Date of birth: 1959-10-21
Place of birth: Uonuma, Niigata, Japan
Known for: Acting
Also known as: 渡邊謙, 渡辺 謙, کِن واتانابه, ک ِن واتانابه
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.
2005-06-10
Driven by tragedy, billionaire Bruce Wayne dedicates his life to uncovering and defeating the corrup
2006-12-09
The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II
2003-12-05
Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, whic
1985-11-23
In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside
2009-10-23
When Darren Shan is taken to a circus that's chock-full of sideshow oddities, he meets a vampire and
2010-07-15
Cobb, a skilled thief who commits corporate espionage by infiltrating the subconscious of his target
2010-06-10
An American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and
2003-01-11
At the turn of the 20th Century amongst tension between China and Japan, a Japanese swindler in Shan
2000-04-08
Three bank robbers, who declare themselves to be Space Travelers, take six persons as hostages when
2023-09-27
Amid a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, a hardened ex-sp
2013-09-13
An old swordsman, his former comrade and a young braggart are hired by prostitutes to track down ban
2014-05-14
Ford Brody, a Navy bomb expert, has just reunited with his family in San Francisco when he is forced
2006-05-13
After being stricken with Alzheimer's disease in the prime of his life, a successful young businessm
1986-01-01
Documentary about the making of Juzo Itami's film "Tampopo" (1985).
2020-10-31
2009-10-23
Onchi was exiled to posts around Asia and Africa due to his work as head of a labor union for Nation
2010-10-11
"A School Behind Bars" centers around Asahi Junior High School, which is located within Nagano Matsu
2005-01-14
In 1868, after the fall of the Shogun-dominated Japan, the new government orders people from Awaji,
2012-02-11
In May 2003, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (or JAXA) launched an unmanned spacecraft of the
2002-06-16
A Japanese film that tells the tale of the birth of VHS. It follows Kagatani Shizuo, an electronics
2007-10-10
An epic story of adventure, starring some of the most magnificent and courageous creatures alive, aw
2014-06-25
As humanity picks up the pieces after the battle of Chicago, a shadowy group reveals itself in an at
2023-11-14
Join director Gareth Edwards and crew for nearly an hour look behind the scenes. Hear from actors ab
2000-07-07
Director Jun Ichikawa spins this affectionate portrait of the people who populate Shimokitazawa, a b
2001-02-03
When corporate executives are blackmailed into public displays of nudity on the busy streets of Shin
1986-10-17
Two interns and a nurse are interrogated by American MPs for their involvement in an atrocity during
2017-01-28
Dirty, Clean and Inbetween is a Sex and The City for guys, with a delightful mix of Entourage, Suits
1984-06-23
In this drama at the end of World War II, the inhabitants of a small Japanese fishing village must c
2014-09-30
The definitive feature-length documentary on the creation of "Transformers: Age of Extinction".
1993-01-01
During Tenpo period, Bakuhu announced a law regulating expenditures in order to improve the financia
2024-05-06
TV Tokyo's 60th anniversary special drama. This is a human drama about a doctor struggling with his
2017-06-16
Humans and Transformers are at war. Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried
2014-08-02
A blackmail arrives at Appi ski resort. “We demand 30,000,000 yen as consolation money for the destr
2016-09-17
A man brutally murders a married couple and leaves the word “ikari” (“rage”) written with their bloo
1992-01-01
In the 16th Year of Keityo (1611), the lord of Ogura Castle in Kyushu admitted Sasaki Kojiro's becau
1985-06-15
A 19-year-old girl Hiroko Terasawa working in a matching agency promises her client Masakazu Sekine
2016-04-27
In Japan's Aokigahara Forest, a troubled teacher meets a mysterious lost stranger who takes him on a
1987-01-01
The leader of a group of American commandos has 5 days to kidnap a VC General to prove his innocence
2011-01-01
Japanese TV movie
1992-01-05
Among the great ‘Warlords’ in Japanese history, Oda Nobunaga holds a unique place. In effect, his mi
1992-12-23
In a maelstrom of evil, can a new magistrate, samurai Mochizuki Koheita, with a reputation like an a
2019-05-29
Follows the heroic efforts of the crypto-zoological agency Monarch as its members face off against a
2019-05-03
In a world where people collect pocket-size monsters (Pokémon) to do battle, a boy comes across an i
2018-03-23
In the future, an outbreak of canine flu leads the mayor of a Japanese city to banish all dogs to an
2018-09-13
A famous opera singer is held hostage in South America by a guerrilla rebel group after performing a
2020-03-06
Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi facility in Japan risk their lives and stay at the nuclear power pl
2017-01-08
Taro's business failed and he got divorced. He also left his family's home. 5 years later, his oldes
2018-11-29
Widowed Welsh mother Anna Loenowens becomes a governess and English tutor to the wives and many chil
2024-02-07
A young boy and his family set off on a sailing trip of a lifetime until a violent storm erupts, swe
1998-06-06
Tetsuro Haga is a troubled gangster, living under the assumed identity Ise for ten years, to escape
1997-11-08
A love story written by an ordinary housewife is going to be broadcast as a radio drama and almost e
1990-12-26
Fujieda Baian is admired during the day as a skilled acupuncturist. However, his nighttime persona i
1993-10-06
Fujieda Baian is admired during the day as a skilled acupuncturist. However, at night, he is a highl
2005-12-06
In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a ma
2018-01-19
An innocent discovery of a well-preserved mummified Emperor from 200 BC China unearths a 2000 year o
2003-02-15
Katsunori Takahashi and Ken Watanabe star in a modern yakuza tale in the classic Japanese film serie
2019-03-30
In the face of the misery in his homeland, the artist Masuji Ono was unwilling to devote his art sol
1991-07-06
In the last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, there was a cute warrior, Souji Okita, who belonged to t
2025-06-06
Nagasaki, 1964 – Following the death of his yakuza father, 15-year-old Kikuo is taken under the wing
2025-10-31
Keisuke, a 10-year-old boy, living hard despite being abused by his father, finds a ray of light in
2007-05-22
Documentary on the making of Clint Eastwood's film 'Letters from Iwo Jima'.
2026-02-27
2025-09-18