Education: Waseda University (theater)
Former student activist and stage talent whose film directing career (his first success was La Symphonie pastorale, 1938) was interrupted when he was drafted into WWII. In the post-war years Yamamoto came into his own as one of Japan's leading political directors, with a series of engaging left-wing exercises, notably The Street Without Sun (1954).

Hij voerde de regie over de navolgende films:
1938 La Symphonie pastorale
1939 The Street
1940 End of Engagement
1942 Tsubasa no gaika
1943 Hot Wind
1945 War and Peace
1950 The Street of Violence
1951 Storm Clouds Over Mount Hakone
1952 Vacuum Zon
1954 The Street Without Sun
1956 Avalanche
1956 Typhoondirector
1959 The Human Wall
1960 Battle Without Arms
1962 A Band of Assassins
1963 Red Water
1964 Tycoon
1965 The Spy
1966 Freezing Point
1968 The Bride From Hades
1974 The Family
1975 Annular Eclipse director
1976 The Story of Yugaku Ohara
1977 The Barren Ground
1978 August Without the Emperor
1980 Ah! Nomugi Toge