Curious about the Best Taiwanese Movies of 2025?
The editors of New Bloom and Cinema Escapist have come together for the fifth year in a row to curate a list to help satisfy your curiosity.
Across commercial blockbusters and independent gems, we tried looking for Taiwanese movies from 2025 that had some sort of artistic or social significance, or saw success among viewers both in Taiwan and internationally. The resulting 10 movies of this list represent a variety of genres ranging from horror, documentary, thrillers, and family dramas, and should provide a variety of choices to fit different tastes.
To help you more easily watch these movies, we’ve also included streaming links on platforms like Netflix for certain movies, though availability will vary by country.
Let’s take a look at 2025’s top Taiwanese movies!
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10. GATAO: Big Brothers
Chinese Title: 角頭－大橋頭 | Director: Yao Hung-I, Ray Jiang | Starring: Wang Shih-Sian, Tsai Chen-Nan, Jack Kao, Sun Peng, Lung Tien-Hsiang, Hsi-Sheng Chen | Genre(s): Crime, Action
GATAO: Big Brothers is the latest installment in the long-running GATAO franchise, Taiwan’s best-known and longest-running contemporary gangster film series. GATAO: Big Brothers is the fifth GATAO film, this time following a gang war between rival criminal organizations in northern and southern Taiwan. It proves rare for domestic Taiwanese productions to produce one, much less four sequels, making GATAO a rarity in the landscape of Taiwanese film today. GATAO films have stood out for their high production values and romanticized depiction of gangsters.
Set in the aftermath of the previous film, the protagonist this time is Michael, an up-and-coming gang leader, who ends up embroiled in conflict after his father starts a turf war. Michael, then, seeks to expand his group’s territory and displace other gangs. With shades of The Godfather, Big Brothers focuses less on the day-to-day life of gangs, but on their political machinations.
9. Before the Bright Day
Chinese Title: 南方時光 | Director: Tsao Shih-Han | Starring: Wu Kang-Ren, Sun Shu-Mei, Chen Hsuan-Li, Cheng Yu-Chieh, Huang Di-Yang | Genre(s): Drama, Family
A period piece set in 1990s Taiwan, Before the Bright Day follows high schooler Xiao-zhou in the last days of Taiwan’s democratization. A coming-of-age story, Xiao-zhou’s high school life plays out amidst the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis and the economic crash of the 1990s. Xiao-zhou comes into conflict with his family after falling in with a gang that hangs out in a pool hall, even as what he seeks is in fact a sense of autonomy from his parents and social expectations.
Taiwan’s democratization has increasingly become a setting for coming-of-age stories in past years, whether that be Your Name Engraved Herein, Girlfriend Boyfriend, or others. In interviews, director Tsao Shih-han has stated that the movie was inspired by his own sense of getting older amidst turbulent times, taking inspiration from Edward Yang’s Taipei Story in his own work.
8. A Chip Odyssey
Chinese Title: 造山者－世紀的賭注 | Director: Hsiao Chu-chen | Genre(s): Documentary
One movie that received significant buzz in Taiwanese media during 2025 was A Chip Odyssey.This documentary chronicles the origins and growth of Taiwan’s advanced semiconductor industry with a particular focus on TSMC, starting in the early 1970s and extending chronologically to the present day.
While A Chip Odyssey will probably not win any awards for artistry or cinematography, it offers a more humanistic view of semiconductor geopolitics in relation to Taiwan, and deeper access to Taiwan’s semiconductor pioneers, than any Anglophone reportage on the topic. The documentary is also worth analyzing as a work of political messaging, with rather overt calls for Taiwanese to, in the face of a de-globalizing world and increasingly powerful China, maintain the same spirit of self-sacrifice as those who built the island’s semiconductor industry.
Learn more about A Chip Odyssey in our full-length review.
7. Marching Boys
Chinese Title: 進行曲 | Director: Ray Jiang | Starring: Lee Lee-zen, Ma Chih-hsiang, Mu Sen, Liu Yu-jen, Yu Chieh-en | Genre(s): Drama, Musical, Youth
Marching Boys follows two boys at Taipei Municipal Chien Kuo High School–historically Taiwan’s most prestigious men’s high school—who play in the school band. A story of youthful rebellion, the members of the band clash not only with each other, but the high academic expectations placed on them, as they ponder their future. As is traditional in Taiwanese society, expectation is that they will pursue careers such as doctor or lawyer, and sacrifice other dreams in order to achieve such success.
Purported to be based on a real story and set in 1991, Marching Boys reflects the social mores of 1990s Taiwan in its depiction of the lives of high schoolers–not only with regards to familial pressure on choice of career, but views on sexuality at the time. The themes of Marching Boys, however, on adolescence and youth, still resonate far after the 1990s.
6. Family Matters
Chinese Title: 我家的事 | Director: Pan Ke-yin | Starring: Tseng Jing-hua, Lan Wei-hua, Alexia Kao, Queena Huang, Jack Yao, Yen Yi-wen | Genre(s): Drama, Family
While films about family conflicts are a dime a dozen these days in Taiwanese cinema, it still proves rarer to see one that focuses on a family across an extended period of time. Family Matters sets itself apart from other contemporary Taiwanese films, following four members of the same family across 24 years. With a four-part structure framed as the four seasons, the movie draws from director Pan Ke-yin’s own life with its setting in rural Changhua.
Family Matters takes a humanistic lens to its subjects. Yet the movie takes the view of family as both a social construct and one rooted in experience. In depicting the same characters across a quarter-century, the movie depicts the vicissitudes of experience that goes into making a family.
5. Mudborn
Chinese Title: 泥娃娃 | Director: Shieh Meng-ju | Starring: Tony Yang, Puff Kuo, Cecilia Choi, Derek Chang, Tracy Chou | Genre(s): Horror, Thriller
Fans of the supernatural horror genre should check out Mudborn. One of 2026’s highest-grossing Taiwan-made movies, Mudborn draws inspiration from a creepy Mandarin nursery rhyme with its story about a VR game developer who brings back a damaged clay doll from a haunted site for “research purposes”, only to have his pregnant wife become obsessed with the doll in a series of paranormally escalating events.
Besides the regular gamut of Taiwanese superstition around exorcisms and curses, Mudborn also leans into its protagonist’s profession by blending VR game mechanics into its depiction of paranormal phenomena. With tight pacing, solid production values, and decent acting, Mudborn represents a refreshing and entertaining entry into the canon of Taiwanese horror movies.
4. 96 Minutes
Chinese Title: 96分鐘 | Director: Hung Tzu-Hsuan | Starring: Austin Lin, Vivian Sung, Wang Po-chieh, Lee Lee-zen | Genre(s): Action, Crime, Thriller
96 Minutes was one of Taiwan’s most anticipated commercial blockbusters of 2025, and it generally lived up to expectations by becoming the highest grossing Taiwan-made movie of the year. The film’s plot blends Speed and Train to Busan, and has quite a few parallels with Bullet Train Explosion (which is one of 2025’s more notable Japanese movies).
In 96 Minutes, top stars Austin Lin and Vivian Sung star as a former bomb disposal technician and his estranged police officer wife, respectively, who must team up to defuse a bomb on a moving Taiwan High Speed Rail train. Meanwhile, tensions between passengers on the train, and a conspiracy around a government cover-up, complicate the pair’s efforts.
While 96 Minutes can get a bit melodramatic at times, it offers high-octane thriller sequences not often seen in Taiwanese movies, which often lean more towards family dramas and romances. The film ended up winning 2025’s Golden Horse Award for best visual effects, along with nominations in several other categories like best cinematography and best choreography.
3. Girl
Chinese Title: 女孩 | Director: Shu Qi | Starring: Roy Chiu, 9m88, Bai Xiao-Ying, Lai Yu-Fei, Lin Pin-Tung | Genre(s): Drama, Coming-of-Age
Helmed by Shu Qi—best known for starring in many movies from Hou Hsiao-hsien—in her debut as a director, Girl follows teenager Hsiao-lee as she grows up in 1980s Taiwan. Domestic strife characterizes Hsiao-lee’s adolescence, however, seeing as she has an alcoholic father who abuses her and her mother. But Hsiao-lee’s mother, in turn, also takes out her emotions on her daughter.
Drawing from Shu Qi’s own experiences as a child of the 1980s, the movie notably follows both Hsiao-lee and her father, seeking to get inside the head of an abusive parent. The influence of Hou Hsiao-hsien, too, is self-apparent, unsurprising given that many of Shu Qi’s most lauded performances are in Hou movies. One can compare Lee Kang-sheng—best-known for his role as the protagonist of Tsai Ming-liang’s oeuvre—and his own efforts at directing. But it is to be seen whether Shu’s turn at filmmaking proves a one-time foray or marks a new career for the general actress.
2. A Foggy Tale
Chinese Title: 大濛 | Director: Chen Yu-hsun | Starring: Caitlin Fang, Will Or, 9m88, Tseng Jing-Hua | Genre(s): Drama, History
Winner of Best Narrative Feature at 2025’s Golden Horse Awards, A Foggy Tale enjoyed significant critical acclaim and audience buzz with a moving story set in Taiwan’s White Terror era. The movie centers on the efforts of a teenage girl from Chiayi who journeys to Taipei in the hopes of retrieving her executed brother’s body, as well as raising funds to pay for the retrieval. Along the way, she bonds with a rickshaw driver who helps her navigate the trials and tribulations of their trek northwards.
Viewers and critics alike have especially praised A Foggy Tale for its art direction and character dynamics; the film brings 1950’s Taiwan to life with immense attention to detail, and creates a sense of “foggy” oppressive fear appropriate to its title and political context. A Foggy Tale has echoes of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s renowned film A City of Sadness in this regard, though it is generally more accessible with a warmer tone and streaks of humor. If you’re looking for a Taiwanese movie that blends an emotionally deep character-driven narrative with valuable historical context, A Foggy Tale should be on your watchlist.
1. Left-Handed Girl
Chinese Title: 左撇子女孩 | Director: Shih-Ching Tsou | Starring: Janel Tsai, Shih-Yuan Ma, Nina Ye, Brando Huang, Akio Chen | Genre(s): Drama, Family
Our last selection for 2025’s best Taiwanese movie is Left-Handed Girl. It was quite challenging to choose whether A Foggy Tale or Left-Handed Girl should earn the #1 spot, as both are excellent movies. Whereas A Foggy Tale enjoyed significant attention within Taiwan, Left-Handed Girl garnered much more international buzz (and became Taiwan’s 2025 Best International Film Oscar nominee)—though that’s not to say Taiwanese critics and viewers didn’t take note of it, given the film also garnered nominations to and a Best New Performer award at the 2025 Golden Horse Awards.
Left-Handed Girl focuses on a five year old girl named I-Jing who has just moved back to Taipei with her mother Shu-fen and older sister I-Ann, after several years in the countryside. Together, the family set up a noodle stand in a night market, and I-Jing must learn to navigate the novel challenges of urban life.
Directed by Shih-Ching Tsou and co-written by Sean Baker (of Anora and The Florida Project), Left-Handed Girl has tonal echoes of Baker’s other films whilst capturing the full essence of its Taiwanese context. Gritty yet heartfelt, Left-Handed Girl finds beauty in the margins and brings it to life.
Learn more about Left-Handed Girl in our full length-review | Stream this Taiwanese movie on Netflix
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