Keisuke Kinoshita (木下 惠介, Kinoshita Keisuke, December 5, 1912 – December 30, 1998) was a Japanese film director.

Hugely popular in his home country of Japan, Keisuke Kinoshita worked tirelessly as a director for nearly half a century, making lyrical, sentimental films that often center on the inherent goodness of people, especially in times of distress. He began his directing career during a most challenging time for Japanese cinema: World War II, when the industry’s output was closely monitored by the state and often had to be purely propagandistic. He refused to be bound by genre, technique, or dogma. Kinoshita excelled in almost every genre: comedy, tragedy, social dramas, period films. He shot all films on location or in a one-house set. He pursued severe photographic realism with the long take, long-shot method, and went equally far toward stylization with fast cutting, intricate wipes, tilted cameras, and even classical scroll-painting and Kabuki stage technique.

Kinoshita was highly prolific, turning out some 42 films in the first 23 years of his career. For this, Kinoshita explained that he "can’t help it. Ideas for films have always just popped into my head like scraps of paper into a wastebasket." While lesser-known internationally than contemporaries such as Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujirō Ozu, he was a household figure in his home country, beloved by both critics and audiences from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Although few concrete details have emerged about Kinoshita's personal life, his homosexuality was widely known in the film world. Screenwriter and frequent collaborator Yoshio Shirasaka recalls the "brilliant scene" Kinoshita made with the handsome, well-dressed assistant directors he surrounded himself with. His 1959 film Farewell to Spring (Sekishuncho) has been called "Japan's first gay film" for the emotional intensity depicted between its male characters.

Kinoshita received the Order of the Rising Sun in 1984 and was awarded the Order of Culture in 1991 by the Japanese government. He died on December 30, 1998, of a stroke. His grave is in Engaku-ji in Kamakura, very near to that of his fellow Shochiku director, Yasujirō Ozu.

木下惠介，日本著名的抒情派导演，与黑泽明、小林正树、市川昆并称为四骑士。。曾就读于东方照相专科学校，1933年进入松竹电影公司蒲田制片厂任摄影助手，1936年转入导演部任助理导演。1943年成为导演，拍摄了第一部影片《热闹的码头》，一举成功。1946年导演的《大曾根家的早晨》是其成名之作，被《电影旬报》评为当年10部最佳影片第一名。木下惠介善于喜剧的创作，但他的重要作品多为反映日本政治、社会等问题的悲剧片。1954年自编自导的《二十四只眼睛》是他最有代表性的作品之一，影片描述了12个孩子与女教师之间的感情，影片将个人的悲剧融入剧情，十分生动感人，是一部难得的佳作。1967-1976年，他离开松竹公司，一直没有拍片。1979年的《冲动杀人，儿子啊！》和次年编剧兼导演的《父亲啊，母亲啊！》均为描写日本现实社会中青少年犯罪问题的佳作。《电影旬报》于1986年邀请了四十位作家和影评人推选出松竹公司20部最佳作品，结果木下惠介的作品上榜最多，压倒了小津安二郎。这说明了木下在日本本土享有极高的声誉，日本人和不少影评人心目中甚至远超黑泽明，而风格上他也与后者的男性化与豪壮不一样，而倾向温驯的、纯真的女性化色彩，“一个阳刚雄浑之美，一得阴柔纤细之美”，可说是各有千秋。