A frequent collaborator of Akira Kurosawa, he wrote the scripts for critically acclaimed films such as Rashomon and Seven Samurai.

In 1938 he enlisted in the army, but became ill with tuberculosis while still training and spent four years in a veterans' sanitarium.

The magazine sparked his interest in screenwriting and he began a screenplay about his army experience, spending three years on the project.

[7] Hashimoto wrote more than eighty screenplays,[8] including Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai (1950), Throne of Blood (a 1957 adaptation of Macbeth set in Japan),[5] and The Hidden Fortress (1958).

[8] In a tribute article for TIME magazine, film director Antoine Fuqua expressed his respect for Hashimoto as a screenwriter stating: "(Hashimoto's) … working with Akira Kurosawa and Hideo Oguni, was so beautiful and poetic and powerful and heartbreaking.