The Films of Akira Kurosawa is a 1965 academic book by Donald Richie, published by University of California Press.
This was the first English-language academic book about a Japanese film director's works, and about Kurosawa's in particular.
According to David Desser of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign stated that the work caters to a 1960s Westerner who did not have a lot of background on Japanese culture nor films from Japan.
[1] José M. de Vera, in a review of the first edition, stated that "we sometimes have the impression that Richie is all out to make things difficult" with a "less-experienced" person reading the book possibly having difficulty following the book; Vera contrasts this with The Japanese Movie: An Illustrated History, which he argues is much easier to follow.
[2] In 1998 Desser stated that the work "remains" the highest quality method to examine Kurosawa's whole collection of works; according to Desser the second and third editions of the book had a "tacked-on" aura and he characterized that as being unfortunate.