First of all hats were common. You can click here to see a number of common types of headwear from before the Qing. The hair that usually went with that would be long and up, similar to a topknot. You can see the hats accommodating this.
Some examples of hair in paintings:
This page about Chinese clothing (for an undergrad class I believe) has a number of pictures that show the hairstyles, though again, hats.
bonus picture: little kids hair from back in the day, which people still subject their children to today. Poor kids.
Basically what you see in Chinese period movies is based on what's known from paintings over the dynasties. But also, in case I hadn't mentioned it already, hats were pretty dang ubiquitous.
And remember the Queue is a foreign hair style, brought in and enforced by the Manchus, as was the Qipao/Cheongsam dress that's often just called a "Chinese dress" in the West.
