One Child Nation is a 2019 American documentary film directed by Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang about the fallout of China's one-child policy that lasted from 1979 to 2015.

The documentary is made up of various interviews with former village chiefs, state officials, ex-human traffickers, artists, midwives, journalists, researchers, and victims of the one-child policy.

[2] During the film, Nanfu Wang discovers more about the ties her own family have with the one-child policy, as they unsuccessfully attempt to locate her cousin who was abandoned by her father’s sister in 1989.

Not fully discussed within this documentary was the inclusion of this condition which allowed women to become pregnant again with a second child and would often cost the family a fine of approximately 4,000 yuan ($500 USD), and was more common in rural areas.

In many areas slogans, such as “Better blood flowing like streams than children born outside the state plan” were painted onto village walls, in order to fear-monger and spread the one-child policy further.

Specific examples are explored within Nanfu Wang’s own family as her mother’s brother abandoned his child in the market, in the hope of somebody rescuing her, however nobody did and she died after having spent three days on the streets.

In addition, Nanfu interviews artist Peng Wang whose artwork, focusing on the idea of ‘trash’, presents the horrors of the one-child policy as he incorporates graphic images of dead, abandoned babies in medical waste bags in the middle of rubbish heaps.

Tunde Wang talks of how women who refused to be sterilised would be collectively forced to by a group of village officials; he admits “I couldn’t bear to watch.

[12]” In addition, Nanfu Wang speaks with Huaru Yuan, a rural midwife, to establish the role of village doctors and midwives in assisting the state policy.

Within this section, the documentary introduces Brian and Longlan Stuy and their mission to reunite Chinese families with their lost children who were adopted internationally by US citizens.

[18] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter called the film "a valuable record and a sober but frightening illustration of the dark side of this government-controlled experiment" and praised the editing and musical score.

[15] Ram Venkat Srikar of Cinema Sentries called the film "an unapologetic description of the unpleasant aftermath of China's One-Child Policy".

[19] Inkoo Kang at Slate wrote that the film is "best viewed as an oral history of a desperate experiment in a fast-changing, selectively amnesiac country" but that "its directness and intimacy lend an indelibility that encyclopedic framing could never approximate.

"[20] An independent reviewer noted that the film primarily explores the policy’s impact on a few interconnected families in rural China rather than presenting a comprehensive view of the nation.

[21] ChinaFile published a set of critiques of "the film’s many lacunae, distortions (including overgeneralizations), and failures to address the policy in broader perspective, especially its clear and substantial benefits to significant numbers of women".