Vietnamese film directors to know: Trần Anh Hùng and after

A guide to the directors who put Vietnamese cinema on the festival map, from Tran Anh Hung to a younger generation, and where to actually see their films.

Published 2026-07-05· 8 min read· Vietnam Knowledge

Last reviewed: 5 July 2026Report outdated info

Aged archival document cover with handwritten French text from the Cannes Film Festival collection, marked with institutional reference and microfilm metadata. — Image: Bibliothèque nationale de France · Public domain

Vietnamese cinema's international reputation rests on a small group of directors who have spent three decades taking festival prizes while working, in most cases, with modest budgets and thin domestic distribution. This page introduces the names most likely to come up in a conversation about serious Vietnamese film, and where a visitor or viewer abroad can typically find their work.

Tran Anh Hung and the diaspora generation

Tran Anh Hung (born 1962) left Vietnam as a child and was raised and trained in France, which shapes how his films look at the country: patient, sensory, often more interested in light and domestic ritual than plot. His debut The Scent of Green Papaya (1993) was shot entirely on a studio set outside Paris and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Cyclo (1995), filmed on location in Ho Chi Minh City, won the Golden Lion at Venice and is a considerably harsher film about the city's underworld. Norwegian Wood (2010), an adaptation of the Haruki Murakami novel, took him outside Vietnamese subject matter entirely, and his 2023 French-language film The Pot-au-Feu won him Best Director at Cannes.

Tran is not really part of Vietnam's domestic film industry in a working sense — he shoots mostly in French and has not lived in the country since childhood — but his early films remain the reference point against which Vietnamese-set cinema is often measured, and they are usually the first titles a newcomer to Vietnamese film is pointed toward.

Bui Thac Chuyen's naturalism

Bui Thac Chuyen works inside Vietnam in a more observational, less stylised register than Tran. Living in Fear (2008) follows a former South Vietnamese soldier clearing landmines in the postwar countryside, a subject matter tied to the country's long recovery documented on this site's war history overview. His 2024 film Don't Cry, Butterfly (Địa Đàng Hoang Vắng), about a woman who turns to folk ritual after her husband's affair, won the FIPRESCI prize in Venice's Critics' Week section, a rare recent example of a Vietnam-based production reaching a major festival competition without French or diaspora backing.

Phan Dang Di and the Cannes generation

Phan Dang Di is generally considered the most prominent home-based art-house director of the 2010s. Bi, Don't Be Afraid (2010) premiered in Cannes' Directors' Fortnight, and Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories (2015) played in the Panorama section at Berlin. Both films deal with family secrecy, adolescent sexuality and the pressures of rural-to-urban migration, themes that recur across this generation of directors and that connect to the broader social shifts covered in the site's notes on Vietnam's Doi Moi economic reform. Phan has also worked as a producer and mentor figure, helping younger filmmakers get festival submissions together, which partly explains why several names below cite him as an influence.

Le Bao's austere debut

Le Bao made a striking entrance with Taste (Vị, 2021), a slow, near-wordless film about a group of people living in an abandoned house on the edge of Ho Chi Minh City. It won the Encounters prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, a notable result for a first feature made on a small budget. The film's extended static takes and near-total absence of dialogue put it at the furthest end of the art-house spectrum among Vietnamese directors working today, and it is frequently mentioned alongside Apichatpong Weerasethakul's work as a regional reference point, though Le Bao's approach is distinctly his own.

Nguyen Phuong Anh and the newer wave

Nguyen Phuong Anh represents a younger cohort of Vietnamese filmmakers building on the festival pathway that Phan Dang Di and others established. Directors in this bracket typically move between short films, festival labs and international co-production markets before a first feature, a slower route than the Tet-comedy industry but one that has, in recent years, produced a steady trickle of Cannes and Berlin selections. Coverage of this generation is still developing and details of individual filmographies should be confirmed against festival programme notes, since credits and premiere dates for newer directors are updated more often than for established names.

Where these films actually screen

This is the practical gap most visitors run into: prizewinning Vietnamese art films rarely get a wide domestic release. Multiplex chains such as CGV, Lotte Cinema and Galaxy Cinema, found in most large cities including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, are built around Tet comedies and blockbusters rather than festival cinema. Art-house options inside Vietnam are thin: DOCLAB at the Goethe-Institut in Hanoi and occasional repertory slots at Idecaf or DCINE Ben Thanh in Ho Chi Minh City are the most consistent venues, and the biennial Hanoi International Film Festival (HANIFF) programmes a wider international and domestic slate when it runs. For more background on the domestic industry these art directors sit alongside, the site's overview of Vietnamese cinema covers the commercial side in more depth.

Outside Vietnam, older Tran Anh Hung titles circulate on the Criterion Channel and MUBI in most territories. Newer festival films typically screen at festivals first and reach streaming slowly, sometimes a year or more after premiere, so checking a specific platform's current catalogue before planning around a title is worth doing rather than assuming availability.

A note on how these films get made

Nearly all the films discussed here were financed at least partly through international co-production, festival grants or diaspora networks rather than domestic studio money, which is a large part of why they can take three, four or more years between projects. This is a meaningful difference from the Tet-comedy industry, which operates on an annual release cycle and domestic box office returns. Viewers hoping to follow a director's career in something close to real time may find festival-cycle films arrive irregularly, and gaps of several years between features are common rather than unusual for this group.

Frequently asked questions

Where should I start if I've never seen a Vietnamese art-house film?

Tran Anh Hung's The Scent of Green Papaya (1993) is typically the most recommended starting point, since it's the most widely available on streaming platforms like Criterion Channel and MUBI in most territories.

Is Tran Anh Hung still working in Vietnamese cinema?

Not really in a hands-on sense. He's based in France, shoots mostly in French, and his most recent Cannes-winning film, The Pot-au-Feu, isn't Vietnamese-set at all, though his early Vietnam-set films remain the reference point for the genre.

Can I watch these directors' films in Vietnamese cinemas?

In most cases, not easily. Multiplex chains focus on Tet comedies and blockbusters, so art-house festival films typically screen at smaller venues like DOCLAB in Hanoi or occasionally at Idecaf and DCINE Ben Thanh in Ho Chi Minh City, and it's worth checking listings before planning a visit around a specific title.

Why do these directors release films so infrequently?

Most of their work is financed through international co-production and festival grants rather than domestic studio backing, which typically stretches development and production timelines to several years between projects.

What connects Phan Dang Di, Le Bao and Nguyen Phuong Anh?

They represent successive generations of home-based Vietnamese art directors who reached Cannes or Berlin, often citing each other as influences or mentors, and their films typically share an interest in family tension, migration and understated pacing.