Luteolin, which is found in plant foods, has a range of therapeutic applications. In order to examine the potential roles of luteolin in ovarian teratocarcinoma, the human ovarian teratocarcinoma cell line PA-1 was selected for functional experiments in vitro and in vivo. We demonstrated that luteolin inhibited the proliferation and colony formation of PA-1 cells in vitro. The flow cytometry results suggested that luteolin induced apoptosis of PA-1 cells in a dose-dependent manner. Immunofluorescence and qRT-PCR results showed that the expression of B-cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2) was decreased in luteolin-treated cells, whereas the expression of Bcl-2-associated X (Bax) was increased compared with that in the control group. In addition, luteolin inhibited the tumor growth of ovarian teratocarcinoma cells in a xenograft model. All the results suggested that luteolin induced cell apoptosis and inhibited tumor growth of PA-1 cells.