Shanghai, Cradle of the Screen: Chinese Cinema and Its Global Stars

By the ULTIMATE Shanghai Editorial Team

From 1930s Shanghai to the Fifth Generation

In the 1930s Shanghai was the capital of Chinese film. Its studios made realist dramas and musicals, and its stars were adored: Ruan Lingyu in Wu Yonggang’s The Goddess (1934) and Zhou Xuan, the singer of Street Angel (1937). Fei Mu’s Spring in a Small Town (1948), a quiet story of love and duty, was named the greatest Chinese film ever made by Hong Kong’s film critics in 2005.

In the 1980s the Fifth Generation, the first graduates of the reopened Beijing Film Academy, amazed the world: Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth, Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum, winner of the Golden Bear, and Farewell My Concubine, which shared the Palme d’Or in 1993. Some of the era’s most admired films waited years to be shown at home. Today China’s own blockbusters lead its box office.

Must-watch films

To understand Chinese cinema, start with these.

• The Goddess (1934): Ruan Lingyu’s silent masterpiece of a mother’s sacrifice in Shanghai.
• Spring in a Small Town (1948): Fei Mu’s delicate love story, often called the finest Chinese film.
• Raise the Red Lantern (1991): Zhang Yimou’s drama with Gong Li, nominated for the Oscar.
• Farewell My Concubine (1993): Chen Kaige’s epic of two Peking opera stars, winner of the Palme d’Or.
• Hero (2002): Zhang Yimou’s colour-drenched martial-arts epic.
• Still Life (2006): Jia Zhangke’s portrait of the Three Gorges, winner of the Golden Lion.

The stars

China’s screen idols, from Shanghai’s silent era to Hollywood.

• Ruan Lingyu (1910–1935): the silent star of Shanghai, often called China’s Greta Garbo.
• Zhou Xuan (1918–1957): the singing star known as the Golden Voice.
• Gong Li: Zhang Yimou’s muse, from Red Sorghum to Memoirs of a Geisha.
• Zhang Ziyi: the star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.
• Jet Li: the martial artist of Once Upon a Time in China and Hero.
• Tang Wei: from Lust, Caution to Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave.

Where to watch in Shanghai

The Shanghai International Film Festival, first held in 1993, is mainland China’s oldest international film festival; each June its Golden Goblet awards bring stars to the city. All year, Shanghai’s cinemas show Chinese blockbusters and Hollywood releases, and the restored Art Deco buildings along the Bund recall the decade when the city made China’s first film stars.

Our advice: watch The Goddess before you come, then walk the Bund at dusk, where so many films have been shot.

The Bund →   Shanghai’s art and culture: the back story →

Hidden on the silver screen: international productions filmed in Shanghai

Shanghai has played its own past and other cities’ futures.

• Empire of the Sun (1987), the Bund: Steven Spielberg brought the first American film crew to Shanghai since the 1940s.
• Mission: Impossible III (2006), Shanghai and Xitang: Tom Cruise races across the city and an old canal town nearby.
• Her (2013), Pudong: Spike Jonze used Pudong’s skywalks and towers as the Los Angeles of the future.

Chinese cinema and the world

Chinese stars and stories now travel worldwide. Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi and Jet Li became Hollywood names, Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won the Oscar for best foreign-language film, and Chinese animation reached a new peak in 2025, when Ne Zha 2 became the highest-grossing animated film of all time.

Questions and answers