Like many Americans I was introduced to foreign language films in college. My friends and I would go see some of the latest art house films from Sweden, Japan, Italy, France, China, Russia, Spain, Argentina, and Germany. Every big city and most college towns have at least one movie theater that plays foreign films and art house avant-garde cinema.
I have often been amazed how parochial and biased Americans are against foreign language films. Films with subtitles are easy to watch, after a while the subtitles become subliminal.
Many of the best films of drama, comedy, suspense, mystery, and action come from Europe, Asia, Australia, and Latin America. Today many foreign films are produced in both English and the native language separately and they hire A-list American and English actors to improve commercial success.
Finding Great Foreign Films
To begin to discover the great films from other countries it is easy to compile a list. There are several books, film critics, and Internet sites such as Internet Movie Database. Look at the names of films nominated for Oscar Best Foreign Language Films, Golden Globes, or BAFTA. Further, almost everyone knows one person who is an ‘expert’ on the best foreign films, that is how I discovered many gems.
Check out the great classic films of foreign language directors, such as, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Luis Bunel, Akira Kurosawa, Carlos Saura, Francois Truffaut, Andrzej Wajda, Ang Lee, Milos Forman, Vittortio De Sica, and others.
As well, look for the classic films of great actors, such as Marcello Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Alain Delon, Sophia Loren, Max Von Sydow, Gerard Depardieu, Jean Paul Belmondo, Brigitte Bardot, Klaus Kinski, Jet Li, Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann, Omar Shariff, Toshiro Mifune, Bibi Andersson, Claudia Cardinale, and others.
Tango
Tango, a film about tango music and dance by director Carlos Saura, may be the best musical dance movie ever made – sensuous and seductive, beautiful cinematography, spectacular dancing by the best Argentine tango dancers in the world, authentic music by Argentine composers and musicians, all orchestrated by one of the greatest film directors in the world. Film critics described it as “radiant, sumptuous, luscious, exotic, passionate, and visually beautiful.”
Set in Buenos Aires, the story is a backstage romance, involving a group of dancers and musicians producing a film about tango. Mario the director gets caught up in a love triangle and run-ins with organized crime. So it seems, the movie crosses the fine line of fantasy and reality where nothing is as it seems.
Details: Tango, 1998, Argentina-Spain, director Carlos Saura. Cast: Miguel Angel Sola, Mia Maestro, Juan Luis Gallerdo, Cecilia Narova, Carlos Rivatola, Juan Carlos Copes.
Ranking: Rottten Tomatoes 86%, IMDB 7/10, Allmovie 4.5/5. Awards: Goya, Cannes, Oscar nomination, Golden Globe nomination.
Le Samourai
The French crime thriller Le Samourai is one of the best films in the film noir genre. Alain Delon skillfully plays a cold and silent professional hit man with an ability for meticulous detail. He tries to find who hired him for a hit and then tried to kill him. Forced to go underground he stays steps ahead of both the police and organized crime.
Critics have called the movie “dark, mysterious, intriguing, aesthetic, stylish, riveting, compelling, hypnotic.”
Details: Le Samourai, 1967, France, director Jean Pierre Melville. Cast: Alain Delon, Francois Perier, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier. Ranking: Roger Ebert 4/4, Rotten Tomatoes 100%, IMDB 8/10, Allmovie 4.5/5.
Divorce Italian Style
Absurd, outrageous, and hilarious, the Italian dark comedy is considered a masterpiece and one of the funniest films. Marcello Mastroianni provides a brilliant tour de force performance as an impoverished Sicilian nobleman who can’t get a divorce, which is against Italian law. So he devises a complex plot to kill his wife so he can marry another woman. But anything that can go wrong goes wrong.
Details: Divorce Italian Style, 1961, Italy, director Pietro Germi. Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Daniela Rocca, Stefania Sandrelli, Lando Buzzanca, Leopoldo Trieste.
Ranking: Roger Ebert 4/4, Rotten Tomatoes 100%, IMDB 7.9/10, Allmovie 4.5/5.
Awards: Oscar, 2 Golden Globes, Cannes, BAFTA.
Rashomon
Akira Kurasawa is one of the greatest film directors in history. His iconic classic masterpiece is Rashomon, ranked as one of the best films ever made with universal acclaim. Critics call it “provoking, spellbinding, brilliant, innovative, shocking.”
The film delves into what is truth in the eye of the beholder. The story is about the rape of a woman and the murder of her husband by a bandit. Witnesses questioned include the bandit, wife, ghost of the husband through a medium, and a bystander. Each tell a completely different and contradictory account which is self-serving to their own self-identity.
Details: Rashomon, 1950, Japan, director Akira Kurosawa. Cast: Toshiro Mifone, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori, Takaski Shimura. Ranking: Roger Ebert 4/4, Rotten Tomatoes 98%, IMDB 8.2/10, Allmovie 5/5. Awards: Oscar, Venice, Tokyo Blue Ribbon, BAFTA nomination.
Cyrano de Bergerac
An exciting adventure and tragic romance movie with Gerard Depardieu excellent as Cyrano. Cyrano is an exciting larger-than-life figure who lives with panache but is a tormented soul. He is a nobleman serving in the French army for adventure. Cyrano is multitalented, intelligent, charming, and witty who is an expert swordsman, poet, playwright, satirist, and musician. He is brave, bold, strong willed, passionate, and disdains custom and rules. But he has one major flaw, he is insecure about his very large nose and believes that no woman could love him. Secretly he loves Roxanne from afar, an impossible love in his eyes. He meets a tragic end, he only tells her that he loves her on his deathbed.
Details: Cyrano de Bergerac, 1990, France, director Jean Paul Rappeneau. Cast: Gerard Depardieu, Anne Brochet, Vincent Perez. Ranking: Roger Ebert 3.5/4, Rotten Tomatoes 100%, IMDB 7.5/10, Allmovie 4/5. Awards: 10 Cesars, Oscar, Golden Globe, 3 BAFTAs, 2 Cannes.
Wings of Desire
Wings of Desire is a delightful German fantasy film about invisible, immortal angels who listen to people’s thoughts and comfort the distressed. It is poetic, philosophic, inspiring, and joyful. Critics have called it “ravishing, heart breaking, extraordinary, a soaring vision, enchanting, whimsical.”
An angel Daniel is bored with immortality with no sensual experience. He yearns to be human and experience sensation, pleasure, life, love, freedom, and food. He falls in love with a female trapeze artist at a circus and chooses to become mortal.
Details: Wings of Desire, 1987, Germany, director Wim Wenders. Cast: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois, Peter Falk. Ranking: Roger Ebert 4/4, Rotten Tomatoes 95%, IMDB 7.9/10, Allmovie 4.5/5. Awards: Cannes, 2 Euros, Belgium Grand Prix, Cesar nomination, BAFTA nomination.
The Seventh Seal
The Seventh Seal is an iconic classic ranked as one of the greatest movies ever made. It is Ingrid Bergman’s masterpiece. Critics call it “breathtaking beauty, formidable, metaphorical, a triumph, provocative, innovative.”
The story is about a 14th Century knight returning from war during the Black Death bubonic plague racing across Europe. He meets death and challenges him to a game of chess o buy time. He joins a group of travelers trying to escape the plague. But no one can escape fate and the dance of death.
Details: The Seventh Seal, 1957, Sweden, director Ingmar Bergman. Cast: Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Bengt Ekerot, Bibi Andersson, Nils Poppe, Inga Landgre.
Ranking: Roger Ebert 4/4, Rotten Tomatoes 93%, IMDB 8.1/10, Allmovie 4.5/5.
Awards: Cannes, Cesar.
Mephisto
Mephisto is a dark Faustian film set in Nazi Germany that delves into the realm of true evil. Critics call it “brilliant metaphor, great performance, magnetic, haunting, disturbing, compelling.”
The story is about an up and coming stage actor who is used by the Nazi party in the 1930s. He becomes the leading actor in Germany playing the Devil in Faust. His stage role mirrors his real life where he sells his soul for fame and betrays all that he loves and holds sacred.
Details: Mephisto, 1981, Hungary-Austria-Germany, director Istvan Szabo. Cast: Klaus Maria Brandauer, Ktystyna Janda, Ildiko Bansagi, Rolf Hoppe, Martin Hellberg. Ranking: IMDB 7.7/10, Allmovie 4/5. Awards: Oscar, 2 Cannes, BAFTA nomination.
Aguire, the Wrath of God
Aguire, the Wrath of God is a dark psychological thriller that takes us into the depths and chaos of Hell. The movie is intense, a Shakespearean Macbeth and Tempest style epic of greed, power, hubris, betrayal, brutality, violence, and insanity. The movie has become a cult classic and has been highly praised by Roger Ebert and Martin Scorsese.
Spanish soldier Aguire leads a group of conquistadors in search for the mythical city of gold Eldorado. The Amazon River, jungle, disease, and hostile natives wear down the soldiers. Driven by power and greed Aguire carries out a mutiny and kills members of the group. Eventually he is alone, feverish and hallucinating, leading a band of monkeys that have taken over the raft onward to Eldorado.
Details: Aguire, the Wrath of God, 1972, Germany, director Werner Herzog. Cast: Klaus Kinski, Helena Rojo, Del Negra, Roy Guerra, Berling. Ranking: Roger Ebert 4/4, Rotten Tomatoes 96%, IMDB 7.8/10, Almovies 4.5/5. Awards: Cesar, Belgium Grand Prix, Deutscher Filmpreis
Pan’s Labyrinth
Pan’s Labyrinth is a delightful dark fantasy full of magic, mystery, and suspense. It is about a young girl lured into a fantasy world by the woodland faun Pan. She must undergo several tests to regain her birthright as Princess of the Underworld.
Details: Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006, Spain, director Guillermo del Toro. Cast: Ivana Baquero, Arianda Gil, Sergi Lopez, Doug Jones, Maribel Verdu. Ranking: Roger Ebert 4/4, Rotten Tomatoes 95%, IMDB 8.2/10. Awards: 3 Oscars, 3 BAFTA, Cannes, 7 Goya, 7 Ariel, 2 Saturn, Hugo
References
IMDB
Rotten Tomatoes
Allmovie
Variety
Hollywood Reporter
Roger Ebert
