The invention provides a method for hydrogenating high-temperature coal tar. The method comprises the following steps: introducing the high-temperature coal tar and hydrogen gas into a fixed bed reactor and carrying out hydrogenation reaction. The fixed bed reactor is internally provided with a hydrogenation protection catalyst bed layer, a hydrodemetallization catalyst bed layer and a hydrofining catalyst bed layer in sequence along a flow direction of the high-temperature coal tar; a hydrogenation protection catalyst in the hydrogenation protection catalyst bed layer is a strip-shaped catalyst; a hydrodemetallization catalyst in the hydrodemetallization catalyst bed layer is a tooth spherical catalyst; a hydrofining catalyst in the hydrofining catalyst bed layer is a tooth spherical catalyst. Compared with the prior art, the strip-shaped catalyst is combined with the tooth spherical catalyst, so that the bed voidage ratio can be increased and the static liquid holdup is increased; oil products in a reactor are distributed uniformly, the radial temperature difference is reduced, the reaction area is enlarged and the reaction efficiency is improved.