Last month marked the 100th birthday of Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, whose name is a mainstay of "best and most influential directors of all time" lists. Aggrandized by everyone from New Hollywood directors like Martin Scorsese and George Lucas to international auteurs like Federico Fellini and Ingemar Bergman, the Tokyo native's entrenched status as a master is unquestioned.

His films include the mind-bending "Rashomon" (1950), the epic "Seven Samurai" (1954), and the gorgeously violent "Throne of Blood" (1957), a Japanese take on Shakespeare's "Macbeth." These have become standards of "must-see art cinema" that every serious film student sees and studies at least once.

Digging deeper into Kurosawa's catalog and going further than "the ones everyone has seen" will lead you to films such as "Ikiru" (1952), "Yojimbo" (1961), "Sanjuro" (1962), and "Ran" (1985) -- all classics worth studying in their own right. "Hidden Fortress" (1958) is also recognized as Lucas' principal inspiration for the original "Star Wars."

With Criterion Collection releasing a 25-film box set of the director's work, it's a wonderful opportunity to look at his lesser-known films. He is not a director whose work exhausts itself after you've seen the established standards. If you watched "Seven Samurai" or "Ikiru" and enjoyed them, it's a rewarding experience to pursue some of his less-popular films -- and thanks to Criterion, they're now much easier to find.

The standout of his pre-"Rashomon" work is the ingenious film noir "Stray Dog" (1949), in which Toshiro Mifune (Kurosawa's frequent leading man) portrays a young and naive policeman whose gun is stolen on his first day of duty. An engrossing detective story that revolves around the retrieval of the missing weapon, the film also touches on the psychological and sociopolitical themes that would resurface in his later work -- justice, duty and the limits of human solidarity. While he is typically remembered for his sweeping historical epics (what the Japanese call jidaigeki) like "Seven Samurai" and "Throne of Blood," "Stray Dog" illustrates Kurosawa's grace at handling a contemporary urban crime story.

This atmosphere is used again in "High and Low" (1963) - one of his best and my favorite. The first half is a taut, noir-ish thriller that concerns the kidnapping of a wealthy businessman's son -- with Mifune giving one of his most believable and intense performances as the distraught father. The second half is a suspenseful police procedural about the apprehension of the kidnappers. Even though it clocks in at over two-and-a-half hours, the film races by because of its fast pace and complex, yet manageable, plot. In my opinion, it is the most engrossing and swiftly executed story to be found in Kurosawa's work. "High and Low" is intelligent, wildly entertaining, and socially and politically meaningful without the symbolism being obvious or pretentious.

The film immediately following "High and Low," "Red Beard" (1965), is perhaps Kurosawa's most under-appreciated gem. The epic (even longer than "Seven Samurai") about an elderly physician showing his naive apprentice the ways of the world was a major turning point in Kurosawa's career: It was the last film he made in black-and-white, the last film (of 15) with the aging Toshiro Mifune, and the last for his longtime studio employer, Toho. Principal photography took two years to complete, and it was the most expensive film Kurosawa had made up until that time. The director was devastated when the film opened to lukewarm reviews and mediocre box-office success; Kurosawa's work was considered old-fashioned with the coming of Japanese New Wave directors like Shohei Imamura and Nagisa Oshima, as well as more explicitly violent samurai films like Kihachi Okamoto's "The Sword of Doom" (1965).

While it didn't achieve even a tenth of the popularity of films like "Rashomon" and "Throne of Blood," "Red Beard" is just as beautifully crafted and ingeniously cinematic. Moving at a slow yet satisfying pace, the film develops its characters with a remarkably subtle grace that can't be found in any other Kurosawa film. Roger Ebert has pointed out that the film's meticulous structure and richly drawn characters are reminiscent of 19th-century Russian novelists like Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy, who are Kurosawa's principal influences as a storyteller (he filmed a version of Dostoyevsky's "The Idiot" in 1951). In contrast with the bloody and action-packed reputation of Kurosawa's more well-known films like "Yojimbo" and "The Hidden Fortress," "Red Beard" is quiet and melodic. Here, we can feel the influence of Kurosawa's favorite Japanese director, Kenji Mizoguchi (whose "Ugetsu" (1952) and "Sansho the Bailiff" (1954) are introductory classics of world cinema).

Following his departure from Toho Studios, Kurosawa independently financed "Dodes'ka-den" (1970) with the help of a few friends and fellow directors. His first use of color, the film is a multi-narrative pastiche revolving around various inter-connected characters living in a rundown tenement in the slums of Tokyo (similar to his earlier film "The Lower Depths" in 1958, an adaptation of the play by Maxim Gorky and another hidden gem). The film was a critical and commercial disaster, ensuring that the independent artists' studio that Kurosawa and his friends formed would never make another film. (The failure would also lead Kurosawa to a suicide attempt.) Still largely ignored to this day, the film deserves another look. Although it doesn't compare to the mastery of his earlier work, it's a watchable and meaningful reflection of Kurosawa's consistent theme -- the impossibility of human dignity in a harsh and brutal world.

"Dersu Uzala" (1975), a film he made in Russia during what was essentially an exile from Japanese cinema, is just at heartfelt and under-appreciated. (Although it won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, it remains relatively obscure today.) It's a tender and enthralling story about a party of explorers who befriend an aboriginal tribesman as he guides them through the harsh wilderness. Even in a country and a language not his own, Kurosawa's touch is evident in the masterfully composed frames and the familiar theme of human decency vs. modern life (illustrated by the explorers' tragic attempt to "civilize" the kind-hearted and humble native).

With the exception of a few very early attempts ("Sanshiro Sugata," Parts I and II, from 1943 and 1945, respectively), I have not come across a film directed by Kurosawa that can be justifiably skipped over and ignored. "Seven Samurai" and "Rashomon" are obvious classics, but his lesser-known works are just as rewarding and worthy of study, especially overlooked masterworks like "High and Low" and "Red Beard." Other films worth a look include "The Bad Sleep Well" (1960) -- a contemporary re-imagining of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" -- and a surreal catalog of cinematic episodes called "Dreams" (1990).