Her elder sister was married to film director Hisatora Kumagai, which gave her an entry into the world of the cinema: he encouraged her to drop out of school, which she did,[3] and then she went to work for Nikkatsu Studios in Tamagawa, outside Tokyo, in 1935.

However, in most of her movies, especially those directed by Yasujirō Ozu and Mikio Naruse she plays the typical Japanese woman, as either daughter, wife, or mother.

In Late Spring, she plays Noriko, a devoted daughter who prefers to stay at home and take care of her father than to marry, despite the urgings of her family members.

In Early Summer (1951), she played an unrelated character also called Noriko, who wanted to get married, and finds the courage to do so without her family’s approval.

This was followed by Tokyo Story (1953), perhaps her and Ozu's best-known film, in which she played a widow, also called Noriko whose husband was killed in the war.

[11] After seeing a Setsuko Hara film, the novelist Shūsaku Endō wrote: "We would sigh or let out a great breath from the depths of our hearts, for what we felt was precisely this: Can it be possible that there is such a woman in this world?

"[12] After more than half a century of seclusion, Hara died of pneumonia at a hospital in Kanagawa Prefecture, on 5 September 2015, at the age of 95.

[13][14][3] The anime film Millennium Actress (2001), directed by Satoshi Kon, is partly based on her life, although it was produced and released more than a decade prior to her death.