Your favorite foreign films?

[Jeebo]

Because the orange con man in the White House is decreeing that we won't be able to watch foreign films any more, I thought I would post my absolute favorite foreign films here. No particular order, but the last three are silent films.

High Tension
French, 2003. One of the best mad slasher movies I've ever seen.

The Wall
Austrian, 2012. A psychological study of isolation and survival. It's a science-fiction film, because the title phenomenon could only have come from non-human technology.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
French, 2007. A true story about a 43-year-old magazine publisher who suddenly has a devastating stroke. It was awful what happened to the poor guy, and yet what he was able to accomplish with what he had left was truly uplifting and heartwarming. A beautiful film.

Run Lola Run
German, 1998. A relentless 80-minute roller-coaster ride.

Beauty and the Beast
French, 1946. The first time I watched this movie, I felt like I was in an art gallery watching a painting of a fairy-tale scene come to life. Even though it's in black-and-white.

Metropolis
German, 1927. A silent film classic, and a classic of the science-fiction genre as well.

The Passion of Joan of Arc
French, 1928. Scribes made a written record of the interrogation of Joan of Arc, and that written record survived, to become essentially the screenplay for this film. That's why it's so realistic. As good as this movie is, I have watched it only once; I could not bear to watch it again because of the incredibly realistic burning-at-the-stake scene at the end.

Battleship Potemkin
Russian, 1925. True story of a mutiny aboard a Russian battleship in 1905 that presaged the Russian Revolution. Includes the famous Odessa Steps sequence.

What are y'all's favorite foreign films? Now that we won't be able to watch any more of them, we can still talk about our favorites.

Oh, and I almost forgot to say, I haven't checked but I'm pretty sure you can watch most or all of these on YouTube.

-- Ron

[FalloutShelter]

1. My all time fave is ...

Day For Night - Francois Truffaut
Second is - Dreams. Akira Kurosawa

[The Madcap]

2. The Hidden Fortress - Kurosawa

[NoRethugFriends]

3. Dersu Usula the Hunter (Kurasowa}

[yorkster]

4. Les Enfants du Paradis

Your choices are very good.

[ZZenith]

5. Will pay extra tariffs for the following:

Wild Strawberries
Seventh Seal
Fannie and Alexander
Winter Light
Through A Glass Darkly
The Silence - Ingmar Bergman

Blue
White
Red
Dekalog - Krzysztof Kieślowski

Wings of Desire - Wim Wenders

The Tin Drum - Volker Schlöndorff

La Strada
La Dolce Vita
8 1/2 - Federico Fellini

Rashoman
Seven Samurai -Akira Kurosawa

Spirited Away - Hayao Miyazaki

Y Tu Mamá También - Alfonso Cuarón

Das Boot - Wolfgang Petersen


Geeze, I better stop there - this is going to cost me a fortune.

[FM123]

6. Train to Busan

My kids wanted me to watch it with them, I had no idea I would enjoy it so much. So good. More than just a zombie movie....

[yellowdogintexas]

7. Spirited Away and most of Myazaki's work except Grave of the Butterflies

That is a watch it only once kind of movie.

A Man and A Woman (French)

Cousin Cousine a delightful romantic comedy (French)

That is about all I can think of. I am sure there are others, especially if you count British films.

[iemanja]

8. The Lives of Others, a German film

by Florian Henckel von Donnersmark. It’s set in East Germany shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It follows a Stazi agent charged with surveilling an artist.

The Official Story, an Argentine film set during the final months of the dictatorship, directed by Luis Puenzo.
It’s about a woman who discovers her adopted daughter is the child of one of the disappeared.

[yellowdogintexas]

14. "The Lives of Others" is a powerful movie.

I saw it at "Movies at the Modern" - a film series at the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth. I will go for ages without going there, then someone will get up a movie party and then I want to see all the coming attractions. Coming attractions at The Modern:
https://www.themodern.org/films
In August they have a Studio Ghibli festival, which is fun.

[yellowdogintexas]

15. Other films from The Modern that I really liked

The Band's Visit: The eight Egyptian musicians who comprise the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra arrive by mistake in a small town in Israel's Negev Desert. Their booking set for a different city, and with no transportation out of the town or any hotels to stay at, the band settles at a restaurant owned by Dina (Ronit Elkabetz), who offers them lodging. Overcoming ethnic barriers, the Egyptians find diversion and companionship with the Israelis through a pervading undercurrent of shared melancholy. This was a lovely movie and now I want to see it again!!

Let The Right One In When Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), a sensitive, bullied 12-year-old boy living with his mother in suburban Sweden, meets his new neighbor, the mysterious and moody Eli (Lina Leandersson), they strike up a friendship. Initially reserved with each other, Oskar and Eli slowly form a close bond, but it soon becomes apparent that she is no ordinary young girl. Eventually, Eli shares her dark, macabre secret with Oskar, revealing her connection to a string of bloody local murders.

The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo (Swedish version) Wealthy Swedish recluse Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) needs closure. Forty years ago, his beloved niece disappeared, never to be seen again -- and circumstances have led him to believe that a member of his own repugnant family must be responsible. Vanger hires stoic journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and scrappy, chain-smoking hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) to come to his island, dig deep into chilling family secrets and unmask the killer once and for all.

Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins Raise Hell is a documentary about the celebrated national political columnist and Texan Molly Ivins, who used her razor-sharp wit to speak truth to power.

[bif]

9. Fellini's "Amarcord" and anything by Herzog

Especially "Aguirre, the Wrath of God."

[Number9Dream]

10. Cinema Paridiso

A wonderful story for people who love movies. One of the great all-time endings, and beautiful Ennio Moricone music.

[GreatGazoo]

11. Narrative films have a longer and different history in Europe

The earliest US films were motion studies, most famously Muybridge. But also "the sneeze" etc. According to legend Edison limited the lengths of films in the USA. As the Edison "Trust" cartel collapsed around 1911, European director/producers like Alice Guy-Blaché set up studios in NJ. She had gotten her start, free from Edison's nonsense, at Gaumont. From 1910 to 1935, women are the highest paid screenwriters and they lead the transition toward styles that are already popular in Europe. Audiences in Europe during WW1 skewed female and they brought children with them. The same trend came to the USA right after WW1 and Lois Weber and Mary Pickford become the first women in the world to command incomes over $1-million per year. Pickford co-founds United Artists.

One of the many reasons why sync sound was not adopted before 1927 is that silent films were easier to export. And they never looked as wrong or distracting as a film with dubbed dialog. Hitchcock exported well because he refused to surrender his silent-film aesthetic. Alice Guy-Blaché exported well because she was from europe.

The same kind of Europe-to-US pipeline repeats in the 1950s when the French New Wave precedes and prompts the American New Wave aka New Hollywood.

I worked for Roger Corman's New World in the foreign film division because I spoke four languages and grew up on art house films.

Parasite (2019) - Bong Joon Ho's masterpiece. Another stunning example of the quality of cinema coming out of Korea right now.

Shoplifters (2018, Japan) - I'd like to think this is one of the films that popularized "found family" as a recent subgenre.
"On the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders are united by fierce loyalty, a penchant for petty theft and playful grifting. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence and test their quietly radical belief that it is love—not blood—that defines a family."

Roma (2018) - "Set in 1970 and 1971, Roma follows the life of a live-in indigenous housekeeper of an upper-middle-class Mexican family. A semi-autobiographical take on Cuarón's upbringing in Mexico City's Colonia Roma neighborhood."

Happening (2021) Devastating. Starts with intensity and escalates all the way to the end. An unbelievable performance by Anamaria Vartolomei, intimate, vulnerable, engaging. I had to watch it in two sessions. Emotionally exhausting and plays like a thriller.

"Set in 1963, the film stars Anamaria Vartolomei as Anne, who experiences the emotionally and physically traumatic process of obtaining an abortion in France before it was legalized. "

I have way too many more but this film is/was nearly suppressed. They released a film with the same title to obscure this one:

La Llorona (2019) - "A tale of horror and magical realism, the film reimagines the iconic Latin American fable as an urgent metaphor of Guatemala’s recent history and tears open the country’s unhealed political wounds to grieve a seldom discussed crime against humanity. LA LLORONA marks Bustamante’s third feature and demonstrates his continued efforts to highlight social inequality in his native Guatemala.

Indignant retired general Enrique finally faces trial for the genocidal massacre of thousands of Mayans decades ago. As a horde of angry protestors threatens to invade their opulent home, the women of the house—his haughty wife, conflicted daughter, and precocious granddaughter—weigh their responsibility to shield the erratic, senile Enrique against the devastating truths being publicly revealed and the increasing sense that a wrathful supernatural force is targeting them for his crimes. Meanwhile, much of the family’s domestic staff flees, leaving only loyal housekeeper Valeriana until a mysterious young Indigenous maid arrives."

Escalates nicely. Well paced and delivered. So intense as a thriller that the politics seem incidental. Masterful storytelling.

[Jeebo]

12. Is Amadeus a foreign film?

This thread is supposed to be about foreign films. IMDB lists its countries of origin as United States and France. Amadeus is one of my favorite films too, but I don't think I would call it a foreign film, although in light of what IMDB says, you could perhaps argue that it is. Partially, anyway. Thanks for your input.

— Ron

[GreatGazoo]

13. I apologize.

I misunderstood your premise as being about the 100% tariff proposed for films shot outside the US (?). Amadeus was shot entirely within the Czech Republic. So it is exactly the kind of film that would be disincentivized by tariffs.

I have edited my post to remove Amadeus.