While taking his class out for an excursion one day, one of his pupils drowns after running off with a classmate on a secret boat trip.

Ryohei has thoughts of quitting his teaching job to join his father at Tokyo, but Shuhei rebukes him for not doing what his duty decrees.

Together with retired headmaster Makoto Hirata (Takeshi Sakamoto), Shuhei attends a get-together with his former pupils and the group reminisce about their school days.

[4] There Was a Father placed second in the Kinema Junpo's annual critics' poll of Japan's Best Ten films.

"[6] Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote, "In such chilling nuances as Shuhei’s silent grief, his rigid deference to authority, his joyful anticipation of Ryohei’s military service, and Ryohei’s serene lessons on the destructive power of TNT, Ozu reveals a society heading blindly toward the abyss and destroying its future in the name of the past.