Name
Ken Watanabe
Known For
Acting
Birthday
1959-10-21 (67 years old)
Place of Birth
Uonuma, Niigata, Japan
Biography
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.
Known For
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Driven by tragedy, billionaire Bruce Wayne dedicates his life to uncovering and defeating ...
6.692
Follows the heroic efforts of the crypto-zoological agency Monarch as its members face off...
5.971
As humanity picks up the pieces after the battle of Chicago, a shadowy group reveals itsel...
7.609
Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern war...
7.036
Amid a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, a hard...
6.059
Humans and Transformers are at war. Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future li...
6.904
In a world where people collect pocket-size monsters (Pokémon) to do battle, a boy comes ...
7.847
In the future, an outbreak of canine flu leads the mayor of a Japanese city to banish all ...
- 2005 Batman Begins as Ra's al Ghul
- 2006 Letters from Iwo Jima as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi
- 2003 The Last Samurai as Moritsugu Katsumoto
- 1985 Tampopo as Gun
- 2009 Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant as Mr. Tall
- 2010 Inception as Saito
- 2010 Shanghai as Tanaka
- 2003 T.R.Y. as Masanobu Azuma
- 2000 Space Travelers as Sakamaki ("Crusher")
- 2003 第三の時効
- 2023 The Creator as Harun
- 2013 Unforgiven as Jubee Kamata
- 2014 Godzilla as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa
- 2006 Memories of Tomorrow as Masayuki Saeki
- 1986 The Making of "Tampopo" as Self
- 2020 劇場の灯を消すな！PARCO劇場編
- 2009 The Unbroken as Hajime Onchi
- 2010 A School Behind Bars
- 2005 Year One in the North as Komatsubara Hideaki
- 2012 Hayabusa: The Long Voyage Home as Junichiro Kawaguchi
- 2002 Dawn of a New Day: The Man Behind VHS as Okubo
- 2007 Earth as Narrator (voice)
- 2014 Transformers: Age of Extinction as Drift (voice)
- 2023 True Love: Making The Creator as Self
- 2000 The Whispered City as Ishida
- 2001 Drowning Fish as Miyota
- 1986 The Sea and Poison as Toda
- 2017 Dirty, Clean, & Inbetween as Restaurant Patron
- 1984 MacArthur's Children as Tetsuo Nakai
- 2014 Evolution Within Extinction as Self
- 1993 Hanzo, the Razor
- 2024 All Lives
- 2017 Transformers: The Last Knight as Drift (voice)
- 2014 Snow Jack as Reiji Kurata
- 2016 Rage as Yohei Maki
- 1992 Ganryujima: Kojiro and Musashi as Kojirō
- 1985 Kekkon Annai Mystery
- 2016 The Sea of Trees as Takumi Nakamura
- 1987 Commando Invasion
- 2011 Ai inochi - Shinjuku Kabukicho Kakekomi Dera -
- 1992 Oda Nobunaga
- 1992 Chronicle of the Town Magistrate as Mochizuki Koheita
- 2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa
- 2019 Pokémon Detective Pikachu as Lieutenant Hide Yoshida
- 2018 Isle of Dogs as Head Surgeon (voice)
- 2018 Bel Canto as Katsumi Hosokawa
- 2020 Fukushima 50 as Masao Yoshida
- 2017 The Memories of Happiness as Taro Miura
- 2018 The King and I as The King of Siam
- 2024 Kensuke's Kingdom as Kensuke (voice)
- 1998 Bonds as Detective Sako Akio
- 1997 Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald as Raita Onuki
- 1990 Baian the Assassin as Dr. Baian
- 1993 Baian the Assassin: Showdown as Dr. Baian
- 2005 Memoirs of a Geisha as Le président
- 2018 7 Guardians of the Tomb as Father
- 2003 Another Battle/Conspiracy as Fujimaki Hiroaki
- 2019 An Artist of the Floating World as Ono Masuji
- 1991 A Naive History of the Bakumatsu Era as Ryoma Sakamoto
- 2025 Kokuho as Hanjiro Hanai
- 2025 The Final Piece as Shigeyoshi Toumyo
- 2007 Red Sun, Black Sand: The Making of 'Letters from Iwo Jima' as Self
- 2026 Samurai Vengeance as Kinji Shinoda
- 2025 LA PANTHÈRE DE CARTIER
- 2007 星ひとつの夜 as Nonoyama Hiroji
- 1991 Takeda Shingen as Narrator
- 2001 Love of a Thousand Years - Story of Genji
- 2005 Ashes and Snow as Japanese Narrator (voice)
- 2008 ツナガルココロ 3 LOVE STORIES
- 2000 Ikebukuro West Gate Park ( 11 episodes ) as Yokoyama
- 1993 Kagi-shi ( 1 episode )
- 1989 Oda Nobunaga ( 1 episode )
- 2004 Vessel of Sand ( 11 episodes ) as Shuichiro Imanishi
- 1990 Yonimo Kimyou na Monogatari Tokubetsuhen ( 5 episodes )
- 2003 川、いつか海へ 6つの愛の物語 ( 6 episodes )
- 2017 NHK WORLD PRIME ( 1 episode ) as Self - Presenter
- 2002 横山秀夫サスペンス シリーズ (TBS) ( 6 episodes )
- 1987 Masamune Shogun ( 50 episodes ) as 伊達政宗
- 2018 Segodon ( 17 episodes ) as Shimazu Nariakira
- 2002 強行犯捜査第七係 ( 1 episode )
- 1992 Izakaya Chōji ( 1 episode )
- 1995 Gokenin Zankuro ( 8 episodes ) as Zankuro Matsudaira
- 1992 Waga Machi ( 10 episodes )
- 2022 Tokyo Vice ( 18 episodes ) as Hiroto Katagiri
- 2002 Mibu Gishiden: Shinsengumi de Ichiban Tsuyokatta Otoko ( 4 episodes )
- 1991 Baian the Assassin ( 5 episodes ) as Fujieda Baian
- 2016 五年目のひとり ( 1 episode ) as 키자키 슈지
- 1998 Shimei Tehai ( 4 episodes )
- 2014 Back of Father ( 1 episode ) as Takamura Kouji
- 2003 藤田宜永サスペンス「異端の夏」 ( 1 episode )
- 1986 Hanekonma ( 156 episodes ) as Genzo Onodera
- 2001 Hojo Tokimune ( 49 episodes ) as Hojo Tokiyori
- 1993 The Fire Still Burns ( 35 episodes ) as Fujiwara Tsunekiyo
- 2020 Toubousha ( 2 episodes )
- 2011 Gyoretsuno dekiru sodanjo ( 1 episode ) as Regular
- 1990 Musuko no Gokikan ( 2 episodes )
- 2025 Unbound ( 48 episodes ) as Tamema Okitsugu
- 2025 TRUE COLORS ( 9 episodes ) as Taichirou Tsujimura
- 1984 A Tale of Two Truncheons ( 13 episodes )
- 2020 Alice in Borderland ( 1 episode ) as Old Gentleman
- 2009 刑事一代 平塚八兵衛の昭和事件史 ( 1 episode )
- 2026 Kyotojin no Hisokana Tanoshimi Rouge: Keisho ( 9 episodes ) as 東雲朔太郎
- 2015 The Secret Lives of Kyoto Folk ( 9 episodes ) as 東雲朔太郎
