Masaki Kobayashi was a Japanese film director, best known for the epic trilogy The Human Condition (1959–1961), the samurai film Seppuku (1962), and Ghost Stories (1964).

Kobayashi studied ancient oriental arts and philosophy. Kobayashi embarked on a career in film in 1941 when he entered Shochiku Studios as an apprentice director, but his career was almost immediately interrupted when he was drafted into the army and sent to Manchuria.

Kobayashi regarded himself as a pacifist. His way of resisting was to refuse promotion to a rank higher than private. He spent time as a prisoner of war in an Okinawa camp. After his release, in 1946, he returned to Shochiku as assistant to the director Keisuke Kinoshita.

Kobayashi was a second cousin of the actress and director Kinuyo Tanaka.