A village needs protection for bandits. They recruit seven expert fighters to keep them safe. Using this simple premise, Japanese director Akira Kurosawa more or less invents modern action moviemaking, choreographing everything from one-on-one sparring to a full-blown siege with an eye toward character, drama, and advancing the story. Its climactic battle in a rainstorm is deservedly studied by film students and veteran filmmakers, because Kurosawa cracked the code on how to use sound (or silence) and fury to delivering both emotional payoffs and adrenaline rushes. All that, plus Toshiro Freakin’ Mifune. And though this classic inspired its share of ingenious genre-switched remakes (1960’s The Magnificent Seven) and amped-up redos (Takashi Miike’s 2010 eye-popping 13 Assassins), in terms of scale and fury, you simply can not beat the original.