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
Complete Filmography

盤上の向日葵
2025

Kokuho
2025
as Hanjiro
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
2024
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
2024
as Kensuke (voice)
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
2023
as Self
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
2023
as Harun
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
2020

Fukushima 50
2020
as Masao Yoshida
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
2019
as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa
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
2019
as Lieutenant Hide Yoshida
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
2019
as Ono Masuji
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
2018
as The King of Siam
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
2018
as Katsumi Hosokawa
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
2018
as Head Surgeon (voice)
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
2018
as Father
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
2017
as Drift (voice)
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
2017
as Restaurant Patron
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
2017
as Taro Miura
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
2016
as Yohei Maki
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
2016
as Takumi Nakamura
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
2014
as Self
The definitive feature-length documentary on the creation of "Transformers: Age of Extinction".

Snow Jack
2014
as Reiji Kurata
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
2014
as Drift (voice)
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
2014
as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa
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
2013
as Jubee Kamata
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
2012
as Junichiro Kawaguchi
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 -
2011
Japanese TV movie

A School Behind Bars
2010
"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
2010
as Saito
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
2010
as Tanaka
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
2009
as Mr. Tall
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
2009
as Hajime Onchi
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
2007
as Narrator (voice)
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
2006
as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi
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
2006
as Masayuki Saeki
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
2005
as Chairman
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
2005
as Ra's al Ghul
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
2005
as Komatsubara Hideaki
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
2003
as Moritsugu Katsumoto
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
2003
as Fujimaki Hiroaki
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.
2003
as Masanobu Azuma
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
2002
as Okubo
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
2001
as Miyota
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
2000
as Ishida
Director Jun Ichikawa spins this affectionate portrait of the people who populate Shimokitazawa, a bohemian corner of Tokyo filled with small theater ...

Space Travelers
2000
as Sakamaki ("Crusher")
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
1998
as Detective Sako Akio
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
1997
as Raita Onuki
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
1993
as Dr. Baian
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
1993
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
1992
as Mochizuki Koheita
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
1992
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
1992
as Kojirō
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
1991
as Ryoma Sakamoto
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
1990
as Dr. Baian
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
1989
Producer
A movie about Yutaka Tani, also known as " Malay Tiger Harimao, " who was active on the Malay Peninsula during the Pacific War

Commando Invasion
1987
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
1986
as Toda
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"
1986
as Self
Documentary about the making of Juzo Itami's film "Tampopo" (1985).

Tampopo
1985
as Gun
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
1985
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
1984
as Tetsuo Nakai
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
N/A