Cinema of China

File:Lady Meng Jiang - Tianyi magazine.jpg film Lady Meng Jiang, starring Hu Die]]

Motion pictures were introduced to China in 1896. They were introduced through foreign film exhibitors in treaty ports like Shanghai and Hong Kong.{{Rp|page=68}}

China was one of the earliest countries to be exposed to the medium of film, due to Louis Lumière sending his cameraman to Shanghai a year after inventing cinematography.{{Cite book|title=Historical dictionary of Chinese cinema|last=Ye, Tan |date=2012|publisher=The Scarecrow Press, Inc|others=Zhu, Yun, 1979-|isbn=978-0-8108-6779-6|location=Lanham|oclc=764377427}} The first recorded screening of a motion picture in China took place in Shanghai on 11 August 1896 as an "act" on a variety bill.Berry, Chris. "China Before 1949", in The Oxford History of World Cinema, edited by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (1997). Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 409. The first Chinese film, a recording of the Peking opera, Dingjun Mountain, was made in November 1905 in Beijing.{{cite web | url = http://www.univie.ac.at/Sinologie/repository/ueLK110_ChinFilmgesch/filmgeschichteSkript.pdf

|title = Chinese Film History - A Short Introduction | access-date = 2007-07-25 |year=2006 | author = Martin Geiselmann|publisher = The University of Vienna- Sinologie Program}} For the next decade the production companies were mainly foreign-owned, and the domestic film industry was centered on Shanghai, a thriving entrepot and the largest city in the Far East.

Chinese-made short melodrama and comedy films began emerging in 1913.{{Cite book |last=Qian |first=Ying |title=Revolutionary Becomings: Documentary Media in Twentieth-Century China |date=2024 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=9780231204477 |location=New York, NY}}{{Rp|page=48}} In 1913, the first independent Chinese screenplay, The Difficult Couple, was filmed in Shanghai by Zheng Zhengqiu and Zhang Shichuan.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nydlzbe2LhEC&pg=PA1945 |title=East Asian Cinema |author= David Carter |publisher=Kamera Books |year= 2010 |isbn=978-1-84243-380-5 }} Zhang Shichuan then set up the first Chinese-owned film production company in 1916. The first full-length feature film was Yan Ruisheng (閻瑞生) released in 1921, which was a docudrama about the killing of a Shanghai courtesan.

Chinese film production developed significantly in the 1920s.{{Rp|page=48}} During the 1920s film technicians from the United States trained Chinese technicians in Shanghai, and American influence continued to be felt there for the next two decades. Since film was still in its earliest stages of development, most Chinese silent films at this time were only comic skits or operatic shorts, and training was minimal at a technical aspect due to this being a period of experimental film. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, filmmaking in China was largely done by film studios and there was comparatively little small scale filmmaking.{{Rp|page=62}}

Upscale movie theaters in China had contracts which required them to exclusively show Hollywood films, and thus as of the later 1920s, Hollywood films accounted for 90% of screen time in Chinese theaters.{{Rp|page=64}}

After trial and error, China was able to draw inspiration from its own traditional values and began producing martial arts films, with the first being Burning of Red Lotus Temple (1928). Burning of Red Lotus Temple was so successful at the box office, the Star Motion Pictures (Mingxing) production later filmed 18 sequels, marking the beginning of China's esteemed martial arts films. Many imitators followed, including U. Lien (Youlian) Studio's Red Heroine (1929), which is still extant.{{Cite web |last=Rea |first=Christopher |date=1929-02-24 |title=Red Heroine 紅俠 (1929) |url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/red-heroine-1929/ |access-date=2025-04-17 |website=Chinese Film Classics |language=en-US}} It was during this period that some of the more important production companies first came into being, notably Mingxing and the Shaw brothers' Tianyi ("Unique"). Mingxing, founded by Zheng Zhengqiu and Zhang Shichuan in 1922, initially focused on comic shorts, including the oldest surviving complete Chinese film, Laborer's Love (1922).{{cite web| url = http://chinesecinema.ucsd.edu/essay_ccwlc.html| title = A Centennial Review of Chinese Cinema| access-date = 2007-04-26| author = Zhang Yingjin| date = 2003-10-10| publisher = University of California-San Diego| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080907160026/http://chinesecinema.ucsd.edu/essay_ccwlc.html| archive-date = 2008-09-07}}{{cite web | url = http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/denton2/courses/c505/temp/history/chapter2.html | title = A Brief History of Chinese Film | access-date = 2007-04-24 | publisher = Ohio State University | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140410062249/http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/denton2/courses/c505/temp/history/chapter2.html | archive-date = 2014-04-10 }}Berry, Chris. "China Before 1949", in The Oxford History of World Cinema, edited by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (1997). Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 409–410. This soon shifted, however, to feature-length films and family dramas including Orphan Rescues Grandfather (1923). Meanwhile, Tianyi shifted their model towards folklore dramas and also pushed into foreign markets; their film White Snake (1926){{efn|Bai She Zhuan (1926) 白蛇传 : Legend of the White Snake{{cite web|title=《Legend of the White Snake》(1926)|url=http://www.chinesemirror.com/index/2012/03/legend-of-the-white-snake-1926.html|publisher=The Chinese Mirror|access-date=23 January 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130319032519/http://www.chinesemirror.com/index/2012/03/legend-of-the-white-snake-1926.html|archive-date=19 March 2013}} Adaptation of Legend of the White Snake}} proved a typical example of their success in the Chinese communities of Southeast Asia. In 1931, the first Chinese sound film Sing-Song Girl Red Peony was made, the product of a cooperation between the Mingxing Film Company's image production and Pathé Frères's sound technology. However, the sound was disc-recorded, which was then played in the theater in-sync with the action on the screen. The first sound-on-film talkie made in China was either Spring on Stage (歌場春色) by Tianyi, or Clear Sky After Storm by Great China Studio and Jinan Studio.{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gDRxR-wb-fsC&pg=PT262 |title=A Companion to Chinese Cinema |author= Yingjin Zhang |publisher= Wiley-Blackwell |chapter=Chapter 24 - Chinese Cinema and Technology |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4443-3029-8 |page=456}} Musical films, such as Song at Midnight (1937){{Cite web |last=Rea |first=Christopher |date=1937-02-21 |title=Song at Midnight 夜半歌聲 (1937) |url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/song-at-midnight-1937/ |access-date=2025-04-17 |website=Chinese Film Classics |language=en-US}} and Street Angels (1937),{{Cite web |last=Rea |first=Christopher |date=1937-07-22 |title=Street Angels 馬路天使 (1937) |url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/street-angels-1937/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231001111044/https://chinesefilmclassics.org/street-angels-1937/ |archive-date=Oct 1, 2023 |access-date=2025-04-17 |website=Chinese Film Classics |language=en-US}} starring Zhou Xuan,{{Cite web |title=Zhou Xuan 周璇 |url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/zhou-xuan-%E5%91%A8%E7%92%87/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230721224217/https://chinesefilmclassics.org/zhou-xuan-%E5%91%A8%E7%92%87/ |archive-date=21 Jul 2023 |website=Chinese Film Classics}} became one of the most popular film genres in China.{{Cite book|last=Rea|first=Christopher|title=Chinese Film Classics, 1922-1949|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=2021|isbn=978-0-231-18813-5|location=New York|pages=chs. 7–8}}

News films increased in importance following the Japanese air raid on Shanghai in 1932.{{Rp|page=66}} The bombing also destroyed significant amounts of the Chinese film industry and resulted in the loss of many early films.{{Rp|page=66}}

File:LoveandDuty.jpg, a superstar during the silent film era, in Love and Duty (1931){{Cite web |date=24 February 1931 |title=Love and Duty 戀愛與義務 (1931) |url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/love-and-duty-1931/}}]]

The first truly important Chinese films were produced beginning in the 1930s with the advent of the "progressive" or "left-wing" movement, like Cheng Bugao's Spring Silkworms (1933),{{Cite web |last=Cheng |first=Bugao |date=1933-03-08 |title=Spring Silkworms 春蠶 (1933) |url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/spring-silkworms-1933/ |access-date=2023-03-23 |website=Chinese Film Classics |language=en-US}} Wu Yonggang's The Goddess (1934),{{Cite web |title=Module 3: Goddess (1934) |url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/course/module-3-goddess-1934/ |access-date=2025-04-17 |website=Chinese Film Classics |language=en-US}} and Sun Yu's The Great Road, also known as The Big Road (1934).{{Cite web |title=Module 4: The Great Road (1934) |url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/course/module-4-the-great-road-1934/ |access-date=2023-03-23 |website=Chinese Film Classics |language=en-US}} These films were noted for their emphasis on class struggle and external threats (i.e. Japanese aggression), as well as on their focus on common people, such as a family of silk farmers in Spring Silkworms and a prostitute in The Goddess. In part due to the success of these kinds of films, this post-1930 era is now often referred to as the first "golden period" of Chinese cinema. The Leftist cinematic movement often revolved around the Western-influenced Shanghai, where filmmakers portrayed the struggling lower class of an overpopulated city.Laikwan Pang, Building a New China in Cinema (Rowman and Littlefield Productions, Oxford, 2002)

Three production companies dominated the market in the early to mid-1930s: the newly formed Lianhua ("United China"),{{efn|Lianhua's original English name is "United Photoplay Service"}} the older and larger Mingxing and Tianyi.{{cite web | url = https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/international/feature_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001614559 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100802065514/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001614559 | archive-date = 2010-08-02 | title = Timeline | access-date = 2006-05-08 | author = Kraicer, Shelly |date= 2005-12-06| work=The Hollywood Reporter}} Both Mingxing and Lianhua leaned left (Lianhua's management perhaps more so), while Tianyi continued to make less socially conscious fare.

File:JinYan2.jpg, a Korean-born Chinese actor featured in The Big Road (1935), who gained fame during China's golden age of cinema]]

The period also produced the first big Chinese movie stars, such as Hu Die, Ruan Lingyu,{{Cite web|url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/ruan-lingyu/|title = Ruan Lingyu 阮玲玉|date = 8 March 2021}} Li Lili,{{Cite web |title=Li Lili 黎莉莉 |url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/li-lili-%e9%bb%8e%e8%8e%89%e8%8e%89/ |website=Chinese Film Classics}} Chen Yanyan,{{Cite web |title=Chen Yanyan 陳燕燕 |url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/chen-yanyan-%e9%99%b3%e7%87%95%e7%87%95/ |website=Chinese Film Classics}} Zhou Xuan, Zhao Dan and Jin Yan. Other major films of the period include Love and Duty (1931), Little Toys (1933), New Women (1934),{{Cite web|url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/new-women-1935/|title = New Women 新女性 (1935)|date = 4 February 1935}} Song of the Fishermen (1934),{{Cite web|url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/song-of-the-fishermen-1934/|title = Song of the Fishermen 漁光曲 (1934)|date = 14 June 1934}} Plunder of Peach and Plum (1934), Crossroads (1937), and Street Angel (1937).{{Cite web |date=22 July 1937 |title=Street Angels 馬路天使 (1937) |url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/street-angels-1937/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231001111044/https://chinesefilmclassics.org/street-angels-1937/ |archive-date=Oct 1, 2023 |website=Chinese Film Classics}} Throughout the 1930s, the Nationalists and the Communists struggled for power and control over the major studios; their influence can be seen in the films the studios produced during this period.

File:ZhouXuan1.jpg, an iconic Chinese singer and film actress]]

The Japanese invasion of China in 1937, in particular the Battle of Shanghai, ended this golden run in Chinese cinema. All production companies except Xinhua Film Company ("New China") closed shop. A large number filmmakers left to join the War of Resistance, with many going to the Nationalist-controlled hinterlands to join the Nationalist film studios Central Motion Picture Studio or China Motion Picture Studio.{{Rp|page=102}} A smaller number went to Yan'an or Hong Kong.{{Rp|pages=102–103}}

The Shanghai film industry, though severely curtailed, did not stop however, thus leading to the "Solitary Island" period (also known as the "Sole Island" or "Orphan Island"), with Shanghai's foreign concessions serving as an "island" of production in the "sea" of Japanese-occupied territory. It was during this period that artists and directors who remained in the city had to walk a fine line between staying true to their leftist and nationalist beliefs and Japanese pressures. Director Bu Wancang's Hua Mu Lan, also known as Mulan Joins the Army (1939),{{Cite web|url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/hua-mu-lan-1939/|title=Hua Mu Lan 木蘭從軍 (1939)|date=17 February 1939}} with its story of a young Chinese peasant fighting against a foreign invasion, was a particularly good example of Shanghai's continued film-production in the midst of war.{{cite web| url = http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_artqa/2003-09/24/content_38559.htm| title = Sole Island Movies| access-date = 2006-08-18| author = Ministry of Culture Staff| year = 2003| publisher = ChinaCulture.org| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060826094341/http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_artqa/2003-09/24/content_38559.htm| archive-date = 2006-08-26}} This period ended when Japan declared war on the Western allies on 7 December 1941; the solitary island was finally engulfed by the sea of the Japanese occupation. With the Shanghai industry firmly in Japanese control, films like the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere-promoting Eternity (1943) were produced.

By the 1930s and 1940s, both the Chinese Nationalist government and the Communist Party used documentary films as a form of propaganda.{{Cite journal |last=Kendall |first=Paul |date=2024-10-09 |title=Third Front as Method: Mao, Market and the Present in CCTV Documentaries |url=https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741024000912 |journal=The China Quarterly |volume=260 |pages=872–886 |doi=10.1017/s0305741024000912 |issn=0305-7410|doi-access=free }}{{Rp|pages=874}}

During the 1930 and 1940s, both the Chinese Nationalist government and the Japanese occupation authorities sent mobile projectionist units into areas under their control to show propaganda films.{{Rp|page=69}}

In the Yan'an Soviet during September 1938, the Eighth Route Army established its first film group.{{Rp|page=69}} In 1943, the communists released their first campaign film, Nanniwan, which sought to develop relationships between the communist army and local people in the Yan'an area by showcasing the army's production campaign to alleviate material shortages.{{Rp|page=16}}

Following Japan's unconditional surrender in August 1945, the Soviet Red Army helped the Chinese communists to take over the Japanese colonial film establishment in Manchuria, the Manchukuo Film Association (Man-ei).{{Rp|page=132}} Man-ei had state-of-the-art film production equipment and supplies.{{Rp|page=132}} The former colonial studio was relocated to Hegang, where it was established as Northeastern Film Studio, the communist party's first full-capacity film studio.{{Rp|page=132}} Yuan Muzhi was its director and Chen Bo'er was its party secretary.{{Rp|page=132}} Northeastern Film Studio began production in early 1947, focusing on news and documentary films, as well as some fiction, educational film for children, and animation.{{Rp|pages=132–133}}

During the later phase of the Chinese Civil War, filmmakers trained in Yan'an and Northeastern Film Studio documented all the major battles leading to the communists' defeat of the Nationalists.{{Rp|page=134}}

File:New Fisherman's Song.jpg in the film New Fisherman's Song (1942)]]

The film industry continued to develop after 1945. Production in Shanghai once again resumed as a new crop of studios took the place that Lianhua and Mingxing studios had occupied in the previous decade. In 1945, Cai Chusheng returned to Shanghai to revive the Lianhua name as the "Lianhua Film Society with Shi Dongshan, Meng Junmou, and Zheng Junli."{{cite web|url=http://chinesecinema.ucsd.edu/directors_ccwlc.html#cai |title=Chinese Cinema - Cai Chusheng |access-date=2007-04-25 |author=Zhang Yingjin |date=2007-01-01 |publisher=University of California-San Diego |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070307193958/http://chinesecinema.ucsd.edu/directors_ccwlc.html |archive-date=7 March 2007 }} This in turn became Kunlun Studios, which would go on to become one of the most important studios of the era (Kunlun Studios merged with seven other studios to form Shanghai film studio in 1949), putting out the classics The Spring River Flows East (1947),{{Cite web|url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/spring-river-flows-east-1947/|title = Spring River Flows East 一江春水向東流 (1947)|date = 10 October 1947}} Myriad of Lights (1948), Crows and Sparrows (1949),{{Cite web|url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/crows-and-sparrows-1949/|title = Crows and Sparrows 烏鴉與麻雀 (1949)|date = 14 January 1950}} and Wanderings of Three-Hairs the Orphan, also known as San Mao, The Little Vagabond (1949).{{Cite web|url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/wanderings-of-three-hairs-the-orphan-1949/|title = Wanderings of Three Hairs the Orphan 三毛流浪記 (1949)|date = 31 October 1949}}{{cite web| url = http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/organisation/13907| title = Kunlun Film Company| access-date = 2007-04-25| year = 2004| publisher = British Film Institute| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080122023815/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/organisation/13907| archive-date = 2008-01-22}}

Many of these films showed the disillusionment with the oppressive rule of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Party and the struggling oppression of nation by war. The Spring River Flows East, a three-hour-long two-parter directed by Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli, was a particularly strong success. Its depiction of the struggles of ordinary Chinese during the Second Sino-Japanese war, replete with biting social and political commentary, struck a chord with audiences of the time.

Meanwhile, companies like the Wenhua Film Company ("Culture Films"), moved away from the leftist tradition and explored the evolution and development of other dramatic genres. Wenhua treated postwar problems in universalistic and humanistic ways, avoiding the family narrative and melodramatic formulae. Excellent examples of Wenhua's fare are its first two postwar features, Love Everlasting (Bu liaoqing, 1947){{Cite web |last=Rea |first=Christopher |date=1947-02-14 |title=Love Everlasting 不了情 (1947) |url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/love-everlasting-1947/ |access-date=2023-03-23 |website=Chinese Film Classics |language=en-US}} and Fake Bride, Phony Bridegroom (1947).Pickowicz, Paul G. "Chinese Film-making on the Eve of the Communist Revolution", in The Chinese Cinema Book, edited by Song Hwee Lim and Julian Ward (2011). BFI: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 80–81. Another memorable Wenhua film is Long Live the Missus (1947),{{Cite web |title=Module 8: Long Live the Missus! (1947) |url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/course/module-8-long-live-the-missus-1947/ |access-date=2023-03-23 |website=Chinese Film Classics |language=en-US}} like Love Everlasting with an original screenplay by writer Eileen Chang. Wenhua's romantic drama, Spring in a Small Town (1948),{{Cite web|url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/spring-in-a-small-town-1948/|title=Spring in a Small Town 小城之春 (1948)|date=26 September 1948}} directed by Fei Mu{{Cite web|url=https://chinesefilmclassics.org/fei-mu-%E8%B2%BB%E7%A9%86/|title=Fei Mu 費穆|first=Christopher|last=Rea|date=22 April 2021|website=Chinese Film Classics|accessdate=30 December 2023}} shortly prior to the revolution, is often regarded by Chinese film critics as one of the most important films in the history of Chinese cinema, in 2005, Hong Kong film awards it as the best 100 years of film.{{cite web | url =http://www.hkfaa.com/news/100films.html | title =Welcome to the Hong Kong Film Awards | access-date =2007-04-04 | year =2004 | archive-date =22 October 2019 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20191022211054/http://www.hkfaa.com/news/100films.html | url-status =dead }} Ironically, it was precisely its artistic quality and apparent lack of "political grounding" that led to its labeling by the Communists as rightist or reactionary, and the film was quickly forgotten by those on the mainland following the Communist victory in China in 1949.Zhang Yingjin, "Introduction" in Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922–1943, ed. Yingjin Zhang (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), p. 8. However, with the China Film Archive's re-opening after the Cultural Revolution, a new print was struck from the original negative, allowing Spring of the Small Town to find a new and admiring audience and to influence an entire new generation of filmmakers. Indeed, an acclaimed remake was made in 2002 by Tian Zhuangzhuang. A Chinese Peking opera film, A Wedding in the Dream (1948), by the same director (Fei Mu), was the first Chinese color film.

At the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, there were fewer than 600 movie theaters in the country.{{Cite book |last=Li |first=Jie |title=Material Contradictions in Mao's China |date=2022 |publisher=University of Washington Press |isbn=978-0-295-75085-9 |editor-last=Altehenger |editor-first=Jennifer |location=Seattle |chapter=Mobile Projectionists and the Things They Carried |editor-last2=Ho |editor-first2=Denise Y.}}{{Rp|page=102}} The government saw motion pictures as an important artform and tool for mass propaganda. The Soviet-led collaborations Victory of the Chinese People (1950) and Liberated China (1951) were among the biggest film events in the PRC's early years.{{Rp|page=17}} Victory of the Chinese People depicted re-enactments of four of the communist party's major military victories and was filmed using real ammunition with the participation of the People's Liberation Army.{{Rp|page=15}}

The private studios in Shanghai, including Kunming, Wenhua, Guotai, and Datong, were at first encouraged to make new films. They made approximately 47 films during the next two years but soon ran into trouble, owing to the furor over the Kunlun-produced drama The Life of Wu Xun (1950), directed by Sun Yu and starring veteran Zhao Dan. In an anonymous article in People's Daily in May 1951, the feature was accused of spreading feudal ideas. After the article was revealed to be penned by Mao Zedong, the film was banned, the Film Steering Committee was formed to "re-educate" the film industry, and the private studios were all incorporated into the state-run Shanghai Film Studio.Ward, Julian. "The Remodelling of a National Cinema: Chinese Films of the Seventeen Years (1949–66)", in The Chinese Cinema Book, edited by Song Hwee Lim and Julian Ward (2011). BFI: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 88.

After the establishment of the PRC, China's cultural bureaucracy described American films as screen-opium and began criticizing American film alongside anti-drug campaigns.{{Rp|pages=225–226}} The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sought to tighten control over mass media, producing instead movies centering on peasants, soldiers, and workers, such as Bridge (1949) and The White-Haired Girl (1950).Yau, Esther. "China After the Revolution", in The Oxford History of World Cinema, edited by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (1997). Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 694. One of the production bases in the middle of all the transition was the Changchun Film Studio. American films were banned as part of the Korean War effort.{{Rp|pages=225–226}}

The Communist government solved the problem of a lack of film theaters by building mobile projection units which could tour the remote regions of China, ensuring that even the poorest could have access to films. The vast majority of China's people lived in rural areas, and most people in China had not seen a film until mobile projectionists brought them.{{Rp|page=148}} Mobile projection teams during the Mao era typically included three to four workers who physically transported film infrastructure through a large geographic area mostly not covered by any electrical grid.{{Rp|page=102}} Yuan Muzhi was important in developing the Communist government's theories and practices of rural film exhibition.{{Rp|page=46}} Yuan and Chen Bo'er transformed the post-Second Sino-Japanese War remnants of the Manchurian Motion Picture Association into the Northeast Film Studio and when Yuan became Film Bureau chief in 1949, he applied its model to help institute a film exhibition network around the country.{{Rp|page=46}} The Northeast Film Studio also trained the first generation of communist Chinese documentary filmmakers.{{Rp|page=103}}

In 1950, 1,800 projectionists from around the country traveled to Nanjing for a training program.{{Rp|page=71}} These projectionists replicated the training program in their own home provinces to create more projectionists.{{Rp|page=71}} Nanjing was later termed a "Cradle of People's Cinema."{{Rp|page=71}} The PRC sought to recruit women and ethnic minority projectionists in an effort to more effectively reach marginalized communities.{{Rp|page=72}}

Until the profusion of mobile projectionist teams in the 1950s, most rural people had not seen a film.{{Rp|page=103}} The number of movie-viewers hence increased sharply, partly bolstered by the fact that film tickets were given out to work units and attendance was compulsory, with admissions rising from 47 million in 1949 to 4.15 billion in 1959.{{cite book|last=Bordwell and Thompson|title=Film History: An Introduction|year=2010|publisher=McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc|location=New York|isbn=978-0-07-338613-3|page=371|edition=Third}} By 1965 there were around 20,393 mobile film units. During the course of the Mao era, the majority of films were shown by such units, with only a minority watched in theaters.{{Rp|page=103}}

Work as a mobile projectionist was physically and technically demanding.{{Rp|page=104}} As a result, women projectionists and all-women mobile projection teams were promoted in Chinese media as examples of advancing gender equality under socialism.{{Rp|pages=104–105}}

In the 1950s and the 1960s, the Communist Party built cinemas (among other cultural buildings) in industrial districts on urban peripheries.{{Rp|page=148}} These structures were influenced by Soviet architecture and were intended to be vivacious but not "palatial."{{Rp|pages=148–149}}

Rural mobile projectionist teams and urban movie theaters were generally managed through the PRC's cultural bureaucracy.{{Rp|page=47}} Trade Unions and PLA propaganda departments also operated film exhibition networks.{{Rp|page=47}}

In 1950s China, a common view of film was that it served as "socialist distance horizon education".{{Rp|page=24}} For example, films promoted rural collectivization.{{Rp|page=24}} Cinema also sought to develop the proletarian class consciousness of rural workers, encouraging the industrialization and militarization of their labor.{{Rp|page=50}} Film projection teams operating in rural China were asked to incorporate lantern slides into their work to introduce national policies and political campaigns.{{Rp|page=82}}

In the 17 years between the founding of the People's Republic of China and the Cultural Revolution, 603 feature films and 8,342 reels of documentaries and newsreels were produced, sponsored mostly as Communist propaganda by the government.{{cite web | url = http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/film/84966.htm | title = Film Industry in China | access-date = 2007-02-27 | author = Li Xiao |date= 2004-01-17| publisher = China.org.cn}} For example, in Guerrilla on the Railroad (铁道游击队), dated 1956, the Chinese Communist Party was depicted as the primary resistance force against the Second Sino-Japanese War.Braester, Yumi. "The Purloined Lantern: Maoist Semiotics and Public Discourse in Early PRC Film and Drama", p 111, in Witness Against History: Literature, Film, and Public Discourse in Twentieth-Century China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003. Chinese filmmakers were sent to Moscow to study the Soviet socialist realism style of filmmaking. The Beijing Film Academy was established in 1950 and officially opened in 1956. One important film of this era is This Life of Mine (1950), directed by Shi Hu, which follows an old beggar reflecting on his past life as a policeman working for the various regimes since 1911.{{cite book|last=Bordwell and Thompson|title=Film History: An Introduction|year=2010|publisher=McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc|location=New York|isbn=978-0-07-338613-3|pages=371–372|edition=Third}}Ward, Julian. "The Remodelling of a National Cinema: Chinese Films of the Seventeen Years (1949–66)", in The Chinese Cinema Book, edited by Song Hwee Lim and Julian Ward (2011). BFI: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 90. The first widescreen Chinese film was produced in 1960. Animated films using a variety of folk arts, such as papercuts, shadow plays, puppetry, and traditional paintings, also were very popular for entertaining and educating children. The most famous of these, the classic Havoc in Heaven (two parts, 1961, 4), was made by Wan Laiming of the Wan Brothers and won the Outstanding Film award at the London International Film Festival.

Films such as The White-Haired Girl and Serf were part of a genre of redemptive melodramas, which sought to encourage audiences to "speak bitterness".{{Rp|page=183}}

After the United Kingdom and the PRC established diplomatic relations, cultural exchanges between the two countries gradually resumed, including British moves being made available in China.{{Cite book |last=Gao |first=Yunxiang |title=Arise, Africa! Roar, China! Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century |date=2021 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=9781469664606 |location=Chapel Hill, NC}}{{Rp|page=107}}

The thawing of censorship in 1956–57 (known as the Hundred Flowers Campaign) and in the early 1960s led to more indigenous Chinese films being made, which were less reliant on their Soviet counterparts.{{cite book|last=Bordwell and Thompson|title=Film History: An Introduction|year=2010|publisher=McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc|location=New York|isbn=978-0-07-338613-3|page=373|edition=Third}} During this campaign the sharpest criticisms came from the satirical comedies of Lü Ban. Before the New Director Arrives exposes the hierarchical relationships occurring between the cadres, while his next film, The Unfinished Comedy (1957), was labeled as a "poisonous weed" during the Anti-Rightist Movement, and Lü was banned from directing for life.Yau, Esther. "China After the Revolution", in The Oxford History of World Cinema, edited by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (1997). Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 695.Ward, Julian. "The Remodelling of a National Cinema: Chinese Films of the Seventeen Years (1949–66)", in The Chinese Cinema Book, edited by Song Hwee Lim and Julian Ward (2011). BFI: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 92–93. Other noteworthy films produced during this period were adaptations of literary classics, such as Sang Hu's The New Year's Sacrifice (1956, adapted from a Lu Xun story) and Shui Hua's The Lin Family Shop (1959, adapted from a Mao Dun story). The most prominent filmmaker of this era was Xie Jin, whose three films in particular, Woman Basketball Player No. 5 (1957), The Red Detachment of Women (1961), and Two Stage Sisters (1964), exemplify China's increased expertise in filmmaking. Films made during this period are polished, exhibiting high production value and elaborate sets.{{cite book|last=Bordwell and Thompson|title=Film History: An Introduction|year=2010|publisher=McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc|location=New York|isbn=978-0-07-338613-3|pages=372–373|edition=Third}} While Beijing and Shanghai remained the main centers of production, between 1957 and 1960 the government built regional studios in Guangzhou, Xi'an, and Chengdu to encourage representation of ethnic minorities in films. Chinese cinema began to directly address the issue of such ethnic minorities during the late 1950s and early 1960s in films like Five Golden Flowers (1959), Third Sister Liu (1960), Serfs (1963), and Ashima (1964).{{cite book|last=Bordwell and Thompson|title=Film History: An Introduction|year=2010|publisher=McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc|location=New York|isbn=978-0-07-338613-3|pages=370–373|edition=Third}}Yau, Esther. "China After the Revolution", in The Oxford History of World Cinema, edited by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (1997). Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 696.

On 9 March 1958, the Ministry of Culture held a meeting to introduce a Great Leap Forward in cinema.{{Rp|pages=149–150}} During the Great Leap Forward, the film industry rapidly expanded, with documentary films being the genre that experienced the greatest growth.{{Rp|page=150}} Trends in documentary film included "artistic documentaries," in which actors and non-actors reenacted events.{{Rp|page=15}} Film venues also expanded rapidly, including both urban cinemas and mobile projection units.{{Rp|page=150}}

As part of the Socialist Education Movement, mobile film projectionist units showed films and slideshows that emphasized class struggle and encouraged audience members to discuss bitter experiences onstage.{{Rp|page=184}} New films termed "emphasis films" were released to coincide with the campaign, and the film version of The White-Haired Girl was re-released.{{Rp|page=185}}

In 1965, China launched the Resist America, Aid Vietnam campaign in response to the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.{{Cite book |last=Minami |first=Kazushi |title=People's Diplomacy: How Americans and Chinese Transformed US-China Relations during the Cold War |date=2024 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=9781501774157 |location=Ithaca, NY}}{{Rp|page=29}} To promote campaign themes denouncing U.S. imperialism and promoted Vietnamese resistance, the communist party used film exhibitions and other cultural media.{{Rp|page=29}}

During the Cultural Revolution, the film industry was severely restricted. Almost all previous films were banned, and only a few new ones were produced, the revolutionary model operas. The most notable of these was a ballet version of the revolutionary opera The Red Detachment of Women, directed by Pan Wenzhan and Fu Jie in 1970.

The release of filmed versions of the revolutionary model operas resulted in a re-organization and expansion of China's film exhibition network.{{Rp|page=73}} From 1965 to 1976, the number of film projection units in China quadrupled, total film audiences nearly tripled, and the national film attendance rate doubled.{{Rp|page=133}} The Cultural Revolution Group drastically reduced ticket prices which, in its view, would allow film to better serve the needs of workers and of socialism.{{Rp|page=133}}

In addition to films deemed laudatory, from the middle of 1966 to 1968, the expanding film distribution network screened films characterized as "poisonous weeds" to hundreds of millions of audience members for the purpose of criticizing the films.{{Rp|page=232}} These criticism screenings were sometimes accompanied by struggle sessions.{{Rp|page=233}}

Sent-down youth were a major subset of China's rural projectionists during the Cultural Revolution period.{{Rp|page=75}}

Feature film production came almost to a standstill in the early years from 1967 to 1972. Movie production revived after 1972 under the strict jurisdiction of the Gang of Four until 1976, when they were overthrown. The few films that were produced during this period, such as 1975's Breaking with Old Ideas, were highly regulated in terms of plot and characterization.Zhang, Yingjin & Xiao, Zhiwei. "Breaking with Old Ideas" in Encyclopedia of Chinese Film. Taylor & Francis (1998), p. 101. {{ISBN|0-415-15168-6}}.

In 1972, Chinese officials invited Michelangelo Antonioni to China to film the achievements of the Cultural Revolution.{{Cite book |last=Sorace |first=Christian |title=Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political Concepts from Mao to Xi |date=2019 |publisher=Australian National University Press |isbn=9781760462499 |location=Acton, Australia |chapter=Aesthetics}}{{Rp|page=13}} Antonioni made the documentary Chung Kuo, Cina.{{Rp|page=13}} When it was released in 1974, Communist Party leadership in China interpreted the film as reactionary and anti-Chinese.{{Rp|page=13}} Viewing art through the principles of the Yan'an Talks, particularly the concept that there is no such thing as art-for-art's-sake, party leadership construed Antonioni's aesthetic choices as politically motivated and banned the film.{{Rp|page=14}} Jiang Qing criticized Premier Zhou Enlai's role in Antonioni's invitation to China as not only a failure but also treasonous.{{Rp|page=121}} Since its 2004 release in China, the film has been well-regarded by Chinese audiences, especially for its beautiful depictions of a more simple time.{{Rp|page=14}}

Because China rejection most foreign film importation, comparatively minor cinema like Albanian cinema and North Korean cinema developed mass audiences in China.{{Rp|page=207}} Through Albanian films screened during this period, many Chinese audience members were introduced to avant-garde and modernist storytelling techniques and aesthetics.{{Rp|page=206–207}}

In the years immediately following the Cultural Revolution, the film industry again flourished as a medium of popular entertainment. Production rose steadily, from 19 features in 1977 to 125 in 1986.{{cite book|last=Bordwell and Thompson|title=Film History: An Introduction|year=2010|publisher=McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc|location=New York|isbn=978-0-07-338613-3|page=638|edition=Third}} Domestically produced films played to large audiences, and tickets for foreign film festivals sold quickly. The industry tried to revive crowds by making more innovative and "exploratory" films like their counterparts in the West.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

Chinese cinema grew significantly in the late 1970s. In 1979, annual box office admissions reached a peak of {{nowrap|29.3 billion}} tickets sold, equivalent to an average of {{nowrap|30 films}} per person. Chinese cinema continued to prosper into the early 1980s. In 1980, annual box office admissions stood at {{nowrap|23.4 billion}} tickets sold, equivalent to an average of {{nowrap|29 films}} per person.{{cite book |last1=Zhang |first1=Rui |title=The Cinema of Feng Xiaogang: Commercialization and Censorship in Chinese Cinema after 1989 |date=1 September 2008 |publisher=Hong Kong University Press |isbn=978-962-209-885-5 |page=22 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xUXqAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA22}} In terms of box office admissions, this period represented the peak ticket sales in the history of the Chinese box office.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7Be2AAAAIAAJ |title=中国影视投融资的产业透视 |date=2006 |publisher=中国传媒大学出版社 (Communication University of China Press) |isbn=978-7-81085-720-8 |page=179 |language=zh |trans-title=An Industry Perspective of China's Film and Television Investment and Financing |quote=1979 年中国大陆生产的影片只有 50 多部,但观众人次达到了 279 亿,平均每天有 7 千万人次的观众看电影,创造了中国电影票房史上 |author=赵子忠 (Zhào Zizhōng) |trans-quote=In 1979, there were only more than {{nowrap|50 films}} produced in mainland China, but the number of viewers reached {{nowrap|27.9 billion}}, and an average of {{nowrap|70 million}} viewers watched films every day, creating history at the box office in China}} High ticket sales were driven by low ticket prices, with a cinema ticket typically costing between ¥0.1 ({{US$|{{To USD|0.1|CHN|year=1979}}|long=no}}) and ¥0.3 ({{US$|{{To USD|0.3|CHN|year=1979}}|long=no}}) at the time.{{cite book |last1=Link |first1=Perry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qhBYxOitb-MC&pg=PA204 |title=The Uses of Literature: Life in the Socialist Chinese Literary System |date=2000 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-00198-2 |page=204}}

By the early 1980s, there were 162,000 projection units in China, primarily composed of mobile movie teams which showed films outdoors in both rural and urban areas.{{Rp|page=102}}

A number of films during this period drew box office admissions in the hundreds of millions. China's highest-grossing film in box office admissions was Legend of the White Snake (1980) with an estimated {{nowrap|700 million}} admissions,{{Cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3HIxAAAAMAAJ |title=Fujian xi ju: Fujianxiju |journal=福建省戯劇年鑑 (Fujian Drama Yearbook) |publisher=中国戏剧家协会福建分会 (Fujian Branch of China Dramatists Association) |year=1985 |location=Fujian |page=11 |language=zh |quote=近年拍摄的戏曲片《白蛇传》观众人数最多,达七亿人次、《七品芝麻官》五亿人次。 |issue=1–6 |trans-quote=In recent years, the opera film "Legend of the White Snake" has the largest audience, reaching {{nowrap|700 million}} people, and "Sesame Official" with {{nowrap|500 million}} people.}}{{Cite news |date=2014-12-29 |script-title=zh:回望中国电影20年 从5亿人看《少林寺》到票房1日破亿 |trans-title=Looking back at Chinese movies over 20 years, from 500 million people watching "Shaolin Temple" to the box office breaking 100 million in one day |url=http://china.chinadaily.com.cn/shizheng/2014-12/29/content_19193580.htm |access-date=2022-04-01 |newspaper=China Daily |language=zh}} followed by {{Interlanguage link|In-Laws (Full House of Joy)|lt=In-Laws (Full House of Joy)|zh|喜盈門}} (1981) and The Undaunted Wudang (1983) with more than {{nowrap|600 million}} ticket sales each.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pWIxAAAAMAAJ |title=中国电影年鉴 |date=1985 |publisher=中国电影出版社 (China Film Press) |page=161 |language=zh |trans-title=China Film Yearbook |quote=近四年来城乡观众人次超过 1 亿的影片有:《喜盈门》 6 亿 5 千万,《武当》 6 亿 1 千万,《少林弟子》 5 亿 2 千万,《武林志》 5 亿,《从奴隶到将军》 4 亿 7 千万,《西安事变》 4 亿 5 千万,《吉鸿昌》 3 亿 8 千万,《开枪,为他送行》 3 亿 3 千万,《杜十娘》 2 亿 6 千万,《佩剑将军》 2 亿 6 千万,《火烧圆明园》 2 亿 4 千万 |trans-quote=In the past four years, films with more than 100 million viewers in urban and rural areas include: "Xi ying men" 650 million, "Wudang" 610 million, "Shao lin di zi" 520 million, "Wu lin zhi" 500 million, "Cong Nu Li Dao Jiang Jun" 470 million, "Xi'an Incident" 450 million, "Ji Hong Chang" 380 million, "Kai Qiang, Wei Ta Song Xing" 330 million, "Du Shiniang" 260 million, "A General Wearing the Sword" 260 million, "Burning of the Imperial Palace" 240 million}} The highest-grossing foreign film was the Japanese film Kimi yo Fundo no Kawa o Watare (1976), which released in 1978 and sold more than {{nowrap|330 million}} tickets,{{cite news |title=吴宇森对话高晓松 "最后一部电影会拍给徐克" |trans-title=Woo Yusen talks to Gao Xiaosong: "The last movie will be made for Tsui Hark" |url=http://ent.chinadaily.com.cn/2017-11/17/content_34650612.htm |access-date=29 March 2022 |work=China Daily |date=2017-11-17 |language=zh}} followed by the Indian film Caravan (1971) which released in 1979 and sold about {{nowrap|300 million}} tickets.{{cite book |last1=Elledge |first1=Jonn |title=The Compendium of (Not Quite) Everything: All the Facts You Didn't Know You Wanted to Know |date=16 September 2021 |publisher=Hachette UK |isbn=978-1-4722-7648-3 |pages=139–40 |chapter=Some films that probably sold more tickets than any Avengers movie |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sDwEEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT139}}

In the late 1980s the film industry fell on hard times, faced with the dual problems of competition from other forms of entertainment and concern on the part of the authorities that many of the popular thriller and martial arts films were socially unacceptable.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}} In January 1986 the film industry was transferred from the Ministry of Culture to the newly formed Ministry of Radio, Cinema, and Television to bring it under "stricter control and management" and to "strengthen supervision over production."{{Cite journal |first=Ainhoa Marzol |last=Aranburu |date=January–June 2017 |title=The Film Industry in China: Past and Present |url=https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB/article/download/j021/20377 |journal=Journal of Evolutionary Studies in Business |volume=2 |page=6 |issn=2385-7137 |oclc=952148126}}

{{see also|Scar literature}}

The end of the Cultural Revolution brought the release of "scar dramas" (傷痕剧 shānghén jù), which depicted the emotional traumas left by this period. The best-known of these is probably Xie Jin's Hibiscus Town (1986), although they could be seen as late as the 1990s with Tian Zhuangzhuang's The Blue Kite (1993). In the 1980s, open criticism of certain past Communist Party policies was encouraged by Deng Xiaoping as a way to reveal the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and the earlier Anti-Rightist Campaign, also helping to legitimize Deng's new policies of "reform and opening up." For instance, the Best Picture prize in the inaugural 1981 Golden Rooster Awards was given to two "scar dramas", Evening Rain (Wu Yonggang, Wu Yigong, 1980) and Legend of Tianyun Mountain (Xie Jin, 1980).Yau, Esther. "China After the Revolution", in The Oxford history of world cinema edited by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (1997). Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 698.

Many scar dramas were made by members of the Fourth Generation whose own careers or lives had suffered during the events in question, while younger, Fifth Generation directors such as Tian tended to focus on less controversial subjects of the immediate present or the distant past. Official enthusiasm for scar dramas waned by the 1990s when younger filmmakers began to confront negative aspects of the Mao era. The Blue Kite, though sharing a similar subject as the earlier scar dramas, was more realistic in style, and was made only through obfuscating its real script. Shown abroad, it was banned from release in mainland China, while Tian himself was banned from making any films for nearly a decade afterward. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, few if any scar dramas were released domestically in mainland China.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

{{see also|New Enlightenment (China)}}

File:Qufu Cinema - P1060026.JPG, Shandong]]

Beginning in the mid-late 1980s during the New Enlightenment movement in China, the rise of the so-called fifth generation of Chinese filmmakers brought increased popularity of Chinese cinema abroad.{{Cite journal |last=Han |first=Chen |date=2008 |title=啟蒙時代的電影神話──關於第五代電影的文化反思 |trans-title=The myth of film in the age of Enlightenment——a cultural reflection on the fifth generation of films |url=https://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/media/online/0711002.pdf |journal=Twenty-First Century |issue=73 |via=Chinese University of Hong Kong}} Most of the filmmakers who made up the Fifth Generation had graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in 1982 and included Zhang Yimou, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Chen Kaige, Zhang Junzhao, Li Shaohong, Wu Ziniu and others. These graduates constituted the first group of filmmakers to graduate since the Cultural Revolution and they soon jettisoned traditional methods of storytelling and opted for a more free and unorthodox symbolic approach.{{cite web | url = http://www.kinema.uwaterloo.ca/ghy-941.htm | title = The Irresistible Rise of Asian Cinema-Tian Zhuangzhuang: A Director of the 21st Century| access-date = 2007-04-23 |date= 2002-11-19 | author=Yvonne Ng|publisher = Kinema |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070416073506/http://kinema.uwaterloo.ca/ghy-941.htm |archive-date = 2007-04-16}} After the so-called scar literature in fiction had paved the way for frank discussion, Zhang Junzhao's One and Eight (1983) and Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth (1984) in particular were taken to mark the beginnings of the Fifth Generation.{{efn|Notably Zhang Yimou served as cinematographer for both films.}} Yellow Earth became one of the first Chinese art films to attract international attention.{{Cite book |last=Reinders |first=Eric |title=Reading Tolkien in Chinese: Religion, Fantasy, and Translation |date=2024 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=9781350374645 |series=Perspectives on Fantasy series |location=London, UK}}{{Rp|page=42}}

The most famous of the Fifth Generation directors, Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, went on to produce celebrated works such as King of the Children (1987), Ju Dou (1989), Raise the Red Lantern (1991) and Farewell My Concubine (1993), which were not only acclaimed by Chinese cinema-goers but by the Western arthouse audience. Tian Zhuangzhuang's films, though less well known by Western viewers, were well noted by directors such as Martin Scorsese. It was during this period that Chinese cinema began reaping the rewards of international attention, including the 1988 Golden Bear for Red Sorghum, the 1992 Golden Lion for The Story of Qiu Ju, the 1993 Palme d'Or for Farewell My Concubine, and three Best Foreign Language Film nominations from the Academy Awards. All these award-winning films starred actress Gong Li, who became the Fifth Generation's most recognizable star, especially to international audiences.

Diverse in style and subject, the Fifth Generation directors' films ranged from black comedy (Huang Jianxin's The Black Cannon Incident, 1985) to the esoteric (Chen Kaige's Life on a String, 1991), but they share a common rejection of the socialist-realist tradition worked by earlier Chinese filmmakers in the Communist era. Other notable Fifth Generation directors include Wu Ziniu, Hu Mei, Li Shaohong and Zhou Xiaowen. Fifth Generation filmmakers reacted against the ideological purity of Cultural Revolution cinema. By relocating to regional studios, they began to explore the actuality of local culture in a somewhat documentarian fashion. Instead of stories depicting heroic military struggles, the films were built out of the drama of ordinary people's daily lives. They also retained political edge, but aimed at exploring issues rather than recycling approved policy. While Cultural Revolution films used character, the younger directors favored psychological depth along the lines of European cinema. They adopted complex plots, ambiguous symbolism, and evocative imagery.{{cite book|last=Bordwell and Thompson|title=Film History: An Introduction|year=2010|publisher=McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc|location=New York|isbn=978-0-07-338613-3|pages=639–640|edition=Third}} Some of their bolder works with political overtones were banned by Chinese authorities.

These films came with a creative genres of stories, new style of shooting as well, directors utilized extensive color and long shots to present and explore history and structure of national culture. As a result of the new films being so intricate, the films were for more educated audiences than anything. The new style was profitable for some and helped filmmakers to make strides in the business. It allowed directors to get away from reality and show their artistic sense.{{cite book|last=Bordwell and Thompson|title=Film History: An Introduction|year=2010|publisher=McGraw-Hill |location=New York|isbn=978-0-07-338613-3|pages=638–640|edition=Third}}

The Fourth Generation also returned to prominence. Given their label after the rise of the Fifth Generation, these were directors whose careers were stalled by the Cultural Revolution and who were professionally trained prior to 1966. Wu Tianming, in particular, made outstanding contributions by helping to finance major Fifth Generation directors under the auspices of the Xi'an Film Studio (which he took over in 1983), while continuing to make films like Old Well (1986) and The King of Masks (1996).

The Fifth Generation movement ended in part after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, although its major directors continued to produce notable works. Several of its filmmakers went into self-imposed exile: Wu Tianming moved to the United States (but later returned), Huang Jianxin left for Australia, while many others went into television-related works.

During a period when socialist dramas were beginning to lose viewership, the Chinese government began to involve itself deeper into the world of popular culture and cinema by creating the official genre of the "main melody" (主旋律 zhǔxuánlǜ), inspired by Hollywood's strides in musical dramas.{{Cite journal|last=Ma|first=Weijun|date=September 2014|title=Chinese Main Melody TV Drama: Hollywoodization and Ideological Persuasion|journal=Television & New Media|volume=15|issue=6|pages=523–537|doi=10.1177/1527476412471436|s2cid=144145010|issn=1527-4764}} In 1987, the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television issued a statement encouraging the making of movies which emphasizes the main melody to "invigorate national spirit and national pride".Rui Zhang, The Cinema of Feng Xiaogang: Commercialization and Censorship in Chinese Cinema after 1989. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008, p. 35. The expression main melody refers to the musical term leitmotif, which translates to the 'theme of our times', which scholars suggest is representative of China's socio-political climate and cultural context of popular cinema.{{Cite book|title=Staging China: new theatres in the twenty-first century|editor=Li Ruru|isbn=978-1-137-52944-2 |publisher=Palgrave MacMillan |oclc=936371074 |date=2016}} These main melody films, still produced regularly in modern times, try to emulate the commercial mainstream by the use of Hollywood-style music and special effects. A significant feature of these films is the incorporation of a "red song", which is a song written as propaganda to support the People's Republic of China.{{Cite journal|last=Wang|first=Qian|date=2013-09-23|title=Red songs and the main melody: cultural nationalism and political propaganda in Chinese popular music|journal=Perfect Beat|volume=13|issue=2|pages=127–145|doi=10.1558/prbt.v13.i2.127}} By revolving the film around the motif of a red song, the film is able to gain traction at the box office as songs are generally thought to be more accessible than a film. Theoretically, once the red song dominates the charts, it will stir interest in the film that which it accompanies.{{Cite journal|last=Yu|first=Hongmei|date=2013|title=Visual Spectacular, Revolutionary Epic, and Personal Voice: The Narration of History in Chinese Main Melody Films|journal=Modern Chinese Literature and Culture|volume=25|issue=2|pages=166–218|issn=1520-9857|jstor=43492536}}

Main melody dramas are often subsidized by the state and have free access to government and military personnel.Braester, Yomi. "Contemporary Mainstream PRC Cinema" in The Chinese Cinema Book (2011), edited by Song Hwee Lim and Julian Ward, BFI: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 181. The Chinese government spends between "one and two million RMBs" annually to support the production of films in the main melody genre. August First Film Studio, the film and TV production arm of the People's Liberation Army, is a studio that produces main melody cinema. Main melody films, which often depict past military engagements or are biopics of first-generation CCP leaders, have won several Best Picture prizes at the Golden Rooster Awards.Rui Zhang, The Cinema of Feng Xiaogang: Commercialization and Censorship in Chinese Cinema after 1989. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008, p. 38–39. Some of the more famous main melody dramas include the ten-hour epic Decisive Engagement (大决战, 1991), directed by Cai Jiawei, Yang Guangyuan and Wei Lian; The Opium War (1997), directed by Xie Jin; and The Founding of a Republic (2009), directed by Han Sanping and Fifth Generation director Huang Jianxin.Braester, Yomi. "Contemporary Mainstream PRC Cinema" in The Chinese Cinema Book (2011), edited by Song Hwee Lim and Julian Ward, BFI: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 181–182. The Founding of an Army (2017) was commissioned by the government to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army, and is the third instalment in The Founding of a Republic series.{{Cite web|url=http://chinafilminsider.com/young-moviegoers-chinese-militarys/|title=Chinese Main Melody Film Wins Over Young Moviegoers {{!}} CFI|date=2017-08-02|website=China Film Insider|access-date=2019-11-13}} The film featured many young Chinese pop singers that are already well-established in the industry, including Li Yifeng, Liu Haoran, and Lay Zhang, so as to further the film's reputation as a main melody drama.

{{quote box

| quote = When faced with the complexity of real society, their hands and feet quiver, and they deliriously shoot a bunch of childish fairy tales

| source = — The sixth generation director Jia Zhangke's accusation of China's older filmmakers in an essay.{{Cite magazine|author=Evan Osnos|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/05/11/the-long-shot|title=The Long Shot|magazine=The New Yorker|date=2009-05-04}}

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The post-1990 era has been labeled the "return of the amateur filmmaker" as state censorship policies after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests produced an edgy underground film movement loosely referred to as the Sixth Generation. Owing to the lack of state funding and backing, these films were shot quickly and cheaply, using materials like 16 mm film and digital video and mostly non-professional actors and actresses, producing a documentary feel, often with long takes, hand-held cameras, and ambient sound; more akin to Italian neorealism and cinéma vérité than the often lush, far more considered productions of the Fifth Generation.Rose, S. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/01/china.film "The great fall of China"], The Guardian, 2002-08-01. Retrieved on 2007-04-28. Unlike the Fifth Generation, the Sixth Generation brings a more individualistic, anti-romantic life-view and pays far closer attention to contemporary urban life, especially as affected by disorientation, rebellion{{cite web |url= http://sensesofcinema.com/2003/feature-articles/li_yang/|title= "There Is No Sixth Generation!" Director Li Yang on Blind Shaft and His Place in Chinese Cinema|author= Stephen Teo|date= July 2003|access-date= 3 April 2015}} and dissatisfaction with China's contemporary social marketing economic tensions and comprehensive cultural background.{{cite news| url=http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,103002,00.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070206165948/http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,103002,00.html | archive-date=6 February 2007 | magazine=Time | first=Richard | last=Corliss | title=Bright Lights | date=2001-03-26|access-date=3 April 2015}} Many were made with an extremely low budget (an example is Jia Zhangke, who shoots on digital video, and formerly on 16 mm; Wang Xiaoshuai's The Days (1993) was made for US$10,000). The title and subjects of many of these films reflect the Sixth Generation's concerns. The Sixth Generation takes an interest in marginalized individuals and the less represented fringes of society. For example, Zhang Yuan's hand-held Beijing Bastards (1993) focuses on youth punk subculture, featuring artists like Cui Jian, Dou Wei and He Yong frowned upon by many state authorities,{{cite web |url= https://variety.com/1993/film/reviews/beijing-zazhong-1200433948/|title= Review: 'Beijing Zazhong'|author= Deborah Young

|date= 4 October 1993|access-date= 3 April 2015|work= Variety}} while Jia Zhangke's debut film Xiao Wu (1997) concerns a provincial pickpocket. While many Fifth Generation filmmakers have become darlings of mainstream Chinese culture, Sixth Generation filmmakers have often experienced harsh treatment by the state's censorship and regulatory system, despite their success at international film festivals and arthouse markets.{{Cite book |last=Xu |first=Gary G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=huEWFfNp8hMC |title=Sinascape: Contemporary Chinese Cinema |date=2007 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-7425-5450-4 |pages=47–48}}

As the Sixth Generation gained international exposure, many subsequent movies were joint ventures and projects with international backers, but remained quite resolutely low-key and low budget. Jia's Platform (2000) was funded in part by Takeshi Kitano's production house,{{cite web |url= http://www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk/features/2014/05/16/a-touch-of-sin-interview-with-jia-zhangke/|title= A Touch of Sin: Interview with Jia Zhang-ke|author= Pamela Jahn |date= 16 May 2014|access-date= 3 April 2015|work= Electric Sheep}} while his Still Life was shot on HD video. Still Life was a surprise addition and Golden Lion winner of the 2006 Venice International Film Festival. Still Life, which concerns provincial workers around the Three Gorges region, sharply contrasts with the works of Fifth Generation Chinese directors like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige who were at the time producing House of Flying Daggers (2004) and The Promise (2005). It featured no star of international renown and was acted mostly by non-professionals.

Many Sixth Generation films have highlighted the negative attributes of China's entry into the modern capitalist market. Li Yang's Blind Shaft (2003) for example, is an account of two murderous con-men in the unregulated and notoriously dangerous mining industry of northern China.{{cite news | url =https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/07/movies/filming-the-dark-side-of-capitalism-in-china-578819.html | title = Filming the Dark Side Of Capitalism in China | access-date = 2008-04-10 | author = Kahn, Joseph|date= 2003-05-07| newspaper = New York Times}} (Li refused the tag of Sixth Generation, although admitted he was not Fifth Generation). While Jia Zhangke's The World (2004) emphasizes the emptiness of globalization in the backdrop of an internationally themed amusement park.{{cite magazine | url = http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2005/festival-reports/new_york2004/ | title = Minimalism and Maximalism: The 42nd New York Film Festival | access-date = 2007-04-28 | author = Rapfogel, Jared |date= December 2004| magazine = Senses of Cinema |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070913090619/http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/festivals/05/34/new_york2004.html |archive-date = 2007-09-13}}

Some of the more prolific Sixth Generation directors to have emerged are Wang Xiaoshuai (The Days, Beijing Bicycle, So Long, My Son), Zhang Yuan (Beijing Bastards, East Palace West Palace), Jia Zhangke (Xiao Wu, Unknown Pleasures, Platform, The World, A Touch of Sin, Mountains May Depart, Ash Is Purest White), He Jianjun (Postman) and Lou Ye (Suzhou River, Summer Palace). One director of their generation who does not share most of the concerns of the Sixth Generation is Lu Chuan (Kekexili: Mountain Patrol, 2004; City of Life and Death, 2010).

In the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, two of China's Sixth generation filmmakers, Jia Zhangke and Zhang Ming – whose grim works transformed Chinese cinema in the 1990s – showed on the French Riviera. While both directors represent Chinese cinema, their profiles are quite different. The 49-year-old Jia set up the Pingyao International Film Festival in 2017 and on the other hand is Zhang, a 56-year-old film school professor who spent years working on government commissions and domestic TV shows after struggling with his own projects. Despite their different profiles, they mark an important cornerstone in Chinese cinema and are both credited with bringing Chinese movies to the international big screen. Chinese director Jia Zhangke's latest film Ash Is Purest White has been selected to compete in the official competition for the Palme d'Or of the 71st Cannes Film Festival, the highest prize awarded at the film festival. It is Jia's fifth movie, a gangster revenge drama that is his most expensive and mainstream film to date. Back in 2013, Jia won Best Screenplay Award for A Touch of Sin, following nominations for Unknown Pleasures in 2002 and 24 City in 2008. In 2014, he was a member of the official jury and the following year his film Mountains May Depart was nominated. According to entertainment website [https://variety.com/2018/film/asia/cannes-picks-asia-most-anticipated-titles-1202751347/ Variety], a record number of Chinese films were submitted this year but only Jia's romantic drama was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or. Meanwhile, Zhang will make his debut at Cannes with The Pluto Moment, a slow-moving relationship drama about a team of filmmakers scouting for locations and musical talent in China's rural hinterland. The film is Zhang's highest profile production so far, as it stars actor Wang Xuebing in the leading role. The film was partly financed by iQiyi, the company behind one of China's most popular online video browsing sharing sites.{{Cite web|url=https://gbtimes.com/chinese-director-jia-zhangke-to-compete-at-cannes-2018|website=gbtimes.com|access-date=2019-11-12|title=Chinese director Jia Zhangke competing at Cannes 2018|archive-date=12 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191112043410/https://gbtimes.com/chinese-director-jia-zhangke-to-compete-at-cannes-2018|url-status=dead}} Diao Yinan is also a notable member of the sixth generation whose works include Black Coal Thin Ice, Wild Goose Lake, Night Train and Uniform which have premiered at festivals such as Cannes and received acclaim abroad.{{Cite news|last=Kenny|first=Glenn|date=2020-03-05|title='The Wild Goose Lake' Review: A Noir Thriller in Wuhan|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/movies/the-wild-goose-lake-review.html|access-date=2021-07-19|issn=0362-4331}}

He Ping is a director of mostly Western-like films set in Chinese locale. His Swordsmen in Double Flag Town (1991) and Sun Valley (1995) explore narratives set in the sparse terrain of West China near the Gobi Desert. His historical drama Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker (1994) won a myriad of prizes home and abroad.

Recent cinema has seen Chinese cinematographers direct some acclaimed films. Other than Zhang Yimou, Lü Yue made Mr. Zhao (1998), a black comedy film well received abroad. Gu Changwei's minimalist epic Peacock (2005), about a quiet, ordinary Chinese family with three very different siblings in the post-Cultural Revolution era, took home the Silver Bear prize for 2005 Berlin International Film Festival. Hou Yong is another cinematographer who made films (Jasmine Women, 2004) and TV series. There are actors who straddle the dual roles of acting and directing. Xu Jinglei, a popular Chinese actress, has made six movies to date. Her second film Letter from an Unknown Woman (2004) landed her the San Sebastián International Film Festival Best Director award. Another popular actress and director is Zhao Wei, whose directorial debut So Young (2013) was a huge box office and critical success.

The most highly regarded Chinese actor-director is undoubtedly Jiang Wen, who has directed several critically acclaimed movies while following on his acting career. His directorial debut, In the Heat of the Sun (1994) was the first PRC film to win Best Picture at the Golden Horse Film Awards held in Taiwan. His other films, like Devils on the Doorstep (2000, Cannes Grand Prix) and Let the Bullets Fly (2010), were similarly well received. By the early 2011, Let the Bullets Fly had become the highest grossing domestic film in China's history.{{cite web|url=http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/resurrection-takes-china-bo-record|work=Film Business Asia|title=Resurrection takes China BO record|access-date=3 April 2015|author=Cremin, Stephen|date=24 July 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120730010234/http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/resurrection-takes-china-bo-record|archive-date=30 July 2012|df=mdy-all}}{{cite web |title=《让子弹飞》票房7.3亿 姜文成国内第一导演_娱乐_腾讯网 |trans-title="Let the Bullets Fly" Box Office Hits 730 Million, Jiang Wen Becomes the Top Domestic Director. |url=http://ent.qq.com/a/20110216/000002.htm |access-date=27 July 2018 |website=Ent.qq.com}}

There is a growing number of independent seventh or post-Sixth Generation filmmakers making films with extremely low budgets and using digital equipment. They are the so-called dGeneration (for digital).{{cite web|url=http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/1219/719 |title=From D-Buffs to the D-Generation: Piracy, Cinema, and an Alternative Public Sphere in Urban China |website=Talari.com |date=2011-04-01 |access-date=2015-10-23}} These films, like those from Sixth Generation filmmakers, are mostly made outside the Chinese film system and are shown mostly on the international film festival circuit. Ying Liang and Jian Yi are two of these generation filmmakers. Ying's Taking Father Home (2005) and The Other Half (2006) are both representative of the generation trends of the feature film. Liu Jiayin made two dGeneration feature films, Oxhide (2004) and Oxhide II (2010), blurring the line between documentary and narrative film. Oxhide, made by Liu when she was a film student, frames herself and her parents in their claustrophobic Beijing apartment in a narrative praised by critics. An Elephant Sitting Still, considered one of the greatest film debuts in Chinese cinema, is also the only film by the late Hu Bo.{{cite web|url=http://www.timeoutbeijing.com/features/Books__Film-Interviews__Features/28696/100-best-Chinese-Mainland-Films-the-countdown/9/30-21.html |title=100 best Chinese Mainland Films: the countdown |website=Timeoutbeijing.com |date=2014-04-04 |access-date=2015-10-23}}

Two decades of reform and commercialization have brought dramatic social changes in mainland China, reflected not only in fiction film but in a growing documentary movement. Wu Wenguang's 70-minute Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers (1990) is now seen as one of the first works of this "New Documentary Movement" (NDM) in China.{{cite magazine|url=http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/28/chinas_new_documentary/|title=Dancing with Myself,Drifting with My Camera: The Emotional Vagabonds|magazine=Senses of Cinema|author=Reynaud, Berenice|date=September 2003|access-date=2007-12-10 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071103202811/http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/28/chinas_new_documentary.html |archive-date = 2007-11-03}}{{cite news|url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/e/a/1998/03/05/STYLE6967.dtl|author=Krich, John|newspaper=The San Francisco Examiner|date=5 March 1998|title=China's New Documentaries}} Bumming, made between 1988 and 1990, contains interviews with five young artists eking out a living in Beijing, subject to state authorized tasks. Shot using a camcorder, the documentary ends with four of the artists moving abroad after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.{{cite book | last = Chu | first = Yingchu| year = 2007 | title = Chinese Documentaries: From Dogma to Polyphony | url = https://archive.org/details/chinesedocumenta00chuy | url-access = limited | publisher = Routledge| pages = [https://archive.org/details/chinesedocumenta00chuy/page/n101 91]–92}} Dance with the Farm Workers (2001) is another documentary by Wu.{{cite book | last = Zhang | first = Yingjin| year = 2010 | title = Cinema, Space, and Polylocality in a Globalizing China | publisher = University of Hawaiʻi Press| page = 134}}

Another internationally acclaimed documentary is Wang Bing's nine-hour tale of deindustrialization Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2003). Wang's subsequent documentaries, He Fengming (2007), Crude Oil (2008), Man with no name (2009), Three Sisters (2012) and Feng ai (2013), cemented his reputation as a leading documentarist of the movement.{{Cite web|url=http://icarusfilms.com/other/filmmaker/wangbing.html|title=Icarus Films: Featured Filmmakers|website=icarusfilms.com|access-date=2020-01-28}}

Li Hong, the first woman in the NDM, in Out of Phoenix Bridge (1997) relates the story of four young women, who moving from rural areas to the big cities like millions of other men and women, have come to Beijing to make a living.

The New Documentary Movement in recent times has overlapped with the dGeneration filmmaking, with most documentaries being shot cheaply and independently in the digital format. Xu Xin's Karamay (2010), Zhao Liang's Behemoth, Huang Weikai's Disorder (2009), Zhao Dayong's Ghost Town (2009), Du Haibing's 1428 (2009), Xu Tong's Fortune Teller (2009) and Li Ning's Tape (2010) were all shot in digital format. All had made their impact in the international documentary scene and the use of digital format allows for works of vaster lengths.

{{Main|Animation in China|History of animation in China}}

Inspired by the success of Disney animation, the self-taught pioneers Wan brothers, Wan Laiming and Wan Guchan, made the first Chinese animated short in the 1920s, thus inaugurating the history of Chinese animation. (Chen Yuanyuan 175)Chen, Yuanyuan. "Old Or New Art? Rethinking Classical Chinese Animation." Journal of Chinese Cinemas, vol. 11, no. 2, 2017, pp. 175-188. Many live-action films of the Republican era also included animated sequences.{{cite web| url = https://chinesefilmclassics.org/animation-and-cartoons/| title = Animation and Cartoons 卡通與漫畫 - Chinese Film Classics| date = 23 April 2021}}

In 1937, the Wan brothers decided to produce 《铁扇公主》 Princess Iron Fan, which was the first Chinese animated feature film and the fourth, after the American feature films Snow White, Gulliver's Travels, and The Adventures of Pinocchio. It was at this time that Chinese animation as an art form had risen to prominence on the world stage. Completed in 1941, the film was released under China United Pictures and aroused a great response in Asia. Japanese animator Shigeru Tezuka once said that he gave up medicine after watching the cartoon and decided to pursue animation.{{citation needed|date=July 2023}}

During this golden era, Chinese animation had developed a variety of styles, including ink animation, shadow play animation, puppet animation, and so on. Some of the most representative works are 《大闹天宫》 Uproar in Heaven, 《哪吒闹海》 Nezha's Rebellion in the Sea and《天书奇谈》 Heavenly Book, which have also won lofty praise and numerous awards in the world.{{citation needed|date=July 2023}}

After Deng Xiaoping's Reform Period and the "opening up" of China, the movies《葫芦兄弟》 Calabash Brothers, 《黑猫警长》Black Cat Sheriff, 《阿凡提》Avanti Story and other impressive animated movies were released. However, at this time, China still favored the Japanese's more unique, American and European-influenced animated works over the less-advanced domestic ones.{{citation needed|date=July 2023}}

In the 1990s, digital production methods replaced manual hand-drawing methods; however, even with the use of advanced technology, none of the animated works were considered to be a breakthrough film. Animated films that tried to cater to all age groups, such as Lotus Lantern and Storm Resolution, did not attract much attention. The only animated works that seemed to achieve popularity were the ones for catered for children, such as Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf《喜羊羊与灰太狼》.

{{Unreferenced section|date=July 2023}}

During this period, the technical level of Chinese domestic animation production has been established comprehensively, and 3D animation films have become the mainstream. However, as more and more foreign films (such as ones from Japan, Europe, and the United States) are being imported into China, Chinese animated works is left in the shadows of these animated foreign films.

It was only with the release of 《西游记之大圣归来》Monkey King: Hero is Back in 2015, a computer-animated film, that Chinese animated works took back the rein. The film was a huge hit and broke the record for Chinese domestic animated movies with CN¥956 million at China's box office. After the success of Journey to the West, several other high-quality animated films were released, such as《大鱼海棠》 Big Fish and Begonia and 《白蛇缘起》 White Snake. Though none of these movies made headway in regards to the box office, they did make filmmakers more and more interested in animated works.

This all changed with the breakthrough animated film, 《哪吒之魔童降世》Ne Zha. Released in 2019, it became the second highest-grossing film of all time in China, the highest-grossing animated non-English film, and the highest-grossing animated film in a single territory. It was with this film that Chinese animated films, as a medium, finally broke the notion in China that domestic animated films are only for children. With Nezha, and a spinoff, Jiang Ziya, Chinese animation has now come to be known as a veritable source of entertainment for all ages.

With China's liberalization in the late 1970s and its opening up to foreign markets, commercial considerations have made its impact in post-1980s filmmaking. Traditionally arthouse movies screened seldom make enough to break even. An example is Fifth Generation director Tian Zhuangzhuang's The Horse Thief (1986), a narrative film with minimal dialog on a Tibetan horse thief. The film, showcasing exotic landscapes, was well received by Chinese and some Western arthouse audiences, but did poorly at the box office.Celluloid China: cinematic encounters with culture and society, Harry H. Kuoshu, Southern Illinois University Press (2002), p 202 Tian's later The Warrior and the Wolf (2010) was a similar commercial failure.[http://zx.dy.com.cn/content/2009-10-12/20091012185758575,1.shtml 《狼灾记》票房低迷出乎意料 导演的兽性情挑_第一电影网] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130905133933/http://zx.dy.com.cn/content/2009-10-12/20091012185758575%2C1.shtml |date=5 September 2013 }}

Prior to these, there were examples of successful commercial films in the post-liberalization period. One was the romance film Romance on the Lu Mountain (1980), which was a success with older Chinese. The film broke the Guinness Book of Records as the longest-running film on a first run. Jet Li's cinematic debut Shaolin Temple (1982) was an instant hit at home and abroad (in Japan and the Southeast Asia, for example).{{cite book |title=Celebrity in China |author=Louise Edwards |author2=Elaine Jeffreys |publisher= Hong Kong University Press |year=2010 |page=456}} Another successful commercial film was {{ill|Murder in 405|zh|405谋杀案|italic=yes}} (405谋杀案, 1980), a murder thriller.{{cite web |title=CCTV-电影频道-相聚——《流金岁月》 |trans-title=CCTV - Movie Channel - Reunion — "The Golden Years" |url=http://www.cctv.com/program/ljsy_new/14/56/index.shtml |access-date=27 July 2018 |website=Cctv.com}} Feng Xiaogang's The Dream Factory (1997) was heralded as a turning point in Chinese movie industry, a hesui pian (Chinese New Year-screened film) which demonstrated the viability of the commercial model in China's socialist market economy. Feng has become one of the most successful commercial director in the post-1997 era. Almost all his films made high returns domestically{{cite web |author=Walsh Megan |date=20 February 2014 |title=review phim |url=https://wowhay.com/ |access-date=3 April 2015 |work=New Statesman}} while he used ethnic Chinese co-stars like Rosamund Kwan, Jacqueline Wu, Rene Liu and Shu Qi to boost his films' appeal. In the decade following 2010, owing to the influx of Hollywood films (though the number screened each year is curtailed), Chinese domestic cinema faces mounting challenges. The industry is growing and domestic films are starting to achieve the box office impact of major Hollywood blockbusters. However, not all domestic films are successful financially. In January 2010 James Cameron's Avatar was pulled out from non-3D theaters for Hu Mei's biopic Confucius, but this move led to a backlash on Hu's film.{{cite web |url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2010-01/29/content_9396402.htm |title=Confucius loses his way |author= Raymond Zhou|date=29 January 2010|access-date= 3 April 2015|work=China Daily}} Zhang Yang's 2005 Sunflower also made little money, but his earlier, low-budget Spicy Love Soup (1997) grossed ten times its budget of ¥3 million.{{cite book |title=A Companion to Chinese Cinema |editor= Yingjin Zhang |publisher= Blackwell Publishing |year=2012 |page=357}} Likewise, the 2006 Crazy Stone, a sleeper hit, was made for just 3 million HKD/US$400,000. In 2009–11, Feng's Aftershock (2009) and Jiang Wen's Let the Bullets Fly (2010) became China's highest grossing domestic films, with Aftershock earning ¥670 million (US$105 million){{cite web |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/feng-xiaogang-remembering-1942-shanghai-338567 |title=Feng Xiaogang Unveils Epic 'Remembering 1942' at the Shanghai Film Festival |author= Karen Chu |date=2012-06-17|access-date= 2012-07-07|work=The Hollywood Reporter}} and Let the Bullets Fly ¥674 million (US$110 million).{{cite web|url=http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/so-young-enters-chinas-all-time-top-ten|title=So Young enters China's all-time top ten|author=Stephen Cremin|date=18 May 2013|work=Film Business Asia|access-date=3 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150319110551/http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/so-young-enters-chinas-all-time-top-ten|archive-date=19 March 2015}} Lost in Thailand (2012) became the first Chinese film to reach ¥1 billion at the Chinese box office and Monster Hunt (2015) became the first to reach {{CNY|2 billion}}.

As of 2021, 9 of the top 10 highest-grossing films in China are domestic productions. On 8 February 2016, the Chinese box office set a new single-day gross record, with {{CNY|660 million}}, beating the previous record of {{CNY|425 million}} on 18 July 2015.{{cite web |url= https://variety.com/2016/film/box-office/china-biggest-day-at-box-office-1201700835/|title= China Has Biggest Ever Day At Box Office|first= Patrick|last= Frater|date= 9 February 2016|access-date= 9 February 2016|work= Variety}} Also in February 2016, The Mermaid, directed by Stephen Chow, became the highest-grossing film in China, overtaking Monster Hunt.{{cite web |url= https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/stephen-chows-mermaid-highest-grosser-867913|title= China Box Office: 'Mermaid' Becomes Top-Grossing Film Ever With $400M|first= Patrick|last= Brzeski|date= 19 February 2016|access-date= 21 February 2016|work= The Hollywood Reporter}} It is also the first film to reach {{CNY|3 billion}}.{{cite web |url= http://chinafilminsider.com/china-box-office-february-and-the-mermaid-smash-records/|title= China Box Office: February and 'The Mermaid' Smash Records|first= Jonathan|last= Papish|date= 29 February 2016|access-date= 1 March 2016|work= China Film Insider}}

Under the influence of Hollywood science fiction movies like Prometheus, published on 8 June 2012, such genres especially the space science films have risen rapidly in the Chinese film market in recent years. On 5 February 2019, the film The Wandering Earth directed by Frant Gwo reached $699.8 million worldwide, which became the third highest-grossing film in the history of Chinese cinema.

File:Jia Zhang-Ke Skipcity DCF 2005.jpg at the Skip City International D-Cinema Festival in Kawaguchi, Saitama, Japan, 22 July 2005]]

File:Huang Xiaoming in 2016.jpg, a Chinese actor, singer, and model]]

Since the late 1980s and progressively in the 2000s, Chinese films have enjoyed considerable box office success abroad. Formerly viewed only by cineastes, its global appeal mounted after the international box office and critical success of Ang Lee's period wuxia film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which won Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2000. This multi-national production increased its appeal by featuring stars from all parts of the Chinese-speaking world. It provided an introduction to Chinese cinema (and especially the wuxia genre) for many and increased the popularity of many earlier Chinese films. To date Crouching Tiger remains the most commercially successful foreign-language film in U.S. history.

In 2002, Zhang Yimou's Hero was another international box office success.{{Cite book |last=Crean |first=Jeffrey |title=The Fear of Chinese Power: an International History |date=2024 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-1-350-23394-2 |edition= |series=New Approaches to International History series |location=London, UK |pages=164}} Its cast featured famous actors from mainland China and Hong Kong who were also known to some extent in the West, including Jet Li, Zhang Ziyi, Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. Despite criticisms by some that these two films pander somewhat to Western tastes, Hero was a phenomenal success in most of Asia and topped the U.S. box office for two weeks, making enough in the U.S. alone to cover the production costs.

Other films such as Farewell My Concubine, 2046, Suzhou River, The Road Home and House of Flying Daggers were critically acclaimed around the world. The Hengdian World Studios can be seen as the "Chinese Hollywood", with a total area of up to 330 ha. and 13 shooting bases, including a 1:1 copy of the Forbidden City.

File:Jiang Qinqin from "Chinese Movie Week" at Opening Ceremony of the Tokyo International Film Festival 2016 (33259230440).jpg at Opening Ceremony of the Tokyo International Film Festival 2016]]

The successes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero make it difficult to demarcate the boundary between "Mainland Chinese" cinema and a more international-based "Chinese-language cinema". Crouching Tiger, for example, was directed by a Taiwan-born American director (Ang Lee) who works often in Hollywood. Its pan-Chinese leads include mainland Chinese (Zhang Ziyi), Hong Kong (Chow Yun-Fat), Taiwan (Chang Chen) and Malaysian (Michelle Yeoh) actors and actresses; the film was co-produced by an array of Chinese, American, Hong Kong, and Taiwan film companies. Likewise, Lee's Chinese-language Lust, Caution (2007) drew a crew and cast from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and includes an orchestral score by French composer Alexandre Desplat. This merging of people, resources and expertise from the three regions and the broader East Asia and the world, marks the movement of Chinese-language cinema into a domain of large scale international influence. Other examples of films in this mold include The Promise (2005), The Banquet (2006), Fearless (2006), The Warlords (2007), Bodyguards and Assassins (2009) and Red Cliff (2008–09). The ease with which ethnic Chinese actresses and actors straddle the mainland and Hong Kong has significantly increased the number of co-productions in Chinese-language cinema. Many of these films also feature South Korean or Japanese actors to appeal to their East Asian neighbours. Some artistes originating from the mainland, like Hu Jun, Zhang Ziyi, Tang Wei and Zhou Xun, obtained Hong Kong residency under the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme and have acted in many Hong Kong productions.{{Cite web |url=http://www.asianbite.com/default.asp?Display=2473 |title=Zhou Xun Obtains Hong Kong Citizenship |access-date=2016-02-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120402064516/http://www.asianbite.com/default.asp?Display=2473 |archive-date=2012-04-02 }}

===Box office and screens===

In 1983, there were 162,000 projection units in China, up from less than 600 at the 1949 founding of the PRC.{{Cite book |last=Li |first=Jie |title=Cinematic Guerillas: Propaganda, Projectionists, and Audiences in Socialist China |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2023 |isbn=9780231206273}}{{Rp|page=1}}

In 1998, the Ministry of Culture revived the practice of mobile rural cinema as part of its 2131 Project which aimed to screen one movie per month per village in rural China and upgrade analog equipment to digital projectors.{{Rp|page=246}} In 2003, the central government provided more than 400 film projection vans to Tibet and Xinjiang to show films in an effort to oppose what the government viewed as separatism and Westernization.{{Rp|page=249}}

In 2010, Chinese cinema was the third largest film industry by number of feature films produced annually.{{cite news | url=http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2044888,00.html| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110202062938/http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2044888,00.html| archive-date=2 February 2011| title=As Its Box Office Booms, Chinese Cinema Makes a 3-D Push | magazine= Time|author=Brenhouse, Hillary|date=2011-01-31| access-date=2011-09-14}} In 2013, China's gross box office was ¥21.8 billion (US$3.6 billion), the second-largest film market in the world by box office receipts.{{cite web|url= http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/china-bo-up-27-in-2013|title= China B.O. up 27% in 2013|author= Kevin Ma|date= 6 January 2014|access-date= 6 January 2014|work= Film Business Asia|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140106182629/http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/china-bo-up-27-in-2013|archive-date= 6 January 2014|df= mdy-all}} In January 2013, Lost in Thailand (2012) became the first Chinese film to reach ¥1 billion at the box office.{{cite web|url=http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/xu-joins-one-billion-club|title=Xu joins one billion club|author=Stephen Cremin and Patrick Frater|date=3 January 2013|access-date=6 January 2014|work=Film Business Asia|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140205082726/http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/xu-joins-one-billion-club|archive-date=5 February 2014|df=mdy-all}} As of May 2013, 7 of the top 10 highest-grossing films in China were domestic productions.{{cite web|url=http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/so-young-enters-chinas-all-time-top-ten|title=So Young enters China's all-time top ten|author=Stephen Cremin|date=18 May 2013|access-date=6 January 2014|work=Film Business Asia|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150319110551/http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/so-young-enters-chinas-all-time-top-ten|archive-date=19 March 2015}} As of 2014, around half of all tickets are sold online, with the largest ticket selling sites being Maoyan.com (82 million), Gewara.com (45 million) and Wepiao.com (28 million).{{cite web |url= http://english.entgroup.cn/news_detail.aspx?id=3188|title= Internet Giants Move From Behind the Camera to Front|author= Xu Fan |agency=China Daily |date= 18 June 2015|access-date= 19 June 2015|publisher= EntGroup Inc |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20151015224650/http://english.entgroup.cn/news_detail.aspx?id=3188 |archive-date= Oct 15, 2015 }} In 2014, Chinese films earned ¥1.87 billion outside China.{{cite web |url= http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/china-bo-up-36-in-2014|title= China B.O up 36% in 2014|author= Kevin Ma|date= 2 January 2015|access-date= 2 January 2015|work= Film Business Asia |url-status=unfit |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150124201950/http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/china-bo-up-36-in-2014 |archive-date= Jan 24, 2015 }} By December 2013 there were 17,000 screens in the country.{{cite web |url=http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/china-bo-passes-rmb20-billion-in-2013 |title=China B.O. passes RMB20 billion in 2013|author=Kevin Mar|date=2013-12-10|access-date= 2013-12-19|work= Film Business Asia |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224103401/http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/china-bo-passes-rmb20-billion-in-2013 |archive-date= Dec 24, 2013 }} By 6 January 2014, there were 18,195 screens in the country. Greater China has around 251 IMAX theaters.{{cite web |url= https://variety.com/2015/biz/asia/imax-china-sets-cautious-ipo-share-price-1201606822/|title= IMAX China Sets Cautious IPO Share Price|author= Patrick Frater|date= 30 September 2015|access-date= 9 October 2015|work= Variety}} There were 299 cinema chains (252 rural, 47 urban), 5,813 movie theaters and 24,317 screens in the country in 2014.{{cite web |url= http://english.entgroup.cn/uploads/reports/China%20Film%20Industry%20Report%202014-2015%EF%BC%88in%20brief%EF%BC%89.pdf|title= China Film Industry Report 2014-2015 (In Brief)|access-date= 15 October 2015|publisher= EntGroup Inc |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20151015224650/http://english.entgroup.cn/uploads/reports/China%20Film%20Industry%20Report%202014-2015%EF%BC%88in%20brief%EF%BC%89.pdf |archive-date= Oct 15, 2015 }}

The country added about 8,035 screens in 2015 (at an average of 22 new screens per day, increasing its total by about 40% to around 31,627 screens, which is about 7,373 shy of the number of screens in the United States.{{cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/business/la-et-1230-ct-china-box-office-20151230-story.html|title=Movie ticket sales jump 48% in China, but Hollywood has reason to worry|author=Julie Makinen|work=Los Angeles Times|date=29 December 2015|access-date=29 December 2015}}{{cite web|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-box-office-grows-astonishing-851629|title=China Box Office Grows Astonishing 49 Percent in 2015, Hits $6.78 Billion|author=Patrick Brzeski|work=The Hollywood Reporter|date=31 December 2015|access-date=31 December 2015}} Chinese films accounted for 61.48% of ticket sales in 2015 (up from 54% last year) with more than 60% of ticket sales being made online. Average ticket price was down about 2.5% to $5.36 in 2015. It also witnessed 51.08% increase in admissions, with 1.26 billion people buying tickets to the cinema in 2015. Chinese films grossed {{USD|427 million}} overseas in 2015.{{cite web |url= https://deadline.com/2016/01/china-box-office-2015-record-1201674753/|title= China Box Office Ends Year With $6.77B; On Way To Overtaking U.S. In 2017?|first= Nancy|last= Tartaglione|date= 1 January 2016|access-date= 1 January 2016|work=Deadline Hollywood}} During the week of the 2016 Chinese New Year, the country set a new record for the highest box office gross during one week in one territory with {{USD|548 million}}, overtaking the previous record of {{USD|529.6 million}} of 26 December 2015 to 1 January 2016 in the United States and Canada.{{cite web |url= https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-box-office-breaks-world-865319|title= China Box Office Breaks World Record With $548M in One Week|first= Patrick |last= Brzeski|date=15 February 2016|access-date= 16 February 2016|work= The Hollywood Reporter}} Chinese films grossed {{CNY|3.83 billion}} ({{USD|550 million}}) in foreign markets in 2016.

In 2020, China's market for films surpassed the U.S. market to become the largest such market in the world.{{Cite book |last=Li |first=David Daokui |title=China's World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict |date=2024 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0393292398 |location=New York, NY |author-link=David Daokui Li}}{{Rp|page=16}}

As of April 2015, the largest Chinese film company by worth was Alibaba Pictures (US$8.77 billion). Other large companies include Huayi Brothers Media (US$7.9 billion), Enlight Media (US$5.98 billion) and Bona Film Group (US$542 million).{{cite web |url= https://variety.com/2015/biz/asia/chinese-media-stocks-stage-major-rally-in-us-and-asian-markets-1201469237/|title= Chinese Media Stocks Stage Major Rally in U.S. and Asian Markets|author= Patrick Frater|date= 9 April 2015|access-date= 14 April 2015|work=Variety}} The biggest distributors by market share in 2014 were: China Film Group (32.8%), Huaxia Film (22.89%), Enlight Pictures (7.75%), Bona Film Group (5.99%), Wanda Media (5.2%), Le Vision Pictures (4.1%), Huayi Brothers (2.26%), United Exhibitor Partners (2%), Heng Ye Film Distribution (1.77%) and Beijing Anshi Yingna Entertainment (1.52%). The biggest cinema chains in 2014 by box office gross were: Wanda Cinema Line ({{USD|676.96 million}}), China Film Stellar (393.35 million), Dadi Theater Circuit (378.17 million), Shanghai United Circuit (355.07 million), Guangzhou Jinyi Zhujiang (335.39 million), China Film South Cinema Circuit (318.71 million), Zhejiang Time Cinema (190.53 million), China Film Group Digital Cinema Line (177.42 million), Hengdian Cinema Line (170.15 million) and Beijing New Film Association (163.09 million).

Huayi Brothers is China's most powerful independent (i.e., non state-owned) entertainment company, Beijing-based Huayi Brothers is a diversified company engaged in film and TV production, distribution, theatrical exhibition, as well as talent management. Notable films include 2004's Kung Fu Hustle; and 2010's Aftershock, which had a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.{{Cite web|url=https://chinafilmbiz.com/2012/07/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121028202238/http://chinafilmbiz.com/2012/07/|url-status=usurped|archive-date=28 October 2012|title=July 2012|website=chinafilmbiz 中国电影业务|date=29 July 2012 |access-date=2019-11-13}}

Beijing Enlight Media focuses on the action and romance genres. Enlight usually places several films in China's top 20 grossers. Enlight is also a major player in China's TV series production and distribution businesses. Under the leadership of its CEO Wang Changtian, the publicly traded, Beijing-based company has achieved a market capitalization of nearly US$1 billion.{{Cite web|url=https://chinafilmbiz.com/2012/07/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121028202238/http://chinafilmbiz.com/2012/07/|url-status=usurped|archive-date=28 October 2012|title=July 2012|website=chinafilmbiz 中国电影业务|date=29 July 2012 |access-date=2019-11-12}}

Since 2017, the industry is regulated by the Film Industry Promotion Act.{{Cite journal |last=Li |first=Yuhao |date=2022-07-15 |title=Research on the Value Maximization of Chinese Film Intellectual Property in the Internet Era |url=https://francis-press.com/papers/6943 |journal=Frontiers in Art Research |language=en |volume=4 |issue=8 |doi=10.25236/FAR.2022.040802}}{{Cite book |last=Li |first=Ting |url=https://www.aup-online.com/content/papers/10.5117/9789048557240/ICASSEE.2021.023 |title=The 5th International Conference on Art Studies: Research, Experience, Education (ICASSEE 2021) |date=December 2021 |publisher=Amsterdam University Press |isbn=978-90-485-5724-0 |editor-last=Lukina |editor-first=Galima |volume=1 |pages=162–166 |chapter=Study on the Development of Chinese Animated Films in the New Era |doi=10.5117/9789048557240/ICASSEE.2021.023}}

• Cinema of Asia
• East Asian cinema
• Chinese animation
• Chinese art
• Kung Fu film
• Movie Town Haikou
• Oriental Movie Metropolis
• August First Film Studio

• List of Chinese actors
• List of Chinese actresses
• List of Chinese directors
• List of Chinese films
• List of Chinese film production companies (pre-PRC)
• List of highest-grossing films in China
• List of film production companies by country#China
• List of highest-grossing non-English films

{{notelist}}

{{Reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book |last1=Bordwell |first1 = David |last2 = Thompson |first2=Kristin |title = Film history: an introduction|year=2010 |publisher=McGraw-Hill Higher Education|location=New York, NY |isbn=978-0-07-338613-3 |edition=3rd }}
• {{cite book |editor-last=Nowell-Smith |editor-first=Geoffrey |title=The Oxford history of world cinema |year=1997 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-874242-5 |edition=Paperback |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordhistoryofw00geof }}

{{refend}}

• Carlo Celli. "China's Confucian, Misogynistic Nationalism" National Identity in Global Cinema: How Movies Explain the World. Palgrave MacMillan 2013, 1–22.
• Rey Chow, Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema, Columbia University Press 1995.
• Cheng, Jim, Annotated Bibliography For Chinese Film Studies, Hong Kong University Press 2004.
• Shuqin Cui, Women Through the Lens: Gender and Nation in a Century of Chinese Cinema, University of Hawaii Press 2003.
• Dai Jinhua, Cinema and Desire: Feminist Marxism and Cultural Politics in the Work of Dai Jinhua, eds. Jing Wang and Tani E. Barlow. London: Verso 2002.
• {{cite book|year=2015|access-date=17 May 2014|publisher=McFarland|author=Rolf Giesen|others=Illustrated by Bryn Barnard|title=Chinese Animation: A History and Filmography, 1922-2012|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2mjjBQAAQBAJ&q=mayan+girls+chinese&pg=PT313|isbn=978-1-4766-1552-3}}
• {{Cite journal | last1 = Hu | first1 = Lindan | title = Rescuing female desire from revolutionary history: Chinese women's cinema in the 1980s | journal = Asian Journal of Women's Studies | volume = 23 | issue = 1 | pages = 49–65 | doi = 10.1080/12259276.2017.1279890 | date = 2017 | s2cid = 218771001 }}
• Harry H. Kuoshu, Celluloid China: Cinematic Encounters with Culture and Society, Southern Illinois University Press 2002 - introduction, discusses 15 films at length.
• Jay Leyda, Dianying, MIT Press, 1972.
• Laikwan Pang, Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-Wing Cinema Movement, 1932–1937, Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc 2002.
• {{cite book|editor-last1=Quiquemelle|editor-first1=Marie-Claire|editor-last2=Passek|editor-first2=Jean-Loup|editor-link2=Jean-Loup Passek|title=Le Cinéma chinois|date=1985|publisher=Centre national d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou|location=Paris|isbn=978-2-85850-263-9|oclc=11965661}}
• Rea, Christopher. Chinese Film Classics, 1922–1949. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021. ISBN 9780231188135
• Seio Nakajima. 2016. "The genesis, structure and transformation of the contemporary Chinese cinematic field: Global linkages and national refractions." Global Media and Communication Volume 12, Number 1, pp 85–108. [http://gmc.sagepub.com/content/12/1/85.abstract]
• Zhen Ni, Chris Berry, Memoirs From The Beijing Film Academy, Duke University Press 2002.
• Semsel, George, ed. "Chinese Film: The State of the Art in the People's Republic", Praeger, 1987.
• Semsel, George, Xia Hong, and Hou Jianping, eds. Chinese Film Theory: A Guide to the New Era, Praeger, 1990.
• Semsel, George, Chen Xihe, and Xia Hong, eds. Film in Contemporary China: Critical Debates, 1979–1989", Praeger, 1993.
• Gary G. Xu, Sinascape: Contemporary Chinese Cinema, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.
• Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh and Darrell William Davis. 2008. "Re-nationalizing China's film industry: case study on the China Film Group and film marketization." Journal of Chinese Cinemas Volume 2, Issue 1, pp 37–51. [http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/jcc.2.1.37_1]
• Yingjin Zhang (Author), Zhiwei Xiao (Author, Editor), Encyclopedia of Chinese Film, Routledge, 1998.
• Yingjin Zhang, ed., Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922–1943, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.
• Yingjin Zhang, Chinese National Cinema (National Cinemas Series.), Routledge 2004 - general introduction.
• Ying Zhu, "Chinese Cinema during the Era of Reform: the Ingenuity of the System", Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003.
• Ying Zhu, "Art, Politics and Commerce in Chinese Cinema", co-edited with Stanley Rosen, Hong Kong University Press, 2010
• Ying Zhu and Seio Nakajima, "The Evolution of Chinese Film as an Industry," pp. 17–33 in Stanley Rosen and Ying Zhu, eds., Art, Politics and Commerce in Chinese Cinema, Hong Kong University Press, 2010. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1xwdjc]
• Wang, Lingzhen. Chinese Women's Cinema: Transnational Contexts. Columbia University Press, 13 August 2013. {{ISBN|0-231-52744-6}}, 9780231527446.

{{Commons category}}

• [https://chinesefilmclassics.org/ Chinese Film Classics] - a website hosted at the University of British Columbia with over 30 early Chinese films with English subtitles, an [https://chinesefilmclassics.org/course/ online course on early Chinese cinema], and other resources
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080527132114/http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals.php?issn=17508061 Journal of Chinese Cinema]
• [http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/filmbib.htm MCLC Resource Center-Media]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20120823034057/http://www.chinesemirror.com/index/about_cm.html The Chinese Mirror — A Journal of Chinese Film History]

{{Cinema of China}}

{{World cinema}}

{{China topics|state=autocollapse}}

{{Asia topic|Cinema of}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cinema Of China}}

Category:Arts in China