Plot Summary (Rashomon) Rashomon
Three men shelter from a downpour at a ruined gate
In Heian-era Kyoto, torrential rain batters the half-collapsed Rashomon gate. A woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) and a Buddhist priest (Minoru Chiaki) sit in stunned silence, having just come from a murder trial. A commoner (Kichijiro Ueda) joins them, seeking shelter and conversation. The woodcutter says he has witnessed something he cannot comprehend. The priest agrees: in all his years, he has never encountered anything so disturbing. The commoner settles in and asks them to explain.
The woodcutter found the body in the forest
Three days earlier, the woodcutter was walking through a forest when he discovered signs of violence — a woman's hat, a man's cap, cut rope, an amulet case. Then he found a samurai's corpse. He ran to the police.
The priest saw the couple on the road
The priest testifies that he passed a samurai, Takehiro Kanazawa (Masayuki Mori), traveling on foot with his wife Masago (Machiko Kyo) on horseback. It was the day of the murder. He noticed the woman's face was veiled.
A policeman captured the bandit Tajomaru
A policeman (Daisuke Kato) testifies that he captured the notorious bandit Tajomaru (Toshiro Mifune) after finding him groaning beside a riverbank, thrown from a stolen horse. The samurai's sword and the woman's horse were in his possession.
Tajomaru's testimony: he killed the samurai in a fair duel
Tajomaru tells the court he saw the couple passing through the forest. A breeze lifted the woman's veil, and her beauty overwhelmed him. He lured the samurai off the path with a story about buried treasure, ambushed him, and tied him to a tree. He then brought the woman to see her bound husband and assaulted her. Afterward, the woman demanded that one of the two men must die — she could not bear the shame of two men knowing her disgrace. Tajomaru freed the samurai and they fought. He claims they crossed swords twenty-three times — an honorable duel between equals — and he killed the samurai. When he turned back, the woman had fled. He took the samurai's sword and left.
The wife's testimony: she killed her husband in a trance
Masago tells a different story. After the rape, Tajomaru departed immediately. She approached her bound husband, dagger in hand, wanting comfort — but his eyes held only cold contempt. That look of loathing was worse than the assault itself. She begged him to stop staring at her that way. She approached with the dagger, fainted, and when she awoke, the dagger was buried in her husband's chest. She tried to kill herself — she threw herself into a pond — but could not manage to die.
The dead samurai's testimony: he killed himself out of despair
Through a spirit medium (Noriko Honma), the dead samurai Takehiro delivers his own account. After the rape, Tajomaru consoled the woman and asked her to be his wife. To the samurai's shock, she agreed — but then demanded that Tajomaru kill her husband first. Even the bandit was appalled by this request. Tajomaru turned to the samurai and asked what he should do with the woman — kill her or let her go. For that moment, the samurai was ready to forgive the bandit. The wife broke free and fled. Tajomaru pursued her but returned empty-handed and cut the samurai loose. Alone, grieving, the samurai picked up his wife's dagger and stabbed himself in the chest. As he died, someone approached and pulled the dagger from his body.
The woodcutter reveals he saw the whole thing
Back at the Rashomon gate, the commoner presses for the truth. The woodcutter admits he witnessed the entire crime but lied to the court because he did not want to get involved. His version differs from all three testimonies. After the rape, Tajomaru begged the woman to marry him. She cut her husband's bonds instead, expecting him to defend her honor. But the samurai refused to fight for a woman who had been "disgraced." Tajomaru, no longer interested in a woman her own husband had rejected, retracted his proposal. The wife then mocked both men, taunting them for their cowardice, until they stumbled into a fight — not the heroic duel Tajomaru described, but a clumsy, terrified sword battle between two men who did not want to die. The samurai fell. Both the wife and the bandit fled separately.
The commoner exposes the woodcutter's own lie
The commoner observes that the wife's dagger — an expensive pearl-inlaid weapon mentioned in every testimony — was never recovered. The woodcutter claimed only a sword killed the samurai, but the dagger disappeared. The commoner deduces that the woodcutter stole it. The woodcutter cannot deny it: the man who presented himself as an impartial witness had his own reason to lie.
An abandoned baby restores the priest's faith
A baby's cry interrupts the argument. The three men find an infant abandoned at the gate, wrapped in a kimono with an amulet. The commoner strips the baby of its clothes and amulet — survival is survival, he says. The woodcutter confronts him, and the commoner fires back: a man who stole a dagger from a corpse has no moral authority. The commoner leaves. The woodcutter reaches for the baby, and the priest recoils — but the woodcutter explains he already has six children, and one more will make no difference. The priest says this act of compassion has restored his faith in humanity. The rain stops. The woodcutter walks away with the baby into clearing skies.