Foreign Movie Recommendations

[Marvystone]

8 femmes
bon voyage

 

[shamigo]

all about my mother-pedro Almodóvar

is that the german one about the kids who are trying to keep their mother happy? (I tried to ask without revealing a lot, hehe)

I reccommend:
L'auberge Espaniol (Spelled right? It's The Spanish Apartment in english)
Motorcycle Diaries

and just because I have to represent the Indian community (Even though I HATE Bollywood!) I'd say watch Lagaan and Bride and Prejudice

 

[sunshine daisy]

Les Gloires de Mon Pere and Chateau de Ma Mere are so charming.

If you want Russian films, anything by Gaidai is excellent:
*Ivan Vasilevich menyaet professiyu (Иван Васильевич меняет профессию)
*12 stulev (12 стульев)
*Brilliantovaya ruka (Бриллиантовая рука)
..etc..

 

[astatine]

Agree with Infernal Affairs
Nobody Knows
Jeux D'Enfants

 

[electricladyland]

how are we defining "foreign"? Aren't all movies foreign to someone?

 

[amphrosyne]

^ Seems like anything thats not from the US in this thread..

 

[PrinceOfCats]

I guess what could be foreign to me can be local to you, so let's just post what we think are the best foreign movies from all over the world, not the typical Hollywood blockbuster please.

Yo...

 

[susie_bubble]

Ok...if we're defining foreign to mean non-English films then this recommendation kind of crosses the line a bit - Russian Dolls, French-made film but with an ensemble cast that includes Russian and English.
It got slated by critics because it didn't live up to the original Pot Luck film of which Russian Dolls is a sequel. But I loved it all the same. Romaine Durie is so charismatic and Kelly Reilly is fantastic too.

 

[maghy7]

Guys what I tried to mean by that, was foreign to each of you, it doesn't matter from which country if is not the country you live in, what we don't want to recomend are hollywood blockbusters the typical american movie that is known by everybody around the world.

 

[amphrosyne]

Guys what I tried to mean by that, was foreign to each of you, it doesn't matter from which country if is not the country you live in, what we don't want to recomend are hollywood blockbusters the typical american movie that is known by everybody around the world.

Does that exclude movies like Amélie , Lock stock, Delicatessen, Nuovo Cinema Paradiso ? I these movies but they are hardly unknown around the world...

Anyways a couple famous European films off the top of my head..

Good Bye Lenin
Run Lola Run
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain
Delicatessen
Un Long dimanche de Fançailles (I Audrey as you can probably see )

Oh and check out Chaos (the French one from I think 2000 or somewhere around then)..

 

[Marvystone]

Good Bye Lenin

This is such a funny movie!

 

[maghy7]

^^ I don't know if you live in France, but to me those would be foreign, I love Amelie, I have only watched three of Audrey's movies so far, I would add the ones you recommended to my list.

Thank you

 

[xxkissbangxx]

Do yourselves a favor and watch...

- Y Tu Mama Tambien
- La Mala Educacion
- Amores Perros (Not my favorite but a lot of people found this to be really good)
- La Vita E Bella (Classic!)
- Cidade de Deus/City of God

I'll post more soon.

 

[amphrosyne]

I just watched this epic last week. La meglio gioventù. A definite recommendation from me but its more than 6 hours long ...surely a cinematic landmark in the future.

 

[visconti]

Lots of good suggestions. As far as recent films go, I'll second Lilja 4 Ever, Best of Youth, and City of God. I'll add Talk to Her, Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy (Blue, White, Red is the proper order), In the Mood For Love, Baran, The Return and Downfall. I apologize if any of those are duplicates.

As far as older ones go, it's harder to judge exactly what'd appeal to you unless you've listed favorite films somewhere that I skimmed over. I'm going to stick with listing movies that are nicely restored on DVD as that's often crucial to enjoying them.

Silent- Passion of Joan of Arc, Metropolis

Italian
The Leopard or Rocco and his Brothers for Visconti
La Strada or 8 1/2 as introductions to Fellini
L'Eclisse (you should probably watch Blow Up or The Passenger first to adjust to his style)
The Conformist (when it eventually comes out on DVD)
Battle of Algiers (Italian director French/Arabic dialogue)

Russian/Scandinavian
The Mirror as introduction to Tarkovsky (despite having a mediocre DVD)
Cranes are Flying
Ivan the Terrible (if you're in the mood for high stylization/technical editing)
Ordet (Dreyer)
Either Persona, Cries and Whispers, Wild Strawberries or Fanny and Alexander for Bergman-- preferably all of these + more
Come and See

French
Au Hasard Balthazar
Hiroshima Mon Amour
Cleo from 5 to 7
A Man and a Woman
Band of Outsiders
Hulot's Holiday
Jules and Jim
Le Samourai
La Belle et La Bete
Rules of the Game

Spanish-
Viridiana

I'll add some others later. I think most of these can be appreciated individually, but most are auteur directors. Some have very unique styles that can be off putting if you don't know what you're getting involved with. I have to be in a certain mood to watch a Bresson film. You don't want to spoil your chances of appreciating a director's work because of unrealistic expectations. If you're considering trying out a famous director for the first time, post here and I or someone else'll be glad to give you some ideas of what to expect in terms of pace, motifs and general tendancies.

 

[Tushka_BeLLa]

A Very Long Engagement with Audrey Tautou.
And of course, the South African highly-acclaimed film Tsotsi, which one Best Foreign Film at the 2006 Academy Awards. I watched it and then I bought the dvd... It had me in tears. Beautiful, beautiful stuff.

 

[PrinceOfCats]

This film generally comes up at some point:

www.nemecko.slansko.cz

I will add to Visconti's recommendation that La Regle Du Jeu is most excellent. And I should probably recommend Fritz Lang as well... who made his best films outside of Hollywood.

 

[*~stix~*]

Jean de Florette is a brilliant

 

[yourbestfriend]

Do yourselves a favor and watch...

- Y Tu Mama Tambien
- La Mala Educacion
- Amores Perros (Not my favorite but a lot of people found this to be really good)
- La Vita E Bella (Classic!)
- Cidade de Deus/City of God

I'll post more soon.

Y Tu Mama Tambien. The ending threw me off, decent movie.

La Mala Education. Let's just say I wasnt prepared to see what I saw..
but it was very interesting, I've never seen a movie like that...

and Amores Perros, the idea of having interwinding stories was an interesting attempt, but I dont think it was done all that well. I felt it was too long, and dragged the story without any real climatic moments, or anything that interesting for that matter.

City of God was pretty decent as well

 

[coralmilk]

- All films by Godard & Truffaut.
- Italian classics by Luchino Visconti, Antonioni and some of Fellini's early work. (I don't think Fellini is an easy introduction to Italian cinema)
- Italian Neo-Realism masterpiece - The Bicycle Thieves by Vittorio de Sica
- Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, Persona, Cries & Whispers, Wild Strawberries...
- As for russian cinema, def Eisenstein. It sounds 'harsher' than Tarkovsky but they're much more amazing to watch, imo. Battleship Potemkin is an undeniable classic.
- I also recommend iranian films by Abbas Kiarostami. They're truly amazing and carry a great deal of life matters. 'The Wind Will Carry Us' is my favorite.
-As for spanish films, I think you may know the obvious like Almodóvar so I'll recomend a film called 'Los Amantes del Círculo Polar' directed by Julio Medem, which I absolutely adore.

x