Japanese film director Nagisa Oshima in a file photo dated July 1, 1992. [File Photo: CFP]

Japanese filmmaker Nagisa Oshima has died from pneumonia, aged 80.

The Hollywood Reporter says Oshima passed away on Tuesday, January 15, 2013, in Fujisawa, south of Tokyo, where he'd been living since he stopped making films.

The groundbreaking director was a pioneer of the 1960s new wave of Japanese cinema.

He won a best director award in 1978 for "Empire of Passion" but it was "In the Realm of the Senses" that won him global notoriety.

The 1976 film, which was censored in Japan, was a graphic portrayal of an intense love affair between a hotel owner and one of his maids in the 1930s.

Oshima famously collaborated with British singer David Bowie in the 1983 film "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" and his last film was "Taboo" about a gay samurai.