The Eel (うなぎ, Unagi) is a 1997 film directed by Shohei Imamura and starring Kōji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Mitsuko Baisho, and Akira Emoto.

In Chiba Prefecture, Japan, acting on the advice of an anonymous note, Takuro Yamashita (Kōji Yakusho) returns home early one night to find his wife in bed with another man.

She starts developing romantic feelings for him, but he acts nonchalant and refuses the boxed lunches she prepares for him when he goes eel-hunting with the fisherman Jukichi Takada.

The police find that Keiko's mother never signed power of attorney papers for Dojima, but a parole violation meeting for Takuro causes him to be sent back to prison for a year.

Lawrence Van Gelder of The New York Times said that the film "swims with grace, insight and vast compassion", complimenting the "vivid" cast that allowed the director "not only to bare the passions that seethe beneath the orderly surface and apparent conformity of Japanese life but also to ponder emotions and issues that know no nationality.