was a Japanese film director. He was known for his versatility, having directed satires, melodramas, crime thrillers, and pinku films. His most acclaimed films include The Family Game (1983), Sorekara (1985), Haru (1996), and Lost Paradise (1997).
Self-taught, first making shorts on 8 mm film during the 1970s, he made his feature film debut with No YÃ Âna Mono (Something Like It, 1981).
In 1983 he won acclaim for his movie Kazoku GÃÂmu (The Family Game), which was voted the best film of the year by Japanese critics in the Kinema Junpo magazine poll. The magazine went on to vote it as the best Japanese film of the 1980s (in 2018) and as the 10th best Japanese film of all time (in 2009). This black comedy dealt with then-recent changes in the structure of Japanese home life. It also earned Morita the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award.
The director has been nominated for eight Japanese Academy Awards, winning the 2004 Best Director award for Ashura no Gotoku (Like Asura, 2003). He also won the award for best director at the 21st Yokohama Film Festival for 39 keihà  dai sanjà «kyà « jà  (Keiho, 2003) and the award for best screenplay at the 18th Yokohama Film Festival for Haru (1996). His 2007 film Sanjuro is a remake of the Kurosawa film.
According to film critic Saburà  Kawamoto in 1985, Morita's early features presented a new cinema and sensibility that represented âÂÂthe new human speciesâ of postmodern Japan. Morita's aesthetic was minimalistic, transparent, and featured empty landscapes with light and abstract characters. This was in direct contrast to the youth films of 1960s and 1970s in which the directors would aim for a fullness of sensuality, emotion, and physicality.
Yoshimitsu Morita died from acute liver failure in Tokyo in December 2011. His last film Bokutachi kyà «kà Â: A ressha de ikà  (Take the "A" Train, 2011), a romantic comedy about two male train enthusiasts, was released in Japan in March 2012.