For his contributions to the arts, the Japanese government decorated Shimura with the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 1974 and the Order of the Rising Sun, 4th Class, Gold Rays with Rosette in 1980.

In 1923, he entered Kansai University, but after his father's retirement the family could no longer afford the fees for a full-time course and he switched to the part-time evening course in English literature, supporting himself by working at the Osaka municipal waterworks.

Among the teachers in the English Literature Department were the playwright Toyo-oka Sa-ichirō (豊岡佐一郎) and the Shakespeare scholar Tsubouchi Shikō (坪内士行).

He joined the University's Theatre Studies Society and in 1928 formed an amateur theatrical group, the Shichigatsu-za (七月座) with Toyo-oka as director.

He toured China and Japan with the Kindaiza, but in 1932 he left the company and returned again to Osaka, where he appeared with the Shinseigeki (新声劇) and Shinsenza (新選座) troupes.

[5] The film which established his reputation as a first-rate actor was Itami Mansaku's 1936 Akanishi Kakita (赤西蠣太: Capricious Young Man).

During this time the political regime in Japan was growing ever more oppressive, and Shimura was arrested by the Special Higher Police (Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu, known as Tokkō) and held for about three weeks because of his earlier association with left-wing theatre groups.

In fact, Kurosawa's cinematic collaboration with Shimura, from Sanshiro Sugata in 1943 to Kagemusha in 1980, started earlier and lasted longer than his work with Mifune (1948–65).

Shimura appeared in a number of Tōhō kaiju (giant monster) and tokusatsu (special effects) films, many of which were directed by Kurosawa's good friend and colleague Ishirō Honda.