Best Chinese Movies of 2024 brings together a list of some of the best movies from China and the Chinese diaspora released during 2024.
There were a lot of great movies to choose from this year. The China Minutes team reached out to people working in the movie industry, and put together some suggestions ourselves for this list.
Her Story
Haoxuezi Tian – Journalist.
If Hollywood has Barbie, then Chinese cinema has Her Story. A delightfully spiritual and profound movie that leaves a lasting impression.
Directed by Shia Yihui, the film follows Wang Tiemei (played by Song Jia) and her daughter Wang Moli (Zeng Mumei).
Wang Tiemei is a seemingly invincible single mother determined to take care of everyone around her, including her daughter. As they move into a new home, they meet Xiao Ye (Zhong Chuxi), a neighbour who finds herself drawn into the turbulence of love.
The story explores the lives of two women with contrasting personalities: one strong and maternal, the other soft and adept at telling little lies. Together, they navigate past wounds and new challenges, offering warmth and solace to each other.
The film struck a collective nerve in China. In a society characterized by deeply ingrained conservatism and restraint, the director’s female-centric narrative has sparked a wave of interest. Female audiences can see the world and its challenges unfold from their own perspectives. In a culture where even selling sanitary pads on high-speed trains — a basic necessity during menstruation — can provoke controversy, this film boldly portrays women discussing menstruation openly, women engaging in casual relationships without rushing to define them, men being called out for public indecency, and two women raising a child who grows up with confident and self-respect.
Beyond its important messages, the film is humorous without being cliché. Often stopping at just the right emotional moment to avoid melodrama. A well-crafted film throughout.
Her Story boldly explores the evolving dynamics of gender and relationships, offering open-ended possibilities. Most importantly, it challenges the conventional “shoulds” imposed on women as they navigate their paths of self-discovery and growth.
Till love do us apart
Bianca – Film Festival Curator
Till love do us apart undoubtedly offers a space to breathe and release for those like me who have temporarily resided and drifted across different geographical locations.
Paradoxically, it intensifies my certainty about the uncertainties of life.
The story follows university lecturer Shu Qiao who falls in love with Qiu Fan, a theatre director living in Prague, during a work trip to Europe. However, waiting for Shu Qiao back in China are a fiancé and a stable middle-class life.
Unlike many feminist films released in China this year, this one uses two romantic relationships as a starting point, shifting the focus of its narrative to a generation of young people plagued by confusion and disorientation. It questions and challenges the values widely accepted in today’s society: is a calm, decent, and stable life necessarily the best choice? Does this widely endorsed idea of “good” suffocate our longing for new possibilities and alternative ways of living?
In the final scene, Shu Qiao falls asleep on a bus journeying through the fog—a journey into an uncertain, brand-new, and completely unknown life she must face alone. Accepting and confronting uncertainty is painful. There is the risk of failure, of being hurt. Yet the unknown also carries new hope and vitality. As the director said in an interview, “Some things transcend the trivialities of everyday life.”
I borrowed a bit of courage from this story, and I hope you can, too.
Chinatown Cha-Cha
Wenqi Zhang – Co-Curator & Marketing Manager at Mint Chinese Film Festival.
Chinatown Cha-Cha is a rare cinematic gem that seamlessly blends heartfelt emotion with a vibrant story of women. This documentary follows the senior dance troupe Grant Avenue Follies, a group of Chinese-American dancers aged 60 to 90 and former nightclub performers from San Francisco’s golden era. Together, they embark on a tour, connecting the Chinese community across the US, Cuba, and China, while bridging their legendary yet rugged past with unceasing journey into the depths of life. As the heart of the film, Coby’s ageless grace and boundless vitality will touch every heart.
Through the stories of these remarkable women, the film captures not only the passion they bring to the stage but also their reflections on aging, identity, and their lives framed within the broader tapestry of Chinese-American history. More than just a film, Chinatown Cha-Cha is a celebration of life and the unyielding spirit of these women who continue to dance through the rhythms of time.
Successor
China Minutes Editorial Team.
Successor was the biggest movie of the summer in China, giving a helping hand to a sluggish box office. Successor was chosen not for its commercial success though, but rather for being a genuinely funny comedy.
The movie features a destitute family trying to raise their son to excel, their only hope to escape poverty. However, not everything is as it seems. It quickly becomes apparent that unbeknownst to their son, the family is ridiculously rich. Everything is just an elaborate scheme cooked up by Mum and Dad to raise a strong successor for the family business.
Within this, there are deeper messages pointing to questions about parenting in China and how far parents will go to raise their children.
However, most of all it’s just a genuinely funny movie which is why it made this list of the best Chinese movies of 2024. While non-Chinese may miss out on a few of the wordplay jokes, the physical comedy easily bridges the language barrier.
Didi
China Minutes Editorial Team
Didi premiered at the Sundance Festival in January this year, picking up multiple awards, and raving reviews.
The movie is a quasi-autobiography of director Sean Wang. It tells the story of Chris, a Taiwanese-American eighth grader coming of age during the dawn of social media. There are plenty of themes to relate to in this movie. From the torturous coming-of-age period of one’s life to the difficulty of fitting in at a place that is supposed to be your home but isn’t quite really.
Beyond this, it does a really good job of showing what it was like to grow up during the dawn of social media, as Chris takes to social media to escape his real-life difficulties.
If our recommendation doesn’t sell the movie to you, perhaps former US President Barack Obama will. He listed the movie as one of his favourite films of 2024.
So, there is our list of the Best Chinese Movies of 2024. Do you agree? Or do you have another movie on your list?
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