In recent years， cellulose-based food packaging films have become a hot topic in the food packaging sector. The research progress and the latest development situation on the cellulose-based food packaging film in 1985 to 2020 was investigated systematacially by bibliometric analysis method and relevant analysis software based on the Web of Science database， in terms of number of articles published， country/region of publication， institution of publication， main journal of publication and Keywords， etc. The results showed that the cellulose-based food packaging films were studied in 77 countries/regions and 1 155 institutions in the world. The pioneer research started in England in 1988 and became active in 2010. The research content and subject have been evolved from single material film-forming and simple mechanical property testing to multi-functional composite film preparation and its application performance analysis of fresh-keeping， degradation and bacteriostasis. The research focuses on food packaging technology， materials science， food safety， etc. Especially， the antimicrobial film， nanocellulose， chitosan， composite film， active packaging and mechanical properties represents the research frontier of cellulose-based food packaging film.