Ken Watanabe

Ken Watanabe

1959-10-21 Uonuma, Niigata, Japan 62 Credits

Biography

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 i...

Known For

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Complete Filmography

盤上の向日葵

盤上の向日葵

2025

Acting
Kokuho

Kokuho

2025

as Hanjiro

9.0
Acting

Set after the war in Japan, when the country experienced rapid economic growth, Kikuo is born into a yakuza family. His strange fate leads him to be e...

All Lives

All Lives

2024

6.7
Acting

TV Tokyo's 60th anniversary special drama. This is a human drama about a doctor struggling with his life and a patient who has been told he has little...

Kensuke's Kingdom

Kensuke's Kingdom

2024

as Kensuke (voice)

6.8
Acting

A young boy and his family set off on a sailing trip of a lifetime until a violent storm erupts, sweeping Michael and his dog overboard. After washing...

True Love: Making The Creator

True Love: Making The Creator

2023

as Self

8.0
Acting

Join director Gareth Edwards and crew for nearly an hour look behind the scenes. Hear from actors about the filming experience, and learn about the pr...

The Creator

The Creator

2023

as Harun

7.0
Acting

Amid a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of h...

劇場の灯を消すな!PARCO劇場編

劇場の灯を消すな!PARCO劇場編

2020

7.0
Acting
Fukushima 50

Fukushima 50

2020

as Masao Yoshida

6.5
Acting

Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi facility in Japan risk their lives and stay at the nuclear power plant to prevent total destruction after the region ...

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

2019

as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa

6.7
Acting

Follows the heroic efforts of the crypto-zoological agency Monarch as its members face off against a battery of god-sized monsters, including the migh...

Pokémon Detective Pikachu

Pokémon Detective Pikachu

2019

as Lieutenant Hide Yoshida

6.9
Acting

In a world where people collect pocket-size monsters (Pokémon) to do battle, a boy comes across an intelligent monster who seeks to be a detective.

An Artist of the Floating World

An Artist of the Floating World

2019

as Ono Masuji

Acting

In the face of the misery in his homeland, the artist Masuji Ono was unwilling to devote his art solely to the celebration of physical beauty. Instead...

The King and I

The King and I

2018

as The King of Siam

7.0
Acting

Widowed Welsh mother Anna Loenowens becomes a governess and English tutor to the wives and many children of the stubborn King Mongkut of Siam. Anna an...

Bel Canto

Bel Canto

2018

as Katsumi Hosokawa

5.4
Acting

A famous opera singer is held hostage in South America by a guerrilla rebel group after performing at a Japanese businessman's lavish birthday party. ...

Isle of Dogs

Isle of Dogs

2018

as Head Surgeon (voice)

7.9
Acting

In the future, an outbreak of canine flu leads the mayor of a Japanese city to banish all dogs to an island used as a garbage dump. The outcasts must ...

7 Guardians of the Tomb

7 Guardians of the Tomb

2018

as Father

5.4
Acting

An innocent discovery of a well-preserved mummified Emperor from 200 BC China unearths a 2000 year old nightmare - a secret that should have remained ...

Transformers: The Last Knight

Transformers: The Last Knight

2017

as Drift (voice)

6.1
Acting

Humans and Transformers are at war. Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history ...

Dirty, Clean, & Inbetween

Dirty, Clean, & Inbetween

2017

as Restaurant Patron

Acting

Dirty, Clean and Inbetween is a Sex and The City for guys, with a delightful mix of Entourage, Suits and Workaholics all coming together to make for o...

The Memories of Happiness

The Memories of Happiness

2017

as Taro Miura

Acting

Taro's business failed and he got divorced. He also left his family's home. 5 years later, his oldest daughter Natsumi, second daughter Yuka and ex-wi...

Rage

Rage

2016

as Yohei Maki

6.9
Acting

A man brutally murders a married couple and leaves the word “ikari” (“rage”) written with their blood. The killer undergoes plastic surgery and flees....

The Sea of Trees

The Sea of Trees

2016

as Takumi Nakamura

6.2
Acting

In Japan's Aokigahara Forest, a troubled teacher meets a mysterious lost stranger who takes him on a life-changing journey of love and redemption.

Evolution Within Extinction

Evolution Within Extinction

2014

as Self

7.7
Acting

The definitive feature-length documentary on the creation of "Transformers: Age of Extinction".

Snow Jack

Snow Jack

2014

as Reiji Kurata

Acting

A blackmail arrives at Appi ski resort. “We demand 30,000,000 yen as consolation money for the destruction of the environment. If you do not respond t...

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Transformers: Age of Extinction

2014

as Drift (voice)

5.9
Acting

As humanity picks up the pieces after the battle of Chicago, a shadowy group reveals itself in an attempt to control the direction of history…while an...

Godzilla

Godzilla

2014

as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa

6.3
Acting

Ford Brody, a Navy bomb expert, has just reunited with his family in San Francisco when he is forced to go to Japan to help his estranged father, Joe....

Unforgiven

Unforgiven

2013

as Jubee Kamata

7.0
Acting

An old swordsman, his former comrade and a young braggart are hired by prostitutes to track down bandits who mutilated one of the women.

Hayabusa: The Long Voyage Home

Hayabusa: The Long Voyage Home

2012

as Junichiro Kawaguchi

6.0
Acting

In May 2003, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (or JAXA) launched an unmanned spacecraft of their own development to retrieve samples from an ast...

Ai inochi - Shinjuku Kabukicho Kakekomi Dera -

Ai inochi - Shinjuku Kabukicho Kakekomi Dera -

2011

Acting

Japanese TV movie

A School Behind Bars

A School Behind Bars

2010

10.0
Acting

"A School Behind Bars" centers around Asahi Junior High School, which is located within Nagano Matsumoto Boy's prison in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefec...

Inception

Inception

2010

as Saito

8.4
Acting

Cobb, a skilled thief who commits corporate espionage by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets is offered a chance to regain his old life as pa...

Shanghai

Shanghai

2010

as Tanaka

6.1
Acting

An American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he un...

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

2009

as Mr. Tall

5.8
Acting

When Darren Shan is taken to a circus that's chock-full of sideshow oddities, he meets a vampire and receives a life-changing bite on the neck.

The Unbroken

The Unbroken

2009

as Hajime Onchi

6.7
Acting

Onchi was exiled to posts around Asia and Africa due to his work as head of a labor union for National Air Line. He is ordered to return to head offic...

Earth

Earth

2007

as Narrator (voice)

7.6
Acting

An epic story of adventure, starring some of the most magnificent and courageous creatures alive, awaits you in EARTH. Disneynature brings you a remar...

Letters from Iwo Jima

Letters from Iwo Jima

2006

as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi

7.5
Acting

The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who...

Memories of Tomorrow

Memories of Tomorrow

2006

as Masayuki Saeki

6.0
Acting

After being stricken with Alzheimer's disease in the prime of his life, a successful young businessman slips slowly away from his loving family.

Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha

2005

as Chairman

7.7
Acting

In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.

Batman Begins

Batman Begins

2005

as Ra's al Ghul

7.7
Acting

Driven by tragedy, billionaire Bruce Wayne dedicates his life to uncovering and defeating the corruption that plagues his home, Gotham City. Unable t...

Year One in the North

Year One in the North

2005

as Komatsubara Hideaki

4.9
Acting

In 1868, after the fall of the Shogun-dominated Japan, the new government orders people from Awaji, near Kobe, to re-locate to the northern part of Ho...

The Last Samurai

The Last Samurai

2003

as Moritsugu Katsumoto

7.6
Acting

Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and th...

Another Battle/Conspiracy

Another Battle/Conspiracy

2003

as Fujimaki Hiroaki

Acting

Katsunori Takahashi and Ken Watanabe star in a modern yakuza tale in the classic Japanese film series, Battles Without Honor and Humanity, directed by...

T.R.Y.

T.R.Y.

2003

as Masanobu Azuma

7.0
Acting

At the turn of the 20th Century amongst tension between China and Japan, a Japanese swindler in Shanghai plans to profit by selling weapons. He steals...

Dawn of a New Day: The Man Behind VHS

Dawn of a New Day: The Man Behind VHS

2002

as Okubo

7.0
Acting

A Japanese film that tells the tale of the birth of VHS. It follows Kagatani Shizuo, an electronics employee who rallies his coworkers to save their j...

Drowning Fish

Drowning Fish

2001

as Miyota

7.0
Acting

When corporate executives are blackmailed into public displays of nudity on the busy streets of Shinjuku, the big guns are called out to locate "Obore...

The Whispered City

The Whispered City

2000

as Ishida

9.0
Acting

Director Jun Ichikawa spins this affectionate portrait of the people who populate Shimokitazawa, a bohemian corner of Tokyo filled with small theater ...

Space Travelers

Space Travelers

2000

as Sakamaki ("Crusher")

5.9
Acting

Three bank robbers, who declare themselves to be Space Travelers, take six persons as hostages when they are surrounded by the police. Among the hosta...

Bonds

Bonds

1998

as Detective Sako Akio

5.2
Acting

Tetsuro Haga is a troubled gangster, living under the assumed identity Ise for ten years, to escape jail for gunning down his cruel adoptive father. H...

Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald

Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald

1997

as Raita Onuki

7.6
Acting

A love story written by an ordinary housewife is going to be broadcast as a radio drama and almost everyone among the crew insists on changing various...

Baian the Assassin: Showdown

Baian the Assassin: Showdown

1993

as Dr. Baian

Acting

Fujieda Baian is admired during the day as a skilled acupuncturist. However, at night, he is a highly skilled assassin, taking on contracts to quietly...

Hanzo, the Razor

Hanzo, the Razor

1993

Acting

During Tenpo period, Bakuhu announced a law regulating expenditures in order to improve the financial situation. However, Doshin of a government offic...

Chronicle of the Town Magistrate

Chronicle of the Town Magistrate

1992

as Mochizuki Koheita

Acting

In a maelstrom of evil, can a new magistrate, samurai Mochizuki Koheita, with a reputation like an alley cat, bring order to the town of Horisoto, or ...

Oda Nobunaga

Oda Nobunaga

1992

8.0
Acting

Among the great ‘Warlords’ in Japanese history, Oda Nobunaga holds a unique place. In effect, his military success led to the ultimate unification of ...

Ganryujima: Kojiro and Musashi

Ganryujima: Kojiro and Musashi

1992

as Kojirō

8.5
Acting

In the 16th Year of Keityo (1611), the lord of Ogura Castle in Kyushu admitted Sasaki Kojiro's because of his great sword techniques. However, a group...

A Naive History of the Bakumatsu Era

A Naive History of the Bakumatsu Era

1991

as Ryoma Sakamoto

7.0
Acting

In the last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, there was a cute warrior, Souji Okita, who belonged to the armed police of the shogunate in Kyoto. Very fe...

Baian the Assassin

Baian the Assassin

1990

as Dr. Baian

Acting

Fujieda Baian is admired during the day as a skilled acupuncturist. However, his nighttime persona is that of a highly skilled assassin. For money, he...

Harimao

Harimao

1989

Producer

8.0
Producing

A movie about Yutaka Tani, also known as " Malay Tiger Harimao, " who was active on the Malay Peninsula during the Pacific War

Commando Invasion

Commando Invasion

1987

6.2
Acting

The leader of a group of American commandos has 5 days to kidnap a VC General to prove his innocence after all his men are killed in an abortive raid.

The Sea and Poison

The Sea and Poison

1986

as Toda

6.9
Acting

Two interns and a nurse are interrogated by American MPs for their involvement in an atrocity during the war: the vivisections of a downed American ai...

The Making of "Tampopo"

The Making of "Tampopo"

1986

as Self

Acting

Documentary about the making of Juzo Itami's film "Tampopo" (1985).

Tampopo

Tampopo

1985

as Gun

7.9
Acting

In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tam...

Kekkon Annai Mystery

Kekkon Annai Mystery

1985

8.2
Acting

A 19-year-old girl Hiroko Terasawa working in a matching agency promises her client Masakazu Sekine that she'll pose as his fiancée for a remarkable c...

MacArthur's Children

MacArthur's Children

1984

as Tetsuo Nakai

5.5
Acting

In this drama at the end of World War II, the inhabitants of a small Japanese fishing village must come to terms with their nation's defeat and the su...

第三の時効

第三の時効

N/A

Acting