I’ve seen some recommendations on Hexbear before. If you’re looking for new movies then I heard 1921, The Battle at Lake Changjin or The Eight Hundred are good. There are also some series like Three Body (which I’ve been seeing, IMO kind of a letdown) or Wandering Earth. Those are the super popular ones

It depends, what’s your favorite genre? What do you define as “good movies”?

If you like historical movies, watch “The 800”.

If you like spy movies, check out “Cliff Walkers”.

If you want the equivalent of Murican patriotic action war movies, watch “Wolf Warrior”.

If you want something more serious, you might like “The Best Is Yet to Come” and “One Second”.

If you like comedies, I don’t usually watch it too much but I recently enjoyed “Full River Red”.

If you like SciFi, check out “The Wandering Earth” (and the prequel), I would also suggest watching CDrama “Three-Body” (which is also being adapted by Netflix now) although it’s kind of bloated.

If you like Fantasy, check out “Creation of the Gods”

There are so many more, I definitely have a recency bias and I have no doubt there’s some better movies out there for every taste. These are mostly not “peak cinema”, most are just commercial movies like we’ve in the West. You can find most Chinese movies with subs pretty much in any piracy site, dubs are unlikely or non-existent.

Edit: If you’re interested in learning more about Chinese cinema, I would suggest Accented Cinema.

Battle of Lake Changjin is the only Chinese movie I’ve seen. I cried

Aside from the listed movies, I have a TV show to recommend called “In the Name of the People,” which I’m literally HOOKED to. Here is a playlist with English subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A74YChOkSpY&list=PLJpCdaWK6PVpeWbeUSjw4dBWt5IKK5Buj. The show is about an anti-corruption taskforce dealing with high profile cases, cadres involved in various schemes, etc. Show really caused a whirlwind of confusion in the west because it broke through the notion that the CPC “censors” anything that portrays it in a potentially negative light. I really like the message the show brings across, and the need to reinforce the notion of serving the people wholeheartedly, while smashing opportunists and those who try to bring down the cause of socialism.

Not a movie, but a series about the early history of the CPC

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMc1KlemyBkwA6Pg8Pdfj9EL-FMJXcFNX&si=MSdl3mkIpzNwxq8m

Also recommend In the Name of the People, a show based on the anti-vorruption crackdown in the 2010s

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpCdaWK6PVpeWbeUSjw4dBWt5IKK5Buj&si=oFoMyUaqagAQAxjH

Chunking Express (1994) and In The Mood for Love (2000) are really good movies, romantic stories with a surreal narrative.

There is an old black and white Hong Kong romantic drama movie that I really liked. Unfortunately cannot recall the name. Would appreciate if someone could remind me. Would love to watch it again.

Edit: It’s called In the Mood for Love.

I remember old style drama about Three Kingdoms made in 90’s, it has absolute astounding amount of details taken straight from the book and as consequence ended up with long winded scenes, pretty low budget and tons of episodes. I loved it.

If you like dramas I’d say ‘better days’ is good, it was pretty popular in China on release. I had to pirate it and download subs from some website but it’s doable.

2d animation: Link Click - I cannot recommend this enough. Its touching, it’s emotional, it has intrigue. It doesn’t fall into typical annoying anime tropes. There is a 2nd season but I haven’t watched it yet. This is a series but I feel like it’s episodic enough that you could kind of view them as short interconnected movies. They have complete story arcs in the episodes.

To be hero- I think this was made for Japan(?) I believe it’s a Chinese production but everyone speaks Japanese in it. It’s goofy and entertaining and touching. This is a series too buts it’s very short and the runtime of all the episodes combined is basically the same as a movie.

Legend of Hei is cute and has high paced action.

Big fish and Bagonia is beautiful like watching a painting. Some people love it but personally it put me to sleep. I still recommend it if you read the synopsis and it sounds like your cup of tea.

If you like 3d animated movies I’d suggest White Snake, I liked it far more than its sequel Green Snake. Green Snake is on Netflix but white snake I had to pirate. The movie does have strangely fast pacing but I love the story. Its action packed and has touching moments while looking beautiful.

I can loosely recommend that one nezha movie on Netflix that looks like some final fantasy thing, it was ok. I’m not really into super hero type stuff so portraying nezha that way felt kind of weird.

Jiang Jia I think was made by the same studio that made a different ne zha movie or maybe white snake? Not sure, but it’s competent. The thing is, they made it feel like an origin story for some future super hero team up thing similar to that ne zha recommendation above.

Sci-fi like others mentioned Three body problem is good but I think the books are much better paced. The show just drags on and on.

The Wandering Earth 1 and 2 are awesome if you like sci-fi.

If you’re also looking for non-mainland stuff, I really enjoyed the Ip Man movies and Infernal Affairs.

The comedy “Hi Mom” is on YouTube now with subtitles https://youtu.be/9hGNmRzZ5Qo?si=2hHyPb2HankkjOAq

It’s about a woman who time travels back to the 80s in China to meet her mom as a young woman. Don’t know if the humour translates to wypipo but I found it hilarious.

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If you’re okay with Cantonese, kung fu movies are like, one of the best genres of movie of all time imo. They’re usually funny, but deep, and fast moving. If you do Steven Chow films, you get some of the most hilarious movies I’ve ever seen.

Operation Red Sea (Chinese: 红海行动)

So many, I’ll lump in HK and Taiwanese films as well but note they are a bit distinct.

Yi Yi (masterpiece) In the Mood for Love (masterpiece) Infernal Affairs 1 & 2 (inspiration for Departed by Scorsese) Youth (2016, nostalgic, mainlander friend thought it was ok however I found the arc of the protagonist to be splendid) Chungking Express (really hits on vibes of solitude, connection, and moving on)

Those are the first that come to mind, there are many many more.

EDIT: Red Cliff is an epic, think historical Lord of The Rings set during a significant battle in the Three Kingdoms Period.