Ken Watanabe

Acting

Ken Watanabe

Born 1959-10-21 · Uonuma, Niigata, Japan

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.

Acting credits

Inception poster
8.4

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 payment for a task considered to be impossible: "inception", the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious.

Inception

2010

Batman Begins poster
7.7

Driven by tragedy, billionaire Bruce Wayne dedicates his life to uncovering and defeating the corruption that plagues his home, Gotham City. Unable to work within the system, he instead creates a new identity, a symbol of fear for the criminal underworld - The Batman.

Batman Begins

2005

The Last Samurai poster
7.6

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 the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.

The Last Samurai

2003

Godzilla: King of the Monsters poster
6.7

Follows the heroic efforts of the crypto-zoological agency Monarch as its members face off against a battery of god-sized monsters, including the mighty Godzilla, who collides with Mothra, Rodan, and his ultimate nemesis, the three-headed King Ghidorah. When these ancient super-species, thought to be mere myths, rise again, they all vie for supremacy, leaving humanity's very existence hanging in the balance.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

2019

Pokémon Detective Pikachu poster
6.9

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.

Pokémon Detective Pikachu

2019

Transformers: Age of Extinction poster
6.0

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 ancient, powerful new menace sets Earth in its crosshairs. With help from Cade Yeager, Optimus Prime and the Autobots rise to meet their most fearsome challenge yet.

Transformers: Age of Extinction

2014

Godzilla poster
6.4

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. Soon, both men are swept up in an escalating crisis when an ancient alpha predator arises from the sea to combat malevolent adversaries that threaten the survival of humanity. The creatures leave colossal destruction in their wake, as they make their way toward their final battleground: San Francisco.

Godzilla

2014

Transformers: The Last Knight poster
6.1

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 of Transformers on Earth. Saving our world falls upon the shoulders of an unlikely alliance: Cade Yeager; Bumblebee; an English Lord; and an Oxford Professor.

Transformers: The Last Knight

2017

Isle of Dogs poster
7.8

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 soon embark on an epic journey when a 12-year-old boy arrives on the island to find his beloved pet.

Isle of Dogs

2018

The Creator poster
7.0

Amid a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife, is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war—and mankind itself.

The Creator

2023

Letters from Iwo Jima poster
7.5

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 fought it.

Letters from Iwo Jima

2006

Kokuho poster
7.8

Nagasaki, 1964: Following the death of his Yakuza father, 15-year-old Kikuo is taken under the wings of a famous Kabuki actor. Alongside Shunsuke, the actor’s only son, he decides to dedicate himself to this traditional form of theatre. For decades, the two young men grow and evolve together – and one will become the greatest Japanese master of the art of Kabuki.

Kokuho

2025

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant poster
5.9

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.

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

2009

Memoirs of a Geisha poster
7.6

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.

Memoirs of a Geisha

2005

Tampopo poster
7.8

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, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.

Tampopo

1985

The Sea of Trees poster
6.2

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.

The Sea of Trees

2016

Shanghai poster
6.1

An American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding.

Shanghai

2010

7 Guardians of the Tomb poster
5.3

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 buried.

7 Guardians of the Tomb

2018

Rage poster
6.9

A man brutally murders a married couple and leaves the word “ikari” (“rage”) written with their blood. The killer undergoes plastic surgery and flees. At three different locations in Japan, a male stranger appears. People suspect that the stranger might be the murderer.

Rage

2016

Fukushima 50 poster
6.5

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 is devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

Fukushima 50

2020

The Final Piece poster
7.7

Keisuke, a 10-year-old boy, living hard despite being abused by his father, finds a ray of light in the midst of his suffering and conflict ---- a shogi world where he fights quietly and passionately in his sharpened senses. Even though he gives up and tries to escape from the light, his passion for shogi continues to guide him thereafter. Eventually, he would learn the true meaning of life.

The Final Piece

2025

Memories of Tomorrow poster
6.1

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

Memories of Tomorrow

2006

Earth poster
7.6

An epic story of adventure, starring some of the most magnificent and courageous creatures alive, awaits you in EARTH. Disneynature brings you a remarkable story of three animal families on a journey across our planet – polar bears, elephants and humpback whales.

Earth

2007

Kensuke's Kingdom poster
7.2

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 up on a remote island, terrified, they struggle to survive and adjust to life alone, One day, Michael discovers he is not alone when he is confronted by a mysterious Japanese man who has lived there secretly since World War II, angry that Michael has arrived. However, as dangerous invaders threaten their fragile island paradise, Michael and the old man, Kensuke, join forces to save their secret world.

Kensuke's Kingdom

2024

Behind the camera