A gesture recognition apparatus (200) which controls a display device (101) based on a gesture operation performed by a user in a vicinity of a screen (101a) includes: a picture obtainment unit (201) which obtains a picture of the vicinity of the screen (101a); a direction determination unit (204) which determines, based on position information indicating a direction from the screen (101a) or the picture obtainment unit (201) toward the user, an operational direction which is a direction of a movement to be recognized as the gesture operation; a gesture recognition unit (205) which recognizes, as the gesture operation, a movement of whole or part of a body of the user in the operational direction determined by the direction determination unit, with reference to the obtained picture; and a display control unit (206) which controls the display device (101) based on the recognized gesture operation.