Best Chinese animation movies

Get ready to binge. We've found a collection of must-watch animation films from China, now streaming on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime Video, and other top services!

  • Poster for Summer Summer

    Summer Summer 2020

    This is a secret diary of summer. The entire film is directly animated on time-stamped film, and the improvised painting traces are infinitely magnified through projection and scanning. Summertime collects the emotions that belong to each person’s unique taste and ferments them into small universes, and will eventually disappear with the touch of greenness at the last moment of summer.

    90
  • Poster for 茗记:2nd Life

    茗记:2nd Life 2007

    95
  • Poster for The  Ants

    The Ants 2007

    Ordinary people, nightmares in the evening...

    70
  • Poster for A Warrior's Dream

    A Warrior's Dream 2013

    A Warrior's Dream is a 3D animated short film with photorealistic visual style. The length of the film is 3'18' .The story is about a martial artist's combat with his imaginary opponent. The martial artist finally realized that the mightiest opponent is himself. The film ends with Bruce Lee's calligraphy 'Walk On'. Thus the director wishes Donnie Yen can walk on as a martial artist like Bruce Lee, the idol of Donnie Yen himself.

    80
  • Alice: Otherlands 2015

    In the year 1876, a 20 year-old Alice Liddell enters the mentalities and minds (known as "Otherlands") of Jules Verne and Richard Wagner, and discovers the horrors of the human subconscious – especially those of history's most famous minds.

    80
  • 白蛇2:青蛇劫起 2021

    59
  • Poster for The Big Girl 8: The Little Match Girl

    The Big Girl 8: The Little Match Girl 2014

    The characters forced to shoot for the animation studio discover a potential way to return to their own world.

    80
  • Poster for The Big Girl 3

    The Big Girl 3 2011

    The princess ends up in a chase against the prince and the Devil.

    75
  • Poster for The Big Girl 2

    The Big Girl 2 2010

    After cursed to gain weight by the Devil, the princess persuades him to undo the curse.

    75
  • Poster for The Song For Rain

    The Song For Rain 2012

    The animation tells the story about a gloomy rainy season, a boy who accidentally met a little fox. There are two worlds, one is a humid but oppressive city, the other is bright and natural but needs water.

    61
  • Poster for Black

    Black 2020

    An expression and examination of the social problem of black-hearted vaccines that are spreading in China.

    70
  • Poster for The Big Girl 5

    The Big Girl 5 2013

    The princess takes part in a competition for resurrection, in a game where contestants are transformed into sushi and must fight to the death before they reach the goal.

    70
  • Poster for 红领巾侠

    红领巾侠 2010

    60
  • Poster for The Memory of Ice

    The Memory of Ice 2011

    Short animated film about the clima crisis from CUC Anima and Gobelins

    60
  • Poster for So Red and A Little Blue

    So Red and A Little Blue 2015

    The fragments of information scatter amongst computer and Internet, and constitute the world of Red and Blue. When they meet, their faces look red, but are their moods also a little blue?

    60
  • Poster for The Big Girl 7: The Secret of the Animation Company (Part 2)

    The Big Girl 7: The Secret of the Animation Company (Part 2) 2013

    The princess, the Devil and the prince take part in one of the animation director's lacklustre cartoons.

    60
  • Poster for Cloud of the Unknown

    Cloud of the Unknown 2020

    A girl lives on the edge of (un)reality, and whenever she falls asleep, she disappears into uncanny dreams: a violin with broken strings, a room on fire, vacant streets, infinite staircases; a pair of flying hands guiding her (and us) through thorns and bushes, pulling out endless multiples of herself.

    60
  • Poster for The Big Girl 6: The Secret of the Animation Company (Part 1)

    The Big Girl 6: The Secret of the Animation Company (Part 1) 2013

    The prince and the Devil seek a doctor for the princess, but end up breaking into an animation studio where characters like them are being forced to act in a thousand-episode series.

    60
  • Poster for Encounter

    Encounter 2012

    The stop-motion animation is about a mischief boy adventuring in an unknown house and getting caught by the owner who lost her grandson in a car accident years ago. The intruder feels the grandma's sorrow, and tries to help her find peace of mind. The setting is based on the architecture of Suzhou, a historical water-town in Southern China.

    50
  • Poster for Rabbit Tailor

    Rabbit Tailor 2013

    Rabbit Tailor tells a story about a rabbit tailor who makes puppet dolls and sell them through internet. A Film by Siqi Song Thesis Film from China Central Academy of Fine Arts

    50
  • Poster for Watermelon Cannon

    Watermelon Cannon 1979

    Watermelon Run is a puppet show animation produced by Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio in Mainland China in 1979 . The film is based on Liu Zhengtai 's folktale of the same name, and is divided into upper and lower parts, telling the story of a child soldier during the Shanghai Xiaodaohui uprising at the end of the Qing Dynasty .

    40
  • Poster for Alibeda

    Alibeda 2016

    2016 graduation work of Zhou Dawei, Huang Xiaozhen and Li Haolong from the Animation Department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute

    40
  • Poster for The Big Girl 4

    The Big Girl 4 2013

    The prince and the Devil attempt to cure the princess from having passed out, while she finds herself in deep consciousness.

    40
  • Poster for The Puppet

    The Puppet 2021

    An animation short full of plot twists.

    30
  • Poster for 元日

    元日 2015

    20
  • Poster for Green Grassland

    Green Grassland 1990

    The film is a work on environmental protection. Through the combination of physical objects and animation, it appeals to people to show mercy and love our green grassland.

    10
  • Poster for Inversion

    Inversion 1990

    Inversion, as the name implies, is to turn order and relationships upside-down. Humans admire the shapes, sounds and vigor of other forms of life, while also taking everything away from them, numbed by greed. The human need to take over all will eventually lead to self destruction.

    10
  • Poster for Paradise

    Paradise 1986

    The film interprets the folklore of Hongluo Lake in northern China. The three-headed water monster ravaged Hongluo Lake, destroyed the village fort, and displaced the tribes. A young man named Da Xin in the tribe was looking for a peaceful place to stay away from his hometown. The hardships and ups and downs along the way brought disappointment. Finally, with the help of the Red Conch Fairy, he knew what a happy land is, and he decided to fight to the death.

    10
  • Poster for Mirror

    Mirror 1989

    Mirrors are constantly being replaced on the walls that look like news and newspapers, but the characters reflected in the mirrors are always unsatisfactory..., the last mirror makes everything harmonious. The following truth is extremely disturbing, who is lying! Is it a mirror? Is it a human?

    10
  • Poster for Sketch Collection

    Sketch Collection 1989

    Anthology of animated sketches from the Beijing Science Film Studio.

    10
  • Poster for Brainy Bubbly Bug Buddies 2

    Brainy Bubbly Bug Buddies 2 2019

    The Brainy Bubbly Bug Buddies are back! It's time to buzz into a spectacular insect-adventure with a bug's-eye view of the habits and habitats of actual insects. Learn incredible facts about some amazing little creatures that will fascinate and inspire kids.

    10
  • Poster for Lock and Key

    Lock and Key 1989

    This film is one form of the director's explorative expression, utilizing the imagery of locks and keys to symbolize a society turning awry.

    10
  • Poster for 砍柴姑娘

    砍柴姑娘 1959

    10
  • Poster for Extremely Cruel Sadistic Story: The Phantom of Love

    Extremely Cruel Sadistic Story: The Phantom of Love 2020

    Theater is a fictional world constructed for the viewers. To substitute our ideal selves through imitation, we seek inspirations in such performative acts to satisfy our subconscious and primitive needs for blood and thrill. In reality individual selves are always trapped in a state of isolation, constantly trying to communicate in some deep levels while always falling to do so. This need for intimacy is extended to the virtual world as we try establish the existence of the self. The four parallel stories are implicitly linked, and serve as each other’s metaphors.

    10
  • Poster for Zero One

    Zero One 2018

    Zero One is a code-based generative video commissioned by Zero One Technology Festival 2018 in Shenzhen, PR China. This project consists of multiple interlinked generative systems, each of which has its customized features, but collectively share the core concept of an evolving elementary cellular automaton.

    65
  • Poster for 李科长巧难炊事班

    李科长巧难炊事班 1965

    10
  • Poster for 四只小野鸭

    四只小野鸭 1958

    10
  • Poster for 鸽子

    鸽子 1960

    10
  • Poster for The Straw Man

    The Straw Man 1985

    Based on an ancient proverb (which one could translate into ‘it’s dogged as does it’), this film tells about a fisherman who is disturbed by two pelicans and who disguises himself as a scarecrow to catch the two birds.

    10