He made primarily shōshimin-eiga ("common people drama") films with female protagonists, portrayed by actresses such as Hideko Takamine, Kinuyo Tanaka, and Setsuko Hara.

Titled a "major figure of Japan's golden age"[5] and "supremely intelligent dramatist",[6] he remains lesser known than his contemporaries Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Ozu.

He entered Shirō Kido's Shōchiku film studio in the 1920s as a light crew assistant and was soon assigned to comedy director Yoshinobu Ikeda.

His debut film, the short slapstick comedy Mr. and Mrs. Swordplay (Chanbara fūfū), was edited by Heinosuke Gosho who tried to support the young filmmaker.

[7] In 1933–1934, he directed a series of silent melodramas, Apart From You, Every-Night Dreams, and Street Without End, which centered on women confronted with hostile environments and practical responsibilities, and demonstrated "a considerable stylistic virtuosity" (Alexander Jacoby).

[9] During the war years, Naruse kept to what his biographer Catherine Russell referred to as "safe projects", including "home front films" like Sincerity.

The 1951 Repast marked a return for the director and was the first of a series of adaptations of works of female writer Fumiko Hayashi,[5][6] including Lightning (1952) and Floating Clouds (1955).

Late Chrysanthemums (1954), based on short stories by Hayashi, centered on four former geisha and their attempts to cope with financial restraints in post-war Japan.

Sound of the Mountain (1954), a portrayal of a marriage falling apart, and Flowing (1956), which follows the decline of a once flourishing geisha house, were based on novels by Yasunari Kawabata and Aya Kōda.

In the 1960s, Naruse's output decreased in number (partially owed to illness),[7] while film historians at the same time detect an increase of sentimentality[9] and "a more spectacular mode of melodrama" (Russell).

[7] When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960) tells the story of an aging bar hostess trying to start her own business, A Wanderer's Notebook (1964) follows the life of writer Fumiko Hayashi.

Hideko Takamine said years later that she never went to the funeral or his grave since she wanted her last memory of him to be "that of the healthy-looking face with the gentle smile that I saw when I visited his house in Seijo [District, Tokyo]."

"[14] Tatsuya Nakadai recalled one instant during the filming of When a Woman Ascends the Stairs where Naruse yelled at an assistant director for drawing a cardboard eye to indicate the point of reference of Hideko Takamine's eyeline.