CdTe films were grown on (211)A GaAs and (211)B GaAs substrates by molecular beam epitaxy in a wide range of growth temperature. X-ray double crystal rocking curves were used to analyze the quality and orientation of the epitaxial films. Our experiments prove that the growth temperature has a great effect on the quality and orientation of the epitaxial CdTe films : T-sub<280 degrees C, CdTe(133)parallel to GaAs(211)A; T-sub>280 degrees C, CdTe(211)parallel to GaAs(211)A. For (211)B GaAs, the orientation of CdTe changes at 295 degrees C. An explanation is given of this result by considering the lattice mismatch and interface energy.