Kurosawa's film Rashomon, based on Akutagawa, released in Japan

In August 1950, the Daiei studio released Rashomon, directed by Akira Kurosawa, in Japanese cinemas. The screenplay, written by Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto, drew its plot mainly from Ryunosuke Akutagawa's 1922 short story "Yabu no Naka" ("In a Grove"). It borrowed the title and the ruined city-gate setting from Akutagawa's separate story "Rashomon".

The film follows the death of a samurai in a forest, told through conflicting accounts from a bandit, the samurai's wife, the dead man's spirit and a woodcutter. Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori and Takashi Shimura led the cast. Each version contradicts the others, so the truth is never settled.

At home the film was a modest success. Its wider fame came in 1951, when it won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. It later received an honorary Academy Award for a foreign-language film. Many critics credit it with introducing Japanese cinema to Western audiences, and its structure of clashing testimonies gave rise to the term "Rashomon effect". It also renewed interest in Akutagawa's original text.