Re: le greatest foreign language films
 

My personal faves.

In no particular order:

Au Hasard Balthazar
La Dolce Vita
Persona
The Virgin Spring
Rashomon
Ikiru
Forbidden Games
Fitzcarraldo
The Three Colors Trilogy
Umberto D
Le Samourai
Band Apart
Don't Shoot the Piano Player
The Last Tango in Paris
Belle De Jour
Atlantic City (All American Cast, but directed by Louis Malle, so I'm cheating a little.)
Toyko Story
Walkabout
Hardboiled (My wild card)

Re: le greatest foreign language films
 

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On the film blogs, Edward Copeland over at Edward Copeland on Film has gone to the trouble of organizing a compilation of the best non-English language films. I somehow got on the list of people nominating films. 21 of my 25 made the first cut, sadly Lelouch's un homme et une femme and Menzel's Ostre sledované vlaky didn't make the cut (but are awesome and totally worth checking out). Here, in the interest of full disclosure, is my list as I sent it to Edward (complete with really confusing original language titles):

the deadline for the ballots is 16 September.

1. Dekalog (Kieslowski)
2. Scener ur ett äktenskap (Bergman)
3. The Three Colors Trilogy (Kieslowski)
4. Les Quatre cents coups (Truffaut)
5. Ostre sledované vlaky (Menzel)
6. un homme et une femme (Lelouch)
7. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
8. Les Enfants du Paradis (Carné)
9. Umberto D. (De Sica)
10. Shichinin no samurai (Kurosawa)
11. La Grande illusion (Renoir)
12. La Strada (Fellini)
13. À bout de souffle (Godard)
14. Russkiy kovcheg (Sokurov)
15. Cidade de Deus (Meirelles)
16. Andrey Rublyov (Tarkovsky)
17. La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
18. Det Sjunde inseglet (Bergman)
19. Persona (Bergman)
20. Bande à part (Godard)
21. Pyaasa (Dutt)
22. Ugetsu monogatari (Mizoguchi)
23. Tôkyô monogatari (Ozu)
24. Yi yi (Yang)
25. Hable con ella (Almodóvar)


discuss.

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I like Renoir's "The River" over "The Rules of the Game."

Re: le greatest foreign language films
 

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I remember a screenwriting class in which the instructor fast forwarded through Die Hard to explain basic screenplay structure, etc. But it wouldn't be hard to imagine certain of my more impressionable classmates thinking that meant or at least suggested that Die Hard fell into a higher echaelon of film, when I think the instructor was just trying to put old VHS to some use.

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Not to threadjack (I haven't seen enough of the initial films to judge other than to say LOL, Amelie, but am intrigued by the overall endeavor) but I think one could make a pretty good argument that Die Hard is the best pure action movie ever made, and as such is deserving of recognition. Yes it's formulaic and cliche, but that's in large part because it defined and codified the genre. /threadjack.

Re: le greatest foreign language films
 

what, no Godzilla?

Seriously though, I think "The Battle for Algiers" should be on here.

I would choose Kagemusha over Seven Samurai, but that's just me because I like it better then SS - probably because of the expanded pallet with color.

I'd have to put Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on here too - that literally opened up the genre to a whole new generation and it was one of the best examples of Mandarin Cinema I've seen.

Maybe Flowers of Shanghai for it's style/art - def. would take it over some lame ass French Tres Colours film - didn't like those at all.

RB

Re: le greatest foreign language films
 

no In the mood for love and Talk to Her before All About My Mother?

It's hard for me to comment on the Eastern European films as I haven't seen them

edit: I'm an idiot, I didn't see Breathless on my first view and thought you didn't put it on there