We report on growth of CdTe films directly on hydrogen-terminated Si(1 1 1) without any pre-thermal processes at higher temperature than 400 degrees C by the hot-wall method. The grown films were evaluated by X-ray diffraction, secondary electron microscopy (SEM) and photoluminescence (PL). X-ray diffraction patterns reveal that CdTe films have a strong preferential orientation of the (1 1 1) plane. In particular, no other peaks can be detected on the films grown at a substrate temperature of 325 degrees C, Pyramidal hillocks with a uniform direction were observed on the surfaces of the films grown at substrate temperatures of 300 degrees C and 325 degrees C, X-ray FWHM of (3 3 3) reflection on 0.7 mu m-thick CdTe film grown at 325 degrees C is 288 arcsec, The strong defect-related PL band at 1.47 eV shows the existence of extended defects like dislocations or internal strain near the CdTe(1 1 1)/Si(1 1 1) interface. A weak excitonic line at 1.59eV was also detected.