Masahiro Shinoda

was a Japanese film director, whose career spanned over four decades and covered a wide range of genres and styles. He was one of the central figures of the Japanese New Wave during the 1960s and 1970s. He directed films for Shochiku Studio from 1960 to 1965, before turning to independent cinema from 1966 onward. His film style was characterized by socially marginalized characters, many of whom turn to crime or suicide, and meticulous attention to pictorial beauty. He drew on traditional Japanese fiction and theater and some of his films bear the influence of Kenji Mizoguchi, whom he admired.

Early life Shinoda was born on March 9, 1931, in Gifu Prefecture

Career Shinoda joined the Shōchiku Studio in 1953 as an assistant director, where he worked on films by such directors as Yasujirō Ozu. He debuted as a director in 1960 with One-Way Ticket for Love, which he also scripted. He also was interested in sports, directing a documentary on the 1972 Winter Olympics. He won the 1991 Japan Academy Prize for Director of the Year for Childhood Days. His film Moonlight Serenade (1997) was entered into the 47th Berlin International Film Festival. He also won the Izumi Kyōka Prize in 2010 for a novel (Shinoda himself had earlier adapted a Kyōka novel for the screen for the 1979 film Demon Pond). The pair had one daughter, the artist Yuko Shiraishi. In 1967 he married the actress Shima Iwashita, who appears in several of his films.

Filmography One-Way Ticket to Love (恋の片道切符) (1960) Kawaita mizuumi (乾いた湖) (Dry Lake a.k.a. Youth in Fury) (1960) Love New and Old (三味線とオートバイ) (1961) With Beauty and Sorrow (美しさと哀しみと) (1965)