Her most famous films include Crossroads (1937), The Spring River Flows East (1947), Eight Thousand Li of Cloud and Moon (1947), and New Year's Sacrifice (1955).

The film was a big hit, and Bai Yang, whose performance received critical acclaim, became highly popular, and was compared by the media to Greta Garbo.

[2] She was considered the foremost of the "Four Great Actresses" of the time, ahead of her peers Qin Yi, Shu Xiuwen, and Zhang Ruifang.

[2] After the end of World War II, Bai Yang returned to Shanghai and starred in her two most famous films: Eight Thousand Li of Cloud and Moon (directed by Shi Dongshan) and The Spring River Flows East (directed by Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli), both dealing with the trauma of the war.

[3] Because of her contributions to leftist cinema, Bai Yang was invited to the Tiananmen Gate to attend the founding ceremony of the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949.

[1] Bai Yang's film career was abruptly ended by the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, during which she was persecuted and incarcerated for five years,[3] although she was not physically harmed like many of her colleagues.

[2] After her rehabilitation in the 1970s, she played the role of Soong Ching-ling in a 1989 television drama celebrating the life of the widow of the founding father of modern China.