Transnational cinema is a developing concept within film studies that encompasses a range of theories relating to the effects of globalization upon the cultural and economic aspects of film. It incorporates the debates and influences of postnationalism, postcolonialism, consumerism and Third cinema, amongst many other topics.

As the flow of transnational cinematic collaboration and stylistic influence across national borders complicates the idea of a purely national understanding of cinema, some scholars such as Andrew Higson argue that a nation-based framework of cinema analysis would "obscure the degree of cultural diversity, exchange, and interpenetration that marks so much cinematic activity," necessitating a framework that accounts for transnational hybridity.

Transnational cinema debates consider the development and subsequent effect of films, cinemas and directors which span national boundaries.

The concept of transnational flows and connection in cinema is not a new term – judging by film history and the increasing number of book titles that now bear its name – but the recent theoretical and paradigmatic shift raises new attention and questions.

Transnational cinema urges a certain shift away from films with a national focus. Ezra and Rowden argue that Transnational cinema “comprises both globalization […] and the counter hegemonic responses of filmmakers from former colonial and third world countries”, and further that the transnational can link people or institutions across the nations.

The transnational works like a partnership which is joined together through several mediums, such as cinema. In connection to this, Sheldon Lu has identified what she calls ‘an era of transnational postmodern cultural production’ in which borders between nations have been blurred by new telecommunications technologies as a means of explaining the shift from national to transnational cinema.

As to this, the telecommunications technologies threatens the concept of a national cinema, as especially the connection powers of the internet links people and institutions and thereby converts national cinema to a transnational cinema. Ezra and Rowden states: "the vast increase in the circulation of films enabled by technologies such as video, DVD and new digital media heightens the accessibility of such technology for both film-makers and spectators".

Transnational cinema’ appears to be used and applied with increasing frequency and as Higbee and Song Hwee argues, as a shorthand for an international mode of film production whose impact and reach lies beyond the bounds of the national. The term is occasionally used in a simplified way to indicate international coproduction or partnership between e.g. the cast, crew and location without any real consideration of what the aesthetic, political or economic implications of such transnational collaboration might mean.