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Poster for The Idiot
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Released
1951 · FILM

The Idiot

A war-torn idealist in post-war Japan finds himself entangled in a storm of passion and betrayal as he navigates the fragile emotions of a disillusioned woman, a proud aristocrat, and his own possessive friend, in a haunting adaptation of Dostoevsky’s *The Idiot*.

Directed by
Runtime
166 min
Language
JA
DramaRomance
Streaming on
  • The Criterion Channel

Synopsis

Kinji Kameda, a gentle former soldier scarred by war, arrives in snowy Hokkaidō and becomes entangled in a tense web of emotions involving the disgraced Taeko Nasu, the proud Ayako, and his possessive friend Akama. Kameda's compassionate nature brings to light the hidden wounds of those around him, leading the group toward jealousy, violence, and an inevitable tragedy. The story is adapted from Dostoevsky's novel.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 16

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Akira KurosawaShot by Toshio UbukataScored by Fumio HayasakaDesigned by Takashi Matsuyama

Also known as

  • Der Idiotde
  • The Idioten
  • El idiotaes
  • L'Idiotfr
  • L'idiotait

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