare’s King Lear.

The contemporary reviews quoted in this episode come from Roger Ebert (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ran-1985), Paul Attanasio in The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1986/01/24/movies/86669975-df20-49c2-9e7f-f8c7268250df/), and Pauline Kael in The New Yorker.

Check out more info and the entire archive of past episodes at https://www.awesomemovieyear.com and visit us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/awesomemovieyear

You can find Jason on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/JHarrisComedy/, on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/jasonharriscomedy/ and on Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/goforjason/

You can find Josh online at http://joshbellhateseverything.com/, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/joshbellhateseverything/, on Bluesky at signalbleed.bsky.social and on Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/signalbleed/

If you’re a Letterboxd user and you watch any of the movies we talk about on the show, tag your review “Awesome Movie Year” to share your thoughts.

You can find our producer David Rosen and his Piecing It Together Podcast at https://www.piecingpod.com, on Twitter at @piecingpod, on Bluesky at piecingpod.bsky.social and on Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/bydavidrosen/

Join the Popcorn & Puzzle Pieces Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/piecingpod for more movie discussion and our Awesome Movie Year audience choice polls.

All of the music in the episode is by David Rosen. Find more of his music at https://www.bydavidrosen.com

Subscribe on Patreon to support the show and get access to exclusive content from Awesome Movie Year and Piecing It Together, plus music by David Rosen: https://www.patreon.com/bydavidrosen

Please like, share, rate and comment on the show and this episode, and tune in for the next 1985 episode, with our animation pick, Will Vinton’s The Adventures of Mark Twain.