Top 10 Chinese Films of All Time

Wong Kar-wai's sublime Hong Kong masterpiece is a slow-burning exploration of unexpressed desire shot by Christopher Doyle in corridors of billowing silk.

Zhang Yimou's visually stunning allegory about a young woman entering a 1920s feudal household is a searing critique of patriarchal power through pure cinema.

King Hu's wuxia epic, shot across four years in Taiwan, blends martial arts choreography with Buddhist philosophy in a film decades ahead of its time.

Zhang Yimou's restrained neorealist portrait of a village woman navigating China's bureaucracy earned Gong Li the Venice Film Festival Best Actress prize.

Wong Kar-wai's kinetic Hong Kong snapshot links two melancholic policemen through chance encounters with mesmerising women in an ode to urban loneliness.

Zhang Yimou's martial arts epic assembles Jet Li, Tony Leung, and Maggie Cheung in a colour-coded meditation on sacrifice and the concept of empire.

Edward Yang's three-hour Taiwanese family portrait is considered one of the greatest films of the 21st century, a compassionate study of mortality and connection.

Ang Lee's Oscars-sweeping wuxia film blended balletic wire-fu action with a deeply felt story of thwarted desire among warriors in Qing-dynasty China.

China's first true blockbuster on a global scale, this visually spectacular sci-fi about Earth being pushed to a new star earned nearly $700 million worldwide.

Wong Kar-wai's sublime Hong Kong masterpiece is a slow-burning exploration of unexpressed desire shot by Christopher Doyle in corridors of billowing silk.

Zhang Yimou's visually stunning allegory about a young woman entering a 1920s feudal household is a searing critique of patriarchal power through pure cinema.

King Hu's wuxia epic, shot across four years in Taiwan, blends martial arts choreography with Buddhist philosophy in a film decades ahead of its time.

Zhang Yimou's restrained neorealist portrait of a village woman navigating China's bureaucracy earned Gong Li the Venice Film Festival Best Actress prize.

Wong Kar-wai's kinetic Hong Kong snapshot links two melancholic policemen through chance encounters with mesmerising women in an ode to urban loneliness.

Zhang Yimou's martial arts epic assembles Jet Li, Tony Leung, and Maggie Cheung in a colour-coded meditation on sacrifice and the concept of empire.

Edward Yang's three-hour Taiwanese family portrait is considered one of the greatest films of the 21st century, a compassionate study of mortality and connection.

Ang Lee's Oscars-sweeping wuxia film blended balletic wire-fu action with a deeply felt story of thwarted desire among warriors in Qing-dynasty China.

China's first true blockbuster on a global scale, this visually spectacular sci-fi about Earth being pushed to a new star earned nearly $700 million worldwide.