Every month, our contributors submit lists of ten films fitting certain topics. Each month, we feature an alphabetical list of films along with commentary explaining our selections. There will also be an itemized list at the end of each of our individual selections.

How can you build a list of only ten films from such a broad array of cinematic achievements. Over 100 countries have produced cinema in some way, fewer than two dozen of which have created thriving film communities that have influenced and impressed international cinephiles. It was daunting task for each of us to create such a narrow list, but we’ve each come up with our list of ten favorites, though it’s possible we could each pick another ten tomorrow and still have a great list.

Looking over the selections, we have one film selected by three of our contributors, A Separation, and three each selected by two, Bicycle Thieves, Day for Night, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. As to the most represented directors, Ingmar Bergman has three films featured on the list (Autumn Sonata, Cries and Whispers, and Wild Strawberries); Federico Fellini has two (8 1/2 and La Dolce Vita); and Krzysztof Kieslowski has two (Dekalog and The Three Colors Trilogy).

After the break, dig into our setups and follow that by reading about each film.

The Introductions

Wesley Lovell: I am not nor do I claim to be an expert in foreign cinema. I’ve seen quite a few films, but it’s only a fraction of the myriad movies out there. Cinema is a vast collection of prominent works spread across multiple nations and languages. When choosing this list, I was tempted to add Hayao Miyazaki whose extensive work in Japanese Animation rivals many live-action directors. However, all of his films have been released in the U.S. and are dubbed into English, so I feel choosing him would have been a bit of a cheat. Otherwise, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and The Wind Rises might have been considered for this list. Having a small list of foreign language features to choose from, I focused on films that I found most enthralling on different levels. While there are some titles that I think are more perfect cinematically than some on this list, I’ve gone with the spirit of the poll and selected my favorites. Had I wanted to make a political statement, Z might even have made this list.
Peter J. Patrick: Not all foreign language films released in the U.S. are masterpieces, but given that only the most popular films from other countries make it here, the percentage is higher than among Hollywood releases clogging up the local Cineplex, which makes limiting this list to ten a little silly. As late as 1998, the most popular foreign films were released in the U.S. in both dubbed and subtitled versions, but since then dubbed versions, except for a select number of family films, have gone the way of the dodo bird. Now even films that were originally released to home video in their dubbed versions, have sadly been replaced by subtitled ones, which can limit their audience.
Tripp Burton: This was a very difficult list to make, not only because it is so broad but because it is also so arbitrary. All these films really have in common is that they were made in a language that wasn’t English and it seems nearly impossible to compare them. That said, I limited this list to only one film per film director (or else two or three filmmakers could have monopolized the list). I also left off four films I’ve written about here lately: Spirited Away, Summer Hours, and Taste of Cherry all appeared on my list of the Best Films of the Last 20 Years, and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg was on my list of musicals.
Thomas LaTourrette: When I sat down to write this list, I thought about films with scenes or imagery that have stayed in vivid memory. I was surprised at how serious the films I ended up with are, though there are often some lighthearted moments in them. Only France and Germany have more than one film listed, though Spain, Italy, and Japan had others that almost made the final list. I tend not to re-watch films, so some of these I saw for the first and only time are from over 35 years ago. Das Boot and Diva, which ended up in the 11th spot, have stayed in mind for a long time. Most of the films I listed are more recent films, and nine of the ten I originally saw in a theater, which probably influences my choices. I was pleased by the number of countries involved.

8 1/2 (1963)

(dir. Federico Fellini) Commentary By Tripp Burton – As grandiose and egotistical a movie as has ever been made, 8 ½ is Federico Fellini’s masterpiece. It is big and bold, with wonderful performances and stunning visuals. Through it, you feel like you are witnessing Fellini wrestling with himself and coming to terms with who he truly he is in the public eye.

L’Atalante (1934)

(dir. Jean Vigo) Commentary By Tripp Burton – Jean Vigo’s deceptively simple parable on a boat is one of the most gorgeously composed films in cinema history. To describe the film doesn’t do it justice; instead, you need to experience it and let it wash over you.

Autumn Sonata (1978)

(dir. Ingmar Bergman) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – Ingmar Bergman’s late-career masterpiece centers around a mother-daughter relationship between legendary Swedish actresses Ingrid Bergman (not related) and Liv Ullmann. The brilliant performances anchor this family drama that brought me new-found appreciation for one of cinema’s great directors.

Battle of Algiers (1966)

(dir. Gillo Pontecorvo) Commentary By Tripp Burton – Gillo Pontecorvo’s recreation of the guerilla battles during the Algerian revolution feels more like a documentary than a fiction film, a feeling cemented by the fact that the film has been used as a teaching tool by guerilla factions in the half-century since the film was made. Today, it feels as modern and necessary as it must have in the mid 1960s.

Belle de Jour (1967)

(dir. Luis Buñuel) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – Bunuel had been making surrealistic masterpieces since 1929, but this exquisitely made charmer about a frigid housewife who goes to work as a prostitute while her surgeon husband is otherwise occupied, was his first film in color. It was also his first comedy. It opened in the U.S. in April, 1968 to rapturous reviews even from critics who had previously despised Bunuel. It didn’t take long for audiences to start lining up in droves to see Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli, Pierre Clementi, and Genevieve Page all in career defining performances. It earned Deneuve her only BAFTA nomination.

Bicycle Thieves (1948)

(dir. Vittorio De Sica) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – Originally released in the U.S. in 1949 as The Bicycle Thief, the U.K. title of Bicycle Thieves, a direct translation of the Italian Ladri di biciclette, is a more fitting title for De Sica’s neorealist masterpiece. The thief in the singular title refers to the man who steals the protagonist’s only mode of transportation in post-World War II Rome. The plural refers to not only that man, but to the protagonist who in desperation resorts to the same thing to find work to support his family. Magnificently acted by then non-actors Lamberto Maggiorani and Enzo Staiola as the protagonist and his impressionable son.

Commentary By Tripp Burton – The Bicycle Thief is the pinnacle of the Italian Neorelism movement, and it might just be one of the pinnacles of filmmaking in the 20th century. Devistatingly honest and simple in its storytelling, Vittorio De Sica’s film is a series of memorable set pieces that add up to a piece of filmmaking that seems to transcend the screen and capture humanity at its soul.

Das Boot (1981)

(dir. Wolfgang Petersen) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – In many ways this was a bleak though gripping story of life in the war. The film captures the boredom that can occur, along with the exhilaration of battle and the tenseness of evading destruction. It also captures the claustrophobic feeling of being on a submarine for weeks on end. The film is about ordinary people and you learn to care for them deeply, even if they are from the enemy side, and you find yourself rooting for them not to be killed. The trips through the Strait of Gibraltar are superbly tense, and the ending is heartbreaking.

Certified Copy (2010)

(dir. Abbas Kiarostami) Commentary By Tripp Burton – The late Abbas Kiarostami was always a director who liked to challenge our understanding of reality on film, and his second-to-last film was one of the most challenging. Kiarostami starts with a simple premise, following two strangers as they walk through Tuscany and discuss art. Slowly, the film begins to unwrap layers of what is real and what is artifice and leaves you not sure of what you just saw, but sure of how it affected you.

A Chef in Love (1996)

(dir. Nana Dzhordzhadze) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – This film opened long after it had lost its Oscar bid for foreign language film of 1996. I saw it by myself in a sparsely attended showing, but fell in love with the movie. Set at the beginning of the 20th Century, a French chef living in Georgia opens a restaurant. He has fallen in love with a Georgian princess and is happy there. Things turn bad when the Red Army of the Caucasus moves in and the chef stays and faces the brutalities of a new regime. Although that part is not happy, I remember the movie fondly for its love of food and life. It remains the only Georgian film nominated for an Oscar and the only film I have seen from that country.

Children of Paradise (1945)

(dir. Marcel Carne) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – This French foreign language film is a sumptuous feast of plot and setting, wound together in a mesmerizing and unsettling romantic drama. There are myriad elements to this film that seat it firmly in the upper echelons of French cinema and isolating just one is a challenge.

Cinema Paradiso (1988)

(dir. Giuseppe Tornatore) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – A flop in Italy in late 1988 at 174 minutes, Tornatore cut his masterpiece to 124 minutes for the 1989 Cannes Film Festival where it was sold to 20-30 countries, including the U.S., within hours of its initial screening. A worldwide success and Foreign Film Oscar winner, this highly sentimental tribute to the movies and movie houses of the mid-20th century, stars Philippe Noiret as the Sicilian theatre projectionist and 8-year-old Salvatore Cascio as his apprentice who would become a celebrated director of his own after the mysterious disappearance of the love of his life. With Marco Leonardi and Jacques Perrin as older versions of the boy.

Closely Watched Trains (1966)

(dir. Jirí Menzel) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – This haunting Czech film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film of 1967. Set during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, the similarity to the then oppressive occupation of the country by the Soviet Union wasn’t lost on anyone. Shrouded in an engaging sex comedy about a teenage train dispatcher’s attempts at losing his virginity, is the real story of the country’s resistance movement. The title refers both to the protagonist’s job of making sure the trains run on time and the constant surveillance of the resistance. Despite oppression by the Soviets, Menzel, now close to 80, continues to make interesting films.

Cries and Whispers (1972)

(dir. Ingmar Bergman) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – I tried hard to avoid citing duplicate directors in this list, but Ingmar Bergman is such a marvelous cinematic genius and this film may well be his pinnacle. A bravura set of performances highlight this compelling drama filled with warm, passionate vibrancy and a cinematographic palette of unparalleled beauty.

Day for Night (1973)

(dir. François Truffaut) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – A fascinating glimpse into the behind-the-scenes drama associated with a French film shoot gives Francois Truffaut plenty to work with. The sometimes believable, sometimes incredible situations that befall the cast and crew of this film are a bewildering whirlwind of circumstance and determination.

Commentary By Tripp Burton – François Truffaut is one of my favorite filmmakers, and there are numerous films of his that could have appeared here. His behind-the-scenes look at filmmaking, half scathing attack and half love letter, is probably his funniest film and one of his most accessible. With a fantastic cast of international actors and a sharp script, it is necessary viewing for any film lover.

Dekalog (1989)

(dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – Sporadically released in the U.S. as The Decalogue, this 10-part, 10-hour film based on the Ten Commandments, began as a Polish TV series, but had major U.S. showings in its entirety in 1990 and again ten years later in 2000. Two of its episodes, “A Short Film on Killing” and “A Short Film about Love,” were also released separately. The ten parts are connected through an apartment house in which various characters live, some appearing front-and-center in one episode and in the background in another. You can search high and low, but you won’t find another film of this length that is of as much sophistication and depth.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

(dir. Julian Schnabel) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – Painter and unconventional filmmaker Julian Schnabel has made only four narrative features in his one-decade career, but his most memorable has to be the inventive The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Told exclusively from the perspective of a paralyzed magazine editor whose only view of the outside world is through his left eye, the film is a compelling and mesmerizing technical marvel.

Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – This is based on the true story of a man who had a massive stroke and had to live with a paralyzed body. He is aware of everything around him, but can only move his left eye. Eventually he learns to communicate by blinking his eye. The movie also shows scenes from his past and from his present fantasies. He decides to write a book about his experiences and slowly writes his memoirs. He died ten days after the book’s publication. It is a striking film with strong performances and striking visuals. Once seen, it is not easily forgotten.

La Dolce Vita (1960)

(dir. Federico Fellini) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – Fellini had been nominated for Oscars four times previously in the writing categories, but the worldwide phenomenon that was La Dolce Vita was his first for direction. The film, which is a series of vignettes in a week in the life of a philandering Italian journalist in Rome, also made an international star of Marcello Mastroianni in his most magnetic role. It also coined the word “paparazzi” after an annoying photographer in the film named Paparazzo. The film has many unforgettable scenes such as the statue of Christ being flown by helicopter and Mastroanni and Anita Ekberg cavorting in the Trevi Fountain.

Grand Illusion (1937)

(dir. Jean Renoir) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – Jean Renoir’s French masterpiece is an anti-war saga of manners and situational ethics following two French soldiers in a P.O.W. camp shuttled between different locations as they continually try to escape in spite of their captor’s beneficence. A relationship drama of most peculiar and fascinating insights, the movie was the first foreign language film ever nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture and remains one of the best to have achieved that reward.

Hero (2002)

(dir. Yimou Zhang) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – In Chinese cinema, there are few voices as distinctive and visionary as Zhang Yimou. One of his greatest accomplishments is this warrior drama told from multiple perspectives, each employing gorgeous cinematography, production design, and costume design in a singular color palette. The film is an intricate drama that redefines how martial arts films can be filmed without feeling over-produced or stilted.

Ikiru (1952)

(dir. Akira Kurosawa) Commentary By Tripp Burton – You could fill this list with Akira Kurosawa films alone and I wouldn’t begrudge you, so limiting the list to just one is near impossible. I went with Ikiru, his meditation of death and bureaucracy. It is simpler than many of Kurosawa’s other films, and more narrowly focused, but it is just as powerful as his more epic masterworks and deserves to be considered beside them.

Let the Right One In (2008)

(dir. Tomas Alfredson) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – While Swedish cinema reached its zenith under the brilliance of Ingmar Bergman, modern Swedish cinema has continued a grand tradition of filmmaking that places the country among film history’s great creators of cinematic masterworks. Among those features is Let the Right One, a literary adaptation about a young vampire who engages with a young boy in search of a friend and perhaps life companion. This marvelous film creates a new and compelling vision for vampire cinema, turning the traditional bloodsucking horror feature into a pensive relationship drama.

The Lives of Others (2006)

(dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – An agent of the secret police is conducting surveillance on a writer and his actress lover, but comes to question the state’s motives behind this surveillance. As the agent gets more involved in their lives, he decides to break some rules to make things easier for them. The writer escapes great punishment due to the things the agent does to help him, though the agent ends up demoted for his help. The movie jumps forward in time to show the fall of East Germany and the opening of the secret files, which the writer goes to read. The movie wraps up with another leap forward in time to show a satisfactory and heartwarming ending to these crossed lives.

Lust, Caution (2007)

(dir. Ang Lee) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – Adept at working in both Mandarin and English, Ang Lee is that rare artist who has achieved success in two languages. Unlike his early triumph The Wedding Banquet or his American breakthrough Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (still in Mandarin), Lee takes his interest in romantic entanglements to new, sensual heights in Lust, Caution, a gorgeous espionage thriller featuring one of the great film scores of the 21st Century so far.

The Official Story (1985)

(dir. Luis Puenzo) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – A comfortably well off woman starts to question her life and it leads her to confront some very disturbing questions about her husband, life in general, and where her adopted daughter came from. The more she probes, the less she likes the answers, but she is moved to find out the truth. It is an unflinching, and at times brutal, depiction of life during a military dictatorship. The film won the Oscar for Foreign Language Film and the great Norma Aleandro should have been nominated for her role as the wife who decides to find out the truth, no matter where it takes her.

Il Postino (1994)

(dir. Michael Radford) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – A young postman brings the mail to the exiled poet Pablo Neruda. Over the course of time he learns to love poetry and to like and respect the poet. With help from Neruda, the postman woos his sweetheart with poetry, and the two eventually marry. Neruda eventually is able to return to his native Chile. He returns to Italy many years later to find out that the postman suffered an early death after his departure. It is similar to the true story of the movie. The writer and star, Massimo Troisi, who played the postman with such warmth, had postponed heart surgery to finish the film and then died the day after the filming was completed. He did receive posthumous nominations for his writing and acting, but it leaves one wondering what else he might have accomplished if he had lived longer.

Rome, Open City (1945)

(dir. Roberto Rossellini) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – Rossellini’s film began the post-war Italian neorealist movement. Filmed with a low budget on poor quality film stock in the waning days of the Nazi occupation of World War II, it became an international sensation, a shining example of how much can be done with so little when the elements come together as perfectly as they did here. A story of the resistance told from both Catholic and Communist points of view, it is powerfully acted by Aldo Fabrizi as the humble priest and the magnificent Anna Magnani as the young moher gunned down in the middle of the street in front of her impressionable son.

A Separation (2011)

(dir. Asghar Farhadi) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – Iranian cinema, which has been around since the advent of film, attracted worldwide attention in the late 1990s and early 2000s with such beautifully constructed low-budget films as Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us, The Color of Paradise, and A Time for Drunken Horsess. Oscar finally acknowledged the country with Farhadi’s complex domestic drama and mystery, A Separation, about a marriage in turmoil. The deep humanity of Farhadi’s characters, some good, some bad, but all totally recognizable, made this a film that transcended the uniqueness of its country of origin, as did his more recent films, The Past and The Salesman.

Commentary By Tripp Burton – A Separation is a film that tells a complex story through a simple plot. It isn’t what is happening on screen that matters nearly enough as what those actions mean to our characters and tell us about the world of modern-day Iran. The film is impeccably acted and brilliantly conceived.

Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – A fascinating glimpse inside Iranian society, this movie shows two intertwined stories of life, divorce, and women working in the male-dominated society. One poor woman works without her husband’s permission and a more affluent woman wants a separation and eventual divorce from her husband and to leave the country with her daughter. Neither family has it easy, and the tribulations that they go through get more and more tense. Not all of the story lines get tied up, and there is a huge cliffhanger at the end, but it is gripping getting there.

Shall We Dance? (1996)

(dir. Masayuki Suo) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – A Japanese businessman craves more out of his life, but he is not sure what it is. What starts as a crush on a dance instructor turns into a passion when he discovers how much he enjoys ballroom dancing. Because dancing is looked on as embarrassing to the Japanese public, he continues to hide what he is doing from his wife and his coworkers. His wife worries about him to the point that she hires a private detective to follow him, though the detective is surprised to find out where he goes. A dance contest does not go well for the protagonist, though a coworker wins and then is ridiculed for taking part in ballroom dancing. The businessman stands up to his other colleagues telling them not to make fun of something they do not understand. It is a simple but lovely film.

Sundays and Cybele (1962)

(dir. Serge Bourguignon) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – An Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film and a nominee for Best Screenplay (co-written by the director) and Best Score (by the always amazing Maurice Jarre), this was not only a career high achievement for Bourguignon, but surprisingly the only celebrated film of his long career. It’s a one-of-a-kind masterpiece about a shell-shocked veteran of World War II who develops a friendship with a lonely schoolgirl that results in his pretending to be her absent father so that he can spend one day a week with her. The relationship is, as you’d expect, misunderstood by everyone, leading to a heartbreaking conclusion. Featuring Hardy Kruger’s best performance.

Three Colors: Blue, White, Red (1993, 1994, 1994)

(dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski created a unique cinematic experience with Three Colors trilogy. Based on the French Flag, his films symbolically and thematically explored the concepts of French identity: Bleu/Blue (liberté/freedom), Blanc/White (égalité/equality), and Rouge/Red (fraternité/brotherhood). He took the colors a brilliant step further, by sticking largely to the titular color palette for each film.

Tokyo Story (1953)

(dir. Yasujirô Ozu) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – The state-controlled Japanese film industry, after the end of world War II, began to release its films outside of the country to great acclaim. The one director whose films were held back was Ozu, whose films they considered too Japanese to be appreciated by the rest of the world. It wasn’t until after his death in 1963 at the age of 60, that Ozu’s films received widespread release in the U.S. This was ironic because Ozu’s influences were largely American. His favorite directors were John Ford and Leo McCarey. His masterpiece, Tokyo Story, is a virtual remake of McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

(dir. Jacque Demy) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – This is an interesting film that is totally sung through. It has one memorable song, but a sense of melancholy persists through the film. A young and ravishingly beautiful Catherine Deneuve helps her mother selling umbrellas in their financially failing store. She has met a young man who she wants to marry, but at 17 her mother forbids it. He goes off to serve in the military and she finds that she is pregnant. Not hearing from her soldier beau, her mother sets her up with a well off but older jeweler. She eventually marries him, but hesitantly. Some time later the soldier returns and finds her gone. He eventually takes up with another woman and later marries her. Years later the two ex-lovers meet again, but decide to keep to their own lives. It is beautifully filmed and stays wistful in memory.

Wild Strawberries (1957)

(dir. Ingmar Bergman) Commentary By Tripp Burton – Like Kurosawa, how do you choose just one Ingmar Bergman film? Wild Strawberries might be his most complete film, combining all of Bergman’s obsessions: family drama, existential questions, fantastical plot devices, and a central concern for death. It is bleak but also life-affirming.

Wings of Desire (1987)

(dir. Wim Wenders) Commentary By Tripp Burton – Like many great films, Wings of Desire is an amalgam of disparate ideas that don’t seem to fit together at all: angels, the Berlin Wall, the circus, and Peter Falk playing himself. The film moves them together in a meditation of life and death and uses a trunkload of cinematic tricks to make one of the most unique films of the 1980s.

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)

(dir. Pedro Almodóvar) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – This was my introduction to Pedro Almodovar, and it remains my favorite one of his films. It features a group of people whose lives are entwined through bizarre circumstances, infidelity, unexpected pregnancies, terrorists, and gazpacho spiked with sleeping pills. There are serious parts to the film, but a lot of hilarity too. Almodovar went on to write and direct some more serious films which I also truly enjoy, Talk to Her and All About My Mother being two very good examples. But I have retained a fondness for this one. If I come across this one on television, I will watch it until the end again and again.