Movies like Flowers of Shanghai (1998)
The best movies like Flowers of Shanghai (1998) are Raise the Red Lantern (1991), The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985) and Vive L'Amour (1994). If Flowers of Shanghai hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedFarewell My Concubine (1993)8.1/10 from 775 votes
- NewestEleanor the Great (2025)Released 2025
- In ChineseRaise the Red Lantern (1991)Also in Chinese
Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
In 1920s China, 19-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985)
An autobiographical film based on Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's memories of his youth growing up in Taiwan after emigrating from mainland China.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisVive L'Amour (1994)
Three lonely young denizens of Taipei unknowingly share an apartment: May, a real estate agent who uses it for her sexual affairs; Ah-jung, her current lover; and Hsiao-kang, who's stolen the key and uses the apartment as a retreat.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGoodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)
On a dark, wet night in Taipei City, a cavernous old picture palace is about to close its doors forever. A meager audience, the remaining few staff, and perhaps even a ghost or two, watch King Hu’s wuxia classic "Dragon Inn", each haunted by memories and desires evoked by cinema itself.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA City of Sadness (1989)
The story of a family embroiled in the "White Terror," the Kuomintang government's anti-communist political repression that was wrought on the Taiwanese people from 1947-1987.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCenter Stage (1991)
Based on the tragic true story of China's first prima donna of the silver screen, Ruan Lingyu, chronicling her rise to fame as a movie actress in Shanghai during the 1930s.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFarewell My Concubine (1993)
In an epic tale of theater, gender, love and class, two Beijing opera actors navigate political turmoil as their friendship evolves over decades.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMillennium Mambo (2001)
In 2011, Vicky looks back on her life a decade earlier, recalling her turbulent relationship with her controlling boyfriend Hao Hao and her growing connection to a compassionate gangster amid the neon haze of Taipei's nightlife.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJu Dou (1990)
Tianqing falls in love with Ju Dou, his uncle's wife who is tortured for being childless. However, after they have an affair, they discover that his uncle is impotent and try to conceal the truth.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThree Times (2005)
In three separate segments, set respectively in 1966, 1911, and 2005, three love stories unfold between three sets of characters, under three different periods of Taiwanese history and governance.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEast Palace, West Palace (1996)
A heterosexual Beijing policeman and a young homosexual challenge each other's sexuality.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Boat People (1982)
A Japanese photojournalist revisits Vietnam after the liberation to document the nation, and begins following and documenting the young children from a poor Vietnamese family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSpring in a Small Town (1948)
A married couple living in a desolate small town in post-WWII China are paid a surprise visit by an old friend of the husband's.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Scent of Green Papaya (1993)
1950s Saigon through the eyes of Mui, a Vietnamese servant girl. At 10 years-old, Mui leaves her village to work for an affluent, troubled family. As she comes of age, Mui finds work in the household of a pianist she has admired since childhood, and finds their relationship growing in complexity.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Boys from Fengkuei (1983)
Ah-Ching and his friends have just finished school in their island fishing village, and now spend most of their time drinking and fighting. Three of them decide to go to the port city of Kaohsiung to look for work. They find an apartment through relatives, and Ah-Ching is attracted to the girlfriend of a neighbor. There they face the harsh realities of the big city.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Blue Kite (1994)
A young man recalls his childhood growing up in a poor alley in Beijing during the 1950s and 1960s.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTemptress Moon (1996)
A symphony of vivid, sumptuous, dreamy, luxuriant colors symbolically weaving webs around doomed, decadent characters.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Taipei Story (1985)
A young woman urgently seeks to navigate the maze of contemporary Taipei and find a future. She hopes that her boyfriend Lung is the key to the future, but Lung is stuck in a past that combines baseball and traditional loyalty that leads him to squander his nest egg bailing her father out of financial trouble.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisYumeji (1991)
Following the life of Japanese artist and poet Yumeji Takehisa through the imagining of an encounter with a beautiful widow with a dark past.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Dust in the Wind (1986)
A-yuan and A-yun are both from the small mining town of Jio-fen. They move to Taipei, where A-yuan is an apprentice by day and goes to night school, and A-yun works as a helper at a tailors. Everyone thinks they are meant for each other, and so do they. They fail to see time and fate are beyond their control.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGood Men, Good Women (1995)
An actress preparing to play in a historical epic is terrorized by someone faxing her pages from her stolen diary; has colorful flashbacks of her affair with a now-deceased man; and imagines black-and-white film-within-a-film scenes of the movie she is about to appear in.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Yi Yi (2000)
Each member of a family in Taipei asks hard questions about life's meaning as they live through everyday quandaries. NJ is morose: his brother owes him money, his mother is in a coma, his wife suffers a spiritual crisis when she finds her life a blank and his business partners make bad decisions.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Hand (2021)
Hong Kong, 1960s. Zhang, a shy tailor's assistant, is riveted by his imperious client Miss Hua. Upon meeting her, she seduces him to make sure he will truly remember her when designing her garments. After this intimate first encounter, a rapport develops between the two. Entry is for the theatrically released extended version, not the segment from the Eros anthology.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSansho the Bailiff (1954)
In 11th-century feudal Japan, following the exile of an idealistic governor, his wife and children are separated by slave traders; the children, Zushio and Anju, are sold into brutal servitude under the cruel bailiff Sansho.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Puppetmaster (1993)
Master puppeteer Li Tien-lu recalls his life in Japanese-occupied Taiwan during the first half of the 20th century.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChinese Box (1997)
The story of Hong Kong, from New Year's Day to June 30th, 1997, when the British left their colony and turned it over to the People's Republic of China.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisShanghai Triad (1995)
Shanghai, China, 1930. When young Shuisheng arrives from the countryside, his uncle Liushu puts him at the service of Bijou, the mistress of Laoda, supreme boss of the Tang Triad, constantly threatened by his enemies, both those he knows and those lurking in the shadows.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOne Second (2020)
A movie fan escapes from a labour camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and strikes up a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhat Time Is It There? (2001)
A street vendor with a grim home-life forges a connection with a young woman on her way to Paris.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEleanor the Great (2025)
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Flowers of Shanghai?
The closest matches to Flowers of Shanghai are Raise the Red Lantern (1991), The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985) and Vive L'Amour (1994). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Flowers of Shanghai?
People who watched Flowers of Shanghai most often go on to Raise the Red Lantern (1991), The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985) and Vive L'Amour (1994).
What is the highest-rated movie like Flowers of Shanghai?
Farewell My Concubine (1993), rated 8.1/10 by 775 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Flowers of Shanghai?
Eleanor the Great (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Chinese movies like Flowers of Shanghai?
Yes: Raise the Red Lantern (1991), The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985) and Vive L'Amour (1994).
How are movies similar to Flowers of Shanghai chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Flowers of Shanghai, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.