Your Favorite Foreign Film?

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srowley75
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by srowley75 »

Because I love lists, and because I'm in such a euphorically good mood now that my paper (supposed to be 10pp, ended up 20) is finally done and turned in...

In no order (and I'm assuming this means "foreign language" film)

Good Morning (1959)
Mon Oncle (1958)
Contempt (1963)
The Apu Trilogy (1954-59) [there are precedents for considering it one film!!]
The Seven Samurai (1955)
The Rules of the Game (1939)
M (1931)
Ikiru (1952)
The Wages of Fear (1953)
The Children of Paradise (1945)
Grand Illusion (1937)
Diabolique (1955)
8 1/2 (1963)
The Story of a Cheat (1936)
Amelie (2001)
Rashomon (1950)
Ivan the Terrible, Parts I and II (1945)
Floating Weeds (1959)
Kwaidan (1965)
Rififi (1955)
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MichiganJ
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by MichiganJ »

charliechaplinfan wrote:I've only seen the Directors cut of Cinema Paradiso. Is there a great difference?
The version that was theatrically released in the U.S. (and won the Academy Award) is 50-minutes shorter than the "Director's" cut, omitting much of the adult Toto's story .
Lzcutter wrote:Michigan,

It doesn't happen very often but in the case of Cinema Paradiso, I prefer the short version!
I think I do, too. Although I'm happy to have both version, the shorter film has a bigger emotional impact on me. Noiret and young 'Toto' have such a great chemistry that the longer version feels like a too long coda.
Either way, still the greatest ending.
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by jdb1 »

These list things are so difficult. I've been thinking about it for days, and can't come up with many that I can't top with a few others. I'll look at it this way: what foreign films affected me/did I enjoy the most (rather than saying which I thought were the most cinematically excellent, as I was at first thinking). With that in mind, my first choices would be

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
The Red Balloon
The Seventh Seal
Distant Thunder (Satyajit Ray)
Nights of Cabiria
Godzilla
Ikiru
Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau)
The Thief of Baghdad (Korda/Sabu version)
Is Hard Day's Night a foreign film? If so, I'd add it to the above.
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JackFavell
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by JackFavell »

Oh, I totally love Thief of Baghdad and A Hard Day's Night.

I was wondering when the definition of "foreign film" was going to come up. :D
Libertine
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by Libertine »

JackFavell wrote:I was wondering when the definition of "foreign film" was going to come up. :D
That's really a good question. However, I suppose everything that is not from the US and the UK maybe?


Amelié Poulain
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charliechaplinfan
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by charliechaplinfan »

A few of my favorites and a few I haven't come across. I'm always keen to explore new movies. I love Belle De Jour, it was one of my first foreign movies and encouraged me to watch more.
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Libertine
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by Libertine »

You know, I literally grew up with foreign movies, but there are some I like and some I don't... I often have a hard time with stuff by Godard.. it's probably too arty for me. I don't know, I need a story, and he hardly can provide one.

Belle de jour... I still wonder what was in the box. ;)
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Professional Tourist
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by Professional Tourist »

I'm a big admirer of films from Spain, Carlos Saura one of my favorite directors. I love the trilogy he made in the 1980s with Antonio Gades and his flamenco dance company, most especially El amor, brujo:

[youtube][/youtube] [youtube][/youtube]

But one of my favorite foreign films of all time comes from Denmark, Babette's Feast:

[youtube][/youtube]
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Lzcutter
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by Lzcutter »

Number #1 on my hit parade is the non-director's cut of Cinema Paradiso. As many here have noted, it's a beautiful, lyrical film and the final montage is the greatest valentine to film ever.

The rest of the short list:

Kurosawa's Ran and Seven Samurai

Ozu's I Was Born, but

Taviani's Good Morning Babylon

Bergman's Fanny and Alexander

and Fellini's 8 1/2
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charliechaplinfan
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by charliechaplinfan »

Libertine wrote:You know, I literally grew up with foreign movies, but there are some I like and some I don't... I often have a hard time with stuff by Godard.. it's probably too arty for me. I don't know, I need a story, and he hardly can provide one.

Belle de jour... I still wonder what was in the box. ;)
We're going to get along well, I didn't grow up with foreign movies, I had to discover them myself but you took the words out of my mouth regarding Godard.
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MichiganJ
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by MichiganJ »

Professional Tourist wrote:Carlos Saura one of my favorite directors. I love the trilogy he made in the 1980s with Antonio Gades and his flamenco dance company, most especially El amor, brujo:
I love this trilogy, too. My favorite, I think, is Carmen.

Some other favorites: If silents are included, then I'm with ChiO for the single best film (foreign or otherwise), Passion of Joan or Arc. Otherwise, my short list, in no particular order.

May--Asphalt
Wiene--Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Pastrone--Cabiria
Genina--Cyrano de Bergerac
Stiller--Sir Arne's Treasure/Erotikon
Epstein--Fall of House of Usher
Murnau--Nosferatu/Faust/Last Laugh
Feuillade--Les Vampires
Duvivier--Poil de Carotte/Au Bonheur des Dames
Feyder--Queen of Atlantis/Faces of Children
Pudovkin--Storm Over Asia/End of St. Petersburg
Pabst--Pandora's Box/Love of Jeanne Ney/Joyless Street
Lubitsch--The Doll/Passion (Madam DuBarry)
Jutzi--Mother Krause's Journey Into Happiness
Robison--Warning Shadows
Schwartz--Nina Petrowna
Fellini--Nights of Cabiria/8 1/2
Bergman--Winter Light/Persona/Fanny & Alexander (long version)/Magic Flute
Godard--Contempt/Pierre le Fou
Cocteau--Beauty and the Beast
Carné--Children of Paradise
Bernard--Les Miserables
Malle--Elevator to the Gallows/Zazie Dans la Métro
Rohmer--Clair's Knee/ The Green Ray (Summer)
Kurosawa--Ikuru/Throne of Blood/Ran
Carné--Le Jour se Léve
Franju--Eyes Without a Face
Fassbinder--Marriage of Maria Braun
Truffaut--Shoot the Piano Player/Two English Girls
Renoir--Rules of the Game/The River
Obayashi--House
Antonioni--Le Notte/L'Avventura
Resnais--Last Year at Marienbad
Visconti--Rocco and His Brothers/Senso
Lang--M
Tati--Playtime
Ozu--Floating Weeds (both versions)
Dreyer--Vampyr
Bresson--Au hasard Balthazar
Melville--Army of Shadows
Kervern--Aaltra
Almodovar--All About My Mother/Talk To Me
Tornatore--Cinema Paradiso
Kieslowski--The Decalogue/Double Life of Veronique
Hirschbiegel--Downfall
Del Toro--Pan's Labyrinth
Verhoeven--The 4th Man
Vigo--L'Atalante
von Donnersmarck--The Life of Others
Bava--Black Sunday/Whip and the Body
Herzog--Aguirre/Fitzcarraldo
Welterlin--Wolves in the Snow
Yanagimachi--Who's Camus Anyway?
etc...
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JackFavell
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by JackFavell »

I'm very happy to see The Doll/Die Puppe on your list, Mich. Its' one of my favorite movies.

I also rank Throne of Blood and Ran as my favorite Kurosawa's - I haven't seen all of Ikiru.
Belle
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by Belle »

My favourite foreign films, in no particular order:

Wolfgang Peterson, "Das Boot", 1981
Marcel Carne, "Les Enfants du Paradis", 1943
Louis Malle, "Au Revoir les Enfants", 1987
Jean Renoir, "Le Grande Illusion", 1937
Fritz Lang, "M", 1931
Vittorio De Sica, "Ladri di Biciclette", 1948 and "Umberto D", 1952
W.F Murnau, "Der Letzte Mann", 1924
Joseph Von Sternberg, "Der Blaue Engel", 1931
G.W Pabst, "Pandora's Box", 1928
Robert Wiene, "Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari", 1920
Federico Fellini, "Amacord", 1973
Carl Theodor Dreyer, "The Passion of John of Arc", 1928
Roberto Rossellini, "Rome, Open City", 1945
Andrei Tarkovsky, 'Ivan's Childhood", 1962
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C*i*g*a*rTheJoe
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by C*i*g*a*rTheJoe »

Lina Wertmuller's Pasqualino Settebellezze aka Seven Beauties (1975)

Image
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Sepiatone
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Re: Your Favorite Foreign Film?

Post by Sepiatone »

Sure, "foreign" films leaves it wide open as many aren't non-English speaking. To address both sides, I'll only add two....

SEVEN SAMURAI (Japan)
SILENT PARTNER(Canadian-English speaking)

As there are some I like that are both English speaking(certainly British films) and non-English speaking, and from a variety of foreign countries, narrowing down to one is difficult.


Sepiatone
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