Time Out's The 100 Best Hong Kong Movies

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From Bruce Lee kung-fu flicks to Wong Kar-wai’s tales of romance

Written by Time Out Hong Kong Saturday 12 March 2022

Hong Kong was once the Hollywood of the East. At its peak, around the early 90s, the local movie industry was the first in the world – in terms of per capita production and the second-largest exporter of films – second only to the US.

The influence of Hong Kong cinema can be seen far and wide. Bruce Lee remains a global icon and his martial arts movies are classics. The groundbreaking action of The Matrix would never have come about if not for John Woo films and the action choreography of Yuen Woo-ping. Quentin Tarantino ripped off Ringo Lam’s City on Fire for his debut, 1992’s Reservoir Dogs. Moonlight owes much to the style of Wong Kar-wai films and the auteur was an influence acknowledged by Sofia Coppola when she collected the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Lost in Translation.

So with such a massive cultural legacy, what are the best Hong Kong movies of all time? We present to you this definitive ranking of the best films made in Hong Kong dating as far back as the 1930s.

#19 (A Chinese Odyssey) & #71 (The Blue and the Black) both have two films in each entry.