88
4.0
Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
In 1920s China, 19-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained.
87
4.0
Farewell My Concubine (1993)
In an epic tale of theater, gender, love and class, two Beijing opera actors navigate political turmoil as their friendship evolves over decades.
85
3.5
To Live (1994)
Married couple Fugui and Jiazhen endure tumultuous events in mid-20th century mainland China as their personal fortunes move from wealthy landownership to peasantry.
84
4.0
Dead Souls (2018)
In Gansu Province, northwest China, lie the remains of countless prisoners abandoned in the Gobi Desert sixty years ago. Designated as ultra-rightists in the Communist Party’s Anti-Rightist campaign of 1957, they starved to death in the reeducation camps. The film invites us to meet the survivors of the camps to find out firsthand who these persons were, the hardships they were forced to endure and what became their destiny.
83
3.5
age 14+
Hero (2002)
During China's Warring States period, a district prefect arrives at the palace of Qin Shi Huang, claiming to have killed the three assassins who had made an attempt on the king's life three years ago.
83
3.5
An Elephant Sitting Still (2018)
In the northern Chinese city of Manzhouli, they say there is an elephant that simply sits and ignores the world. Manzhouli becomes an obsession for the protagonists of this film, a longed-for escape from the downward spiral in which they find themselves.
83
4.0
Behemoth (2015)
Under the sun, the heavenly beauty of grasslands will soon be covered by the raging dust of mines. Facing the ashes and noises caused by heavy mining , the herdsmen have no choice but to leave as the meadow areas dwindle. In the moonlight, iron mines are brightly lit throughout the night. Workers who operate the drilling machines must stay awake. The fight is tortuous, against the machine and against themselves. Meanwhile, coal miners are busy filling trucks with coals. Wearing a coal-dust mask, they become ghostlike creatures. An endless line of trucks will transport all the coals and iron ores to the iron works. There traps another crowd of souls, being baked in hell. In the hospital, time hangs heavy on miners' hands. After decades of breathing coal dust, death is just around the corner. They are living the reality of purgatory, but there will be no paradise.
82
4.0
age 14+
House of Flying Daggers (2004)
In 9th century China, a corrupt government wages war against a rebel army called the Flying Daggers. A romantic warrior breaks a beautiful rebel out of prison to help her rejoin her fellows, but things are not what they seem.
82
4.0
The Blue Kite (1994)
A young man recalls his childhood growing up in a poor alley in Beijing during the 1950s and 1960s.
81
3.5
Mountain Patrol (2004)
A moving true story about volunteers protecting antelope against poachers in the severe mountains of Tibet.
81
3.5
Ju Dou (1990)
Tianqing falls in love with Ju Dou, his uncle's wife who is tortured for being childless. However, after they have an affair, they discover that his uncle is impotent and try to conceal the truth.
80
3.5
Youth (Hard Times) (2025)
In this enveloping second part of the Youth trilogy, shot between 2015 and 2019, Wang Bing deepens his vérité portrait of a generation struggling to survive on meager wages amidst a nation’s economic expansion, emphasizing the distrustful, increasingly combative relationship between workers and management.
80
4.0
Caught by the Tides (2025)
Years after her boyfriend left her for the big city and promised to bring her there after he’s settled down, a Chinese woman sets out on a journey to be reunited with him.
80
4.0
Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018)
Luo Hongwu returns to Kaili, the hometown from which he fled many years ago. He begins the search for the woman he loved and whom he has never been able to forget.
79
3.0
Return to Dust (2022)
Humble, unassuming Ma and timid Cao have been cast off by their families and forced into an arranged marriage. They have to combine their strength and build a home to survive. In the face of much adversity, an unexpected bond begins to blossom, as both Ma and Cao, uniting with Earth's cycles, create a haven for themselves in which they can thrive.
79
3.0
Postmen in the Mountains (1999)
An old postman has spent his whole life delivering mail to the mountain of Hunan and is about to retire, his only son due to take over his duties.
79
4.0
Ash Is Purest White (2018)
Set in China's underworld, this tale of love and betrayal follows a dancer who fired a gun to protect her mobster boyfriend during a fight. On release from prison 5 years later, she sets out to find him.
79
3.0
Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998)
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
79
3.0
The King of Masks (1995)
Wang Bianlian is an aging street performer known as the King of Mask for his mastery of Sichuan Change Art in a true story. His wife left him with and infant son over 30 years ago. The son died from illness at age 10. This left Wang a melancholy loner aching for a male descendent to learn his rare and dying art.
79
3.5
The Story of Qiu Ju (1992)
When her husband is kicked in the groin by the village head, Qiu Ju, a peasant woman, despite her pregnancy, travels to a nearby town, and later a big city to deal with its bureaucrats and find justice.
79
3.0
Not One Less (1999)
Set in the People's Republic of China during the 1990s, the film centers on a 13-year-old substitute teacher, Wei Minzhi, in the Chinese countryside. Called in to substitute for a village teacher for one month, Wei is told not to lose any students.
81
79
City of Life and Death (2009)
In 1937, during the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Army has just captured Nanjing, then-capital of the Republic of China. What followed was known as the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, a six week period wherein tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed.
79
age 13+
Ip Man (2008)
A semi-biographical account of Yip Man, the first martial arts master to teach the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun. The film focuses on events surrounding Ip that took place in the city of Foshan between the 1930s to 1940s during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Directed by Wilson Yip, the film stars Donnie Yen in the lead role, and features fight choreography by Sammo Hung.
84
78
Devils on the Doorstep (2001)
During the Japanese occupation of China, two prisoners are dumped in a peasant's home in a small town. The owner is bullied into keeping the prisoners until the next New Year, at which time they will be collected. The village leaders convene to interrogate the prisoners. The townspeople then struggle to accommodate the prisoners. One is a bellicose Japanese nationalist, the other a nervous translator. Will the townspeople manage to keep the prisoners until the New Year?
78
3.5
Coming Home (2014)
Lu and Feng are a devoted couple forced to separate when Lu is arrested and sent to a labor camp as a political prisoner during the Cultural Revolution. He finally returns home only to find that his beloved wife no longer remembers him.
78
3.5
Drug War (2012)
A drug cartel boss is arrested in a raid and coerced into betraying his former accomplices as part of an undercover operation.
77
3.0
age 13+
Ne Zha 2 (2025)
After a catastrophic event leaves their bodies destroyed, Ne Zha and Ao Bing are granted a fragile second chance at life. As tensions rise between the dragon clans and celestial forces, the two must undergo a series of perilous trials that will test their bond, challenge their identities, and decide the fate of both mortals and immortals.
77
88
3.5
Stonewalling (2024)
20 year-old Lynn is told she needs English classes, flight attendant school, and a go getter-attitude. She perseveres along this path of upward mobility until she finds out she's pregnant. Indecisive and running out of time, she tells her boyfriend she's had an abortion and instead returns to her feuding parents and their failing clinic to try and figure out what's next.
77
3.0
Shower (1999)
An aged father and his younger, mentally challenged son have been working hard every day to keep the bathhouse running for a motley group of regular customers. When his elder son, who left years ago to seek his fortune in the southern city of Shenzhen, abruptly returns one day, it once again puts under stress the long-broken father-son ties. Presented as a light-hearted comedy, Shower explores the value of family, friendship, and tradition.
77
3.0
Ip Man 2 (2010)
Having defeated the best fighters of the Imperial Japanese army in occupied Shanghai, Ip Man and his family settle in post-war Hong Kong. Struggling to make a living, Master Ip opens a kung fu school to bring his celebrated art of Wing Chun to the troubled youth of Hong Kong. His growing reputation soon brings challenges from powerful enemies, including pre-eminent Hung Gar master, Hung Quan.
77
3.5
Shadow (2018)
In a kingdom ruled by a young and unpredictable king, the military commander has a secret weapon: a shadow, a look-alike who can fool both his enemies and the King himself. Now he must use this weapon in an intricate plan that will lead his people to victory in a war that the King does not want.
85
77
Better Days (2019)
A bullied teenage girl forms an unlikely friendship with a mysterious young man who protects her from her assailants, while she copes with the pressures of her final examinations.
77
3.5
Angels Wear White (2017)
In a small seaside town, two schoolgirls are assaulted by a middle-aged man in a motel. Mia, a teenager who was working on reception that night, is the only witness. For fear of losing her job, she says nothing. Meanwhile, 12-year-old Wen, one of the victims, finds that her troubles have only just begun. Trapped in a world that offers them no safety, Mia and Wen will have to find their own way out.
76
3.5
Youth (Spring) (2023)
This film was shot between 2014 and 2019 in the town of Zhili, a district of Huzhou City in Zhejiang province, China. Zhili is home to over 18,000 privately-run workshops producing children's clothes, mostly for the domestic market, but some also for export. The workshops employ around 300,000 migrant workers, chiefly from the rural provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan and Jiangsu.
76
3.0
Red Sorghum (1988)
An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.
76
3.5
age 10+
Big Fish & Begonia (2016)
Beyond the human realm, there is a magical race of beings who control the tides and the changing of the seasons. One of these beings, a young girl named Chun, seeks something more—she wants to experience the human world! At sixteen, she finally gets her chance and transforms into a dolphin in order to explore the world that has her fascinated. But she soon discovers that it's a dangerous place and nearly gets killed in a vortex. Luckily, her life is spared when a young boy sacrifices himself to save her. Moved by his kindness and courage, she uses magic to bring him back to life only to learn that this power comes at a serious price. On a new adventure, she’ll have to make her own sacrifices in order to protect his soul until it is ready to return to the human world.
75
4.0
Art College 1994 (2025)
In the 1990s, a group of students on the campus of the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts are pursuing their studies and preparing to face the world. China is opening up to the West and the students’ lives are a tangle of love stories and friendships, artistic research, ideals and ambitions brought about by new influences. Caught between tradition and modernity, they have to decide who they want to become.
78
75
Aftershock (2010)
Tangshan, 1976. Two seven-year-old twins are buried under the rubble of the deadliest earthquake of the 20th century. The rescue team explains to their mother that freeing either child will almost certainly result in the death of the other. Forced to make the most difficult decision of her life, she finally chooses to save her son. Though left behind as dead, the little girl miraculously survives, unbeknownst to her brother and mother.
75
3.0
I Wish I Knew (2010)
Focuses on the people, their stories and architecture spanning from the mid-1800s, when Shanghai was opened as a trading port, to the present day.
75
2.0
Dying to Survive (2018)
When a mysterious visitor appears, the life of Yong Cheng, owner of a store that stocks aphrodisiac products, changes dramatically. He becomes the exclusive selling agent of a cheap Indian generic drug against Chronic Granulocytic Leukemia in China. Not only does Yong Cheng see his profits skyrocket, but he is dubbed the god of medicine“ by his customers
75
3.5
Mountains May Depart (2015)
The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025.
75
age 16+
Red Cliff (2008)
In 208 A.D., in the final days of the Han Dynasty, shrewd Prime Minster Cao convinced the fickle Emperor Han the only way to unite all of China was to declare war on the kingdoms of Xu in the west and East Wu in the south. Thus began a military campaign of unprecedented scale. Left with no other hope for survival, the kingdoms of Xu and East Wu formed an unlikely alliance.
75
Fearless (2006)
After going through a series of tragic events in his life, martial arts master Huo Yuanjia returns to Tianjin and must fight four international soldiers, in order to safeguard his nation's pride.
79
74
The Road Home (1999)
Prompted by the death of his father and the grief of his mother, a man recalls the story of how they met in flashback.
74
3.0
age 18+
Lust, Caution (2007)
During World War II, a secret agent must seduce and assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai.