Widely regarded as one of the world's greatest and most influential filmmakers, Ozu's work has continued to receive acclaim since his death.

In the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, Ozu's Tokyo Story was voted the third-greatest film of all time by critics world-wide.

[6] In 1920, at the age of 17, he was thrown out of the dormitory after being accused of writing a love letter to a good-looking boy in a lower class, and had to commute to school by train.

With his uncle acting as intermediary, Ozu was hired by the Shochiku Film Company, as an assistant in the cinematography department, on 1 August 1923, against the wishes of his father.

[7] In 1928, Shiro Kido, the head of the Shochiku studio, decided that the company would concentrate on making short comedy films without star actors.

In January 1930, he was entrusted with Shochiku's top star, Sumiko Kurishima, in her new year film, An Introduction to Marriage [jp].

[10] In 1935, Ozu made a short documentary with a soundtrack: Kagami Jishi, in which Kikugoro VI performed a Kabuki dance of the same title.

In the published diaries, reference to his group's participation in chemical warfare (in violation of the Geneva Protocol, though Japan had withdrawn from the League of Nations in 1933) can be found, for example, in various entries from March 1939.

In one passage, he reflects on the systemic manipulation of Chinese soldiers, comparing them to insects in a way that illustrates their perceived loss of individuality due to propaganda.

[14] Although operating as a military squad leader, Ozu retains his directorial perspective, once commenting that the initial shock and subsequent agony of a man as he is hacked to death is very much like its depiction in period films.

In a letter sent to friends in Japan on 11 April 1938, from Dingyuan County in China's Anhui Province, Ozu writes about the comfort station protocol in lightly coded terms.

[16] In a 13 January 1939 diary entry, Ozu writes more openly about his group's upcoming turn for use of a comfort station near Yingcheng.

He mentions that two tickets, ointment and prophylatics are provided, and that three Korean and twelve Chinese women were being held at the comfort station for their use.

[17] In 1939, he wrote the first draft of the script for The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice, but shelved it due to extensive changes insisted on by military censors.

[12] The first film Ozu made on his return was the critically and commercially successful Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family, released in 1941.

[18] During his time in Singapore, having little inclination to work, he spent an entire year reading, playing tennis and watching American films provided by the Army information corps.

[19] He occupied a fifth-floor room facing the sea in the Cathay Building where he entertained guests, drew pictures, and collected rugs.

[18][19] Ozu returned to Japan in February 1946, and moved back in with his mother, who had been staying with his sister in Noda in Chiba prefecture.

[21] Late Spring, the first of these films, was the beginning of Ozu's commercial success and the development of his cinematography and storytelling style.

In addition to Noda, other regular collaborators included cinematographer Yuharu Atsuta, along with the actors Chishū Ryū, Setsuko Hara and Haruko Sugimura.

His work was only rarely shown overseas before the 1960s; however, Tokyo Story gained recognition after winning the Sutherland Trophy at the 1958 London Film Festival.

[29] Ozu moved the camera less and less as his career progressed, and ceased using tracking shots altogether in his colour films.

[30] However, David Bordwell argues that Ozu is one of the few directors to "create a systematic alternative to Hollywood continuity cinema, but he does so by changing only a few premises.

In his review of Floating Weeds, film critic Roger Ebert recounts:[Ozu] once had a young assistant who suggested that perhaps he should shoot conversations so that it seemed to the audience that the characters were looking at one another.

"[34]Ozu was also an innovator in Japanese narrative structure through his use of ellipses, or the decision not to depict major events in the story.

This is typical of Ozu's films, which eschew melodrama by eliding moments that would often be used in Hollywood in attempts to stir an emotional reaction from audiences.

[36] Influential monographs by Donald Richie,[11] Paul Schrader,[37] and David Bordwell[38] have ensured a wide appreciation of Ozu's style, aesthetics, and themes by the Anglophonic audience.

[39] Ozu's Tokyo Story has appeared several times in the Sight & Sound poll of best films selected by critics and directors.

[43] In the Wim Wenders documentary film Tokyo-Ga, the director travels to Japan to explore the world of Ozu, interviewing both Chishū Ryū and Yuharu Atsuta.