1. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
The film follows Mr. Shi, a retired widower from Beijing. When his only daughter, Yilan, who lives in Spokane, Washington and works as a librarian, gets divorced, he decides to visit her to help her heal. However, Yilan is not interested. She tries keeping an emotional distance but when this finally fails she begins physically avoiding her father. He confronts her about an affair with a married Russian man and she, in turn, lets loose about all the gossip she'd heard as a young girl about his alleged affair with a female colleague back in China.
It has an average vote of 6.176 on TMDB.
2. Mountain Cry (喊·山)
The tight-knight community of a remote mountain village come to know and understand a strange, mute woman's past in the wake of her husband's death.
It has an average vote of 6.5 on TMDB.
3. The Sand Pebbles
Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat USS San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the 'rice-bowl' system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission.
It has an average vote of 7.2 on TMDB.
4. John Rabe (John Rabe)
A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.
It has an average vote of 7.1 on TMDB.
5. Lust, Caution (色‧戒)
During World War II, a secret agent must seduce then assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai. Her mission becomes clouded when she finds herself falling in love with the man she is assigned to kill.
It has an average vote of 7.193 on TMDB.
6. M. Butterfly
In 1960s China, French diplomat Rene Gallimard falls in love with an opera singer, Song Liling – but Song is not at all who Gallimard thinks.
It has an average vote of 6.604 on TMDB.
7. The Warrior (무사)
In 1375, China was in chaos between Yuan Dynasty and Ming Dynasty. Coryo sent a delegation of many diplomats, soldiers and a silent slave to make peace with the new Chinese government. However, this delegation got charged as spies and sent in exile to a remote desert.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
8. Mongolian Ping Pong (綠草地)
Bilike has never seen a ping-pong ball before. He and his family live without electricity and running water in a solitary tent home among the vast steppe grasslands. The magnificent landscape here has changed little since the days of Genghis Kahn. But life in the middle of nowhere can be exciting for a young boy. The smallest of details become big events for curious Bilike and his best friends Erguotou and Dawa. The mystery of the small white ball floating in the creek leads to questions about the world around them, as well as innocent mischief.
It has an average vote of 5.6 on TMDB.
9. Curse of the Golden Flower (滿城盡帶黃金甲)
During China's Tang dynasty the emperor has taken the princess of a neighboring province as his wife. She has borne him two sons and raised his eldest. Now his control over his dominion is complete, including the royal family itself.
It has an average vote of 6.809 on TMDB.
10. Everybody's Fine (一切都好)
When all four of his children cancel their yearly visits, a widower travels to the far corners of the country to see them and discovers the hidden sides of their lives.
It has an average vote of 5.3 on TMDB.
11. Shanghai Express
A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.
It has an average vote of 6.897 on TMDB.
12. Broken Blossoms
The love story of an abused English girl and a Chinese Buddhist in a time when London was a brutal and harsh place to live.
It has an average vote of 6.874 on TMDB.
13. Dragon Day
When Duke Evans, out of work NSA analyst, is evicted from his home he moves his family to his grandfather's old cabin. However here they are also threatened when a hellish cyber-attack is unleashed on the US rendering anything with a computer chip useless. He must now keep his family alive, fight off would be thieves and a newly corrupted government and ultimately make the hardest decision of his life- to survive. Written by Patterson, Matt
It has an average vote of 4 on TMDB.
14. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (巴尔扎克与小裁缝)
During the Cultural Revolution, two young men are sent to a remote mining village where they fall in love with the local tailor's beautiful granddaughter and discover a suitcase full of forbidden Western novels.
It has an average vote of 6.9 on TMDB.
15. Still Life (三峡好人)
A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.
It has an average vote of 7.17 on TMDB.
16. Crosscurrent (长江图)
A voyage between a woman searching for the meaning of life and a man holding a book of poems on the longest river of Mainland China.
It has an average vote of 6.3 on TMDB.
17. The Emperor and the Assassin (荆轲刺秦王)
In pre-unified China, the King of Qin sends his concubine to a rival kingdom to produce an assassin for a political plot, but as the king's cruelty mounts she finds her loyalty faltering.
It has an average vote of 6.955 on TMDB.
18. Once Upon a Time in China (黃飛鴻)
Set in late 19th century Canton, this martial arts film depicts the stance taken by the legendary martial arts hero Wong Fei-Hung against foreign forces' plundering of China.
It has an average vote of 7.1 on TMDB.
19. Kundun
The Tibetans refer to the Dalai Lama as 'Kundun', which means 'The Presence'. He was forced to escape from his native home, Tibet, when communist China invaded and enforced an oppressive regime upon the peaceful nation. The Dalai Lama escaped to India in 1959 and has been living in exile in Dharamsala ever since.
It has an average vote of 6.852 on TMDB.
20. Oil for the Lamps of China
An American oil company representative almost sacrifices his marriage for his career.
It has an average vote of 7.3 on TMDB.