Amph What is your favorite foreign film?

Hey all -- what is your favorite foreign (non-American/UK) film? Or favorite foreign films? You can list out a bunch if you can't pick one favorite. I'm thinking this thread can serve two purposes -- sharing of good international cinema, and a place where we can share our favorites.

I'll start. Some of my favorite foreign films are Stroszek, La Jetée (The Pier), Nattvardsgästerna (Winter Light), The Three Colors Trilogy (Blue, White, Red), Faust (1926), Persona, Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, Spring Summer Fall Winter... and Spring, & Agora. I was also recently impressed with Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) and The Spirit of the Beehive. Honorable mention maybe goes to Andrei Tarkovsky's film Solaris.

If I had to pick a favorite of that lot, it might be La Jetée (The Pier) or one of the Three Colors trilogy. But it's hard to choose. Lots of good ones.

So: what are your favorites? What foreign films are up your alley that you'd recommend? I look forward to seeing some of the selections and discussions here.

 

La Jetée is fantastic!! I watch a lot of East Asian films, though. A few of my favorites: House of Flying Daggers (China), Linda Linda Linda (Japan), The Thieves (Korea), Oldboy (Korea), and probably others I'm forgetting about... I'd recommend any of those, and pretty much any Chinese film set in a historical time period.

Lagaan is my favorite Bollywood film, and it's a fun watch.

 

A Japanese noir film called Platina Data - contemporary sci-fi thriller with cyberpunk undertones. Great performances, excellent plot twists, and well paced.

 

1) Master Lok is going to poo with excitement about the bragging this thread will afford re: the number of martial arts films watched.
2) So Australian, Canadian and New Zealand films are foreign guys, remember that.

Anyway answer is obviously In The Mood For Love because Wong Kar Wai.

 

I think my favourite is Hero. The one starring Jet Li. But the best that I have yet seen I think has to be Oldboy.

Perhaps surprisingly, I haven't watched many Norwegian movies, despite living here, but I am a fan of Erik Poppe's trilogy of work; "Schpaa", " Hawaii, Oslo" and "deUsynlige" (translates directly to The Invisibles, but the English title is Troubled Water). Other honourable mentions that I have seen are Max Manus and Kon-Tiki.

For Iranian films, I recommend Offside and About Elly. I personally also liked A Separation and A Taste of Cherry.

I second Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring. I also have to recommend fervently A Hard Day (Kr).

Of Japanese movies I would recommend Tokyo Sonata.

Finally, I haven't watched many Arabic speaking pictures, but I recommend Wadjda (aka The Green Bicycle), The Lemon Tree and Ajami.

 

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
House of Flying Daggers
Curse of the Golden Flower
Gojira
Das Boot
The Host
Red Cliff
Metropolis
Infernal Affairs
Anything Miyazaki

 

Oh; Mad Max 2.

 

Oldboy

 

Das Boot.

 

The Seven Samurai

 

I didn't know animation was allowed. I regrettably haven't watched a lot of Japanese animation, but of what I have, I have to recommend The Wind Rises and From Up on Poppy Hill. I also enjoyed Porco Rosso and The Sky Crawlers. Of serials I liked Monster and this quirky comedy series called Sayonara Mr. Despair.

 

Currently, Vengeance! (1970)

 

The movie that introduced me to Hong Kong action was John Woo's Hard Boiled.
At the time, the most people killed in a movie I had ever seen. As in, people killed one at a time. Blowing up planets doesn't count.

 

Forgot to mention the obligatory Bruce Lee flicks! Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon are must sees. Also, where is Rogue1-and-a-half? This thread is stew for him, as we say in Persian. It means he would love it.

 

Peg, it will come back to you.

 

Just popping in here to say La Cite des Enfants Perdus. Also to say that I hated Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and I never understood the hype.

 

anything Kurosawa

my favorite probably being Ran (1985)

 

Timecrimes or Day of the Beast. Represent!

 

Strange Brew

 

Great question.

Miyazaki and Kurosawa for sure.

Pan's Labyrinth

One of my favorite movies of all time,
Carlos 2010. A French mini-series/movie. It was shown in theaters and reviewed as a movie even though it originally was for TV. Really incredible 5.5 hour story of Carlos The Jackal, Venezuelan man who was the most famous terrorist of the 70's.
Edgar Ramirez was amazing as the lead carrying such a sprawling story.

 

The Hunger Games remake, Battle Royale.

 

the only ones on my letterboxd header are In the Mood for Love and Melancholia, but Ran, Yi Yi, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Antichrist, High and Low, or Man with a Movie Camera could easily take any of the slots.

 

I have several favorites, but I'll give a shout out to one that doesn't get much love these days. The 1988 thriller, The Vanishing. So goddamned creepy with a great ending. I hear the 1993 remake is terrible though.

 

Das Boot
Lola Rennt
Timecrimes
Let the Right One In

and just to throw it out there. My favorite movie I had to see in film class: La Règle du jeu

 

Santa Sangre, because it's basically "what if Freud directed a horror film?" except then that's filtered through Alejandro Jodorowsky.