Yo-Yo Ma
Actor · Born October 7, 1955 (71) · Paris, France
Yo-Yo Ma (born October 7, 1955) is an American cellist. Born to Chinese parents in Paris, he was regarded as a child prodigy, and began to study the cello with his father at age four. At the age of seven, Ma moved with his family to Boston and later to New York City, where he continued his cello studies at the Juilliard School before pursuing a liberal arts education at Harvard University. He has performed as a soloist with orchestras around the world, recorded more than 92 albums, and received 19 Grammy Awards. In addition to recordings of the standard classical repertoire, Ma has recorded a wide variety of folk music, such as American bluegrass music, traditional Chinese melodies, the tangos of Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, and Brazilian music. He has also collaborated with artists from a diverse range of genres, including Bobby McFerrin, Carlos Santana, Chris Botti, Diana Krall, James Taylor, Miley Cyrus, Zakir Hussain, and Sting. Ma has been a United Nations Messenger of Peace since 2006. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize in 1978, The Glenn Gould Prize in 1999, the National Medal of Arts in 2001, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, Kennedy Center Honors in 2011, the Polar Music Prize in 2012, and the Birgit Nilsson Prize in 2022. He was named as one of Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020. Ma's primary performance instrument is the Davidov cello, made in 1712 by Antonio Stradivari. Ma's mother, Marina Lu, was a singer, and his father, Hiao-Tsiun Ma, was a violinist, composer and professor of music at Nanjing National Central University (now relocated in Taoyuan, Taiwan; predecessor of the present-day Nanjing University and Southeast University). They both migrated from the Republic of China to France during the Chinese Civil War. Ma's sister, Yeou-Cheng, played the violin and piano professionally before obtaining a medical degree from Harvard Medical School and becoming a pediatrician. The family moved to Boston when Ma was seven. ... Source: Article "Yo-Yo Ma" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
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Biography from TMDB.
- October 7, 1955 (71)
- Paris, France
- Actor
- 11 on MovieCove · 18 credits in all
Known for
What are Yo-Yo Ma's films like?
Across a limited sample of 4 MovieCove titles with a thematic analysis, their films lean Society and Self.
Themes
What they feel like to watch
Ironic 0 · Wry 0 · Earnest 4
Light 4 · Serious 0 · Dark 0
Grounded 3 · Stylized 1 · Heightened 0
Gentle 4 · Charged 0 · Intense 0
Steady 4 · Shifting 0 · Whiplash 0
Straight-faced 3 · Some laughs 1 · Funny 0
Slow burn 4 · Even-paced 0 · Relentless 0
Casual 4 · Engaged 0 · Full focus 0
Easy watch 3 · Affecting 1 · Heavy 0
Resolved 4 · Open-ended 0 · Ambiguous 0
Moods and endings
AI-generated from each title's plot synopsis and cast list, with extra plot summaries, reviews and Parents Guide notes for titles the model may not know, and the model's own knowledge of the ones it recognizes. Only analyzed titles count, so this covers part of the filmography; the feel axes count films only for now.
Where can I watch Yo-Yo Ma's films?
As of October 24, 2026, 9 of their 11 MovieCove titles stream on a subscription or free service, most on Netflix (3).
Subscription and free streaming for Yo-Yo Ma's titles on MovieCove; rent and buy are not counted. Titles are listed by Midcredits score, highest first, at most 12 per service; a dashed chip is a producer credit or a minor one, such as a thanks. A service opens the browse page, which counts movies only, so its number can differ.
Filmography
18 credits, 11 with a MovieCove page; 37 appearances as themselves are hidden until asked for.
Facing the Wind (not in the MovieCove catalog yet)(2024)
Glass Onion(2022)
Midcredits score: 82nd percentile of all films
Dancing Nation (not in the MovieCove catalog yet)(2021)
Beethoven: Triple Concerto & Symphony No. 7 (not in the MovieCove catalog yet)(2020)
The Vietnam War(2017)
Midcredits score: 98th percentile of all shows
Memoirs of a Geisha(2005)
Midcredits score: 89th percentile of all films
Naqoyqatsi(2002)
Midcredits score: 56th percentile of all films
Midcredits score: 97th percentile of all films
The West Wing(1999)
Midcredits score: 98th percentile of all showsChildren of the Night (not in the MovieCove catalog yet)(1999)
Sarabande (not in the MovieCove catalog yet)(1997)
Bach Cello Suite #1: The Music Garden (not in the MovieCove catalog yet)(1997)
Bach Cello Suite #2: The Sound of the Carceri (not in the MovieCove catalog yet)(1997)
Seven Years in Tibet(1997)
Midcredits score: 85th percentile of all films
Arthur(1996)
Midcredits score: 59th percentile of all shows
Frasier(1993)
Midcredits score: 91st percentile of all shows
The Simpsons(1989)
Midcredits score: 96th percentile of all shows
Taipei Story(1985)
Midcredits score: 94th percentile of all films
Career shape
A full career of 18 titles from 1985 to 2024.
Film career
- 2022Screen debut· Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Counts from TMDB across their full career, self appearances out; a title counts in every role they held on it. The ring is the typical Midcredits score (the median percentile) of the role's titles that are on MovieCove, shown from 5 scored.
How do Yo-Yo Ma's films land?
Their typical MovieCove film has a Midcredits score in the 87th percentile, the median of all 6; across a limited sample of 4 films with reception data, the typical film sits in the 77th percentile for acclaim.
- 75th and up9
- 50th to 74th2
Shape of the crowd
None of their 11 titles divides audiences: 6 are Universally Loved.
- Universally Loved6
- Crowd Pleaser5
Percentiles are each film's standing among all films on MovieCove; the typical film is the median, so one outlier cannot drag it. Percentiles and reviewer scores count the films IMDb credits them on, for now; the Midcredits score bands, the shape of the crowd and the two cards count their MovieCove titles, shows included (a show ranked among shows), appearances as themselves left out. A descriptor is the shape of a title's IMDb rating distribution against the catalog; "most divisive" needs a spread wider than half of all titles, and a card names only a principal credit: a craft role, and on a show a crew role or a run of episodes, never a courtesy credit or a one-off guest spot.
Who does Yo-Yo Ma work with?
People who share at least 2 of Yo-Yo Ma's MovieCove titles; Nicholas Ma shares the most, 2.
- Nicholas MaShared titles: Mister Rogers: It's You I Like (2018), The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble (2015)See all 2 shared titles with Nicholas Ma
