1959年(昭和34年)にジョセフ・アンダーソンとともに The Japanese Film: Art and Industry という、英語による日本映画史研究書を上梓。1960年代に、黒澤明、溝口健二や小津安二郎を積極的に海外に紹介し、飯村隆彦、大林宣彦らとともに結成した「フィルム・アンデパンダン」に参加し、実験映画作家としても活躍した[4]。
Botandoro: Stories, Fables, Parables and Allegories: A Miscellany (paperback), Printed Matter Press; 2008; ISBN 978-1-933606-16-3
Travels in the East (paperback). Stone Bridge Press. 2007. ISBN 978-1933330617.
A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics (paperback). Stone Bridge Press. 2007. ISBN 978-1933330235.
Japanese Portraits: Pictures of Different People (Tuttle Classics of Japanese Literature) (paperback). Tuttle Publishing. 2006. ISBN 978-0804837729.
Tokyo Nights (paperback). Printed Matter Press; 2005; ISBN 1-933606-00-2
A Hundred Years of Japanese Film: A Concise History, with a Selective Guide to DVDs and Videos (paperback). Kodansha International. 2005. ISBN 978-4770029959.
The Japan Journals: 1947-2004 (paperback). Stone Bridge Press. 2005. ISBN 978-1880656976.
A View from the Chuo Line and Other Stories (paperback), Printed Matter Press, 2004, ISBN 4900178276
Japanese Literature Reviewed (hardcover). ICG Muse; 2003; ISBN 4-925080-78-4
With Roy Garner. The Image Factory: Fads and Fashions in Japan (paperback). Reaktion Books; 2003; ISBN 1-86189-153-9
Focus on Rashomon (hardcover). Rutgers University Press; 1987; ISBN 0-13-752980-5
Different People: Pictures of Some Japanese (hardcover). Kodansha Inc; 1987; ISBN 0-87011-820-X
A Taste Of Japan (hardcover). 1985. Kodansha Intl. Ltd..
Zen Inklings: Some Stories, Fables, Parables, and Sermons (Buddhism & Eastern Philosophy) (Paperback) with prints by the author. Weatherhill, 1982. Without prints: 1982. ISBN 978-0834802308
With Ian Buruma (photos) (1980). The Japanese Tattoo (hardcover). Weatherhill.
Ozu: His Life and Films (paperback). University of California Press. 1977. ISBN 978-0520032774.
George Stevens: An American Romantic. New York, The Museum of Modern Art, 1970.
Companions of the Holiday (hardcover). Weatherhill; 1968; ISBN 1-299-58310-5
Erotic Gods Phallicism in Japan (slipcase). Shufushinsha; 1966; ISBN 1-141-44743-6
The masters’ book of Ikebana: background and principles of Japanese flower arrangement, edited by Donald Richie & Meredith Weatherby; with lessons by the masters of Japan’s three foremost schools: (hardcover). Bijutsu Shuppansha. 1966.
The Japanese Movie. An Illustrated History (hardcover). Kodansha Ltd; 1965; ISBN 1-141-45003-8
Japanese Movies. Japan Travel Bureau, 1961
With Joseph L. Anderson. The Japanese Film: Art and Industry (paperback). Princeton University Press; 1959, revised 1983; ISBN 0-691-00792-6
Eight American Authors. Kenkyusha. 1956.
This Scorching Earth. Charles E. Tuttle. 1956.
With Watanabe Miyoko. Six Kabuki Plays (paperback). Hokuseido Press; 1953; ISBN 1-299-15754-8
Klaus Volkmer and Olaf Möller. Ricercar fuer Donald Richie. Taschenbuch (1997)
Yoshida, Yukihiko, Jane Barlow and Witaly Osins, ballet teachers who worked in postwar Japan, and their students, Pan-Asian Journal of Sports & Physical Education, Vol.3(Sep), 2012.
^Yoshida, Yukihiko, Jane Barlow and Witaly Osins, ballet teachers who worked in postwar Japan, and their students, Pan-Asian Journal of Sports & Physical Education, Vol.3(Sep), 2012.