24 International Films You Need To Watch Right Now If You're Sophisticated
Remember that beautiful, golden moment right before COVID reared its ugly head when Parasite won Best Picture at the Oscars? (and Jane Fonda announced the win with a delicious pause.)
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I truly believe it was the last great thing that happened to the world before we were pushed into the chaotic darkness of quarantine days.
For many, Parasite was a gateway into the wonderful world of international cinema.
Neon / Via giphy.com
As Parasite's director Bong Joon-ho reminded us in his Golden Globes acceptance speech: "Once you overcome the one-inch tall barriers of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films." Every year, hundreds of exquisite international films are made, and now, through the beauty of streaming, most of them are available to watch from the comfort of your home (while eating a peach).
In the past few years, more and more international films have made their way into the American zeitgeist (Roma from Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón was, of course, a great example), and these breathtaking stories are just waiting to be watched.
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Plus, if you're going to be up to date on pop culture and in the conversation over on film Twitter, you need to watch international cinema. It's chic, it's sophisticated, and it's just really damn good.
So, to help you keep up to date on the great films from around the globe you should know, I've put together a helpful little guide for you. Here are 24 international films that have debuted in the States in the past year, and where you can watch them.
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Because don't you want to watch an Italian woman juggle fruit, an Icelandic couple raise a sheep baby, and a South Korean investigator solve a rock climbing murder?
1.All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany)
We're starting off strong with this year's German Oscar submission. (For those of you unaware, each country selects one film every year to vie for the Academy's Best International Feature award, and only those films can be nominated in that category.) The war film, which premiered to rave reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, is an adaptation of the classic 1929 novel about German soldiers during World War I. The film seems destined for the Oscars, as the original American film adaptation from 1930 won Best Picture, and this new one certainly lives up to the former's pedigree. This anti-war war film is a masterclass in technical achievements (much like fellow WWI opus 1917), and is one of the most beautifully executed pieces of art released this year. Helmed by a handful of little known German actors (and of course Daniel Bruhl in a supporting role), All Quiet follows a group of optimistic teenagers who ship out to the titular western front at the tail end of the conflict, only to run headfirst into the stark brutality and futility of war. This is one of the greatest war films ever made and deserves your attention.
2.Argentina, 1985 (Argentina)
I, for one, had never head of the "Trial of the Juntas" before watching this film. I can't really say I knew much about Argentinian history at all. For those of you (like me) who are ill-informed, from 1976 to 1983, Argentina was ruled by a military dictatorship. When that regime was finally dismantled, its leaders were put on trial by the new government in 1985, a controversial and potentially dangerous move as the former leaders still held much sway within the country. Argentina,1985, which happens to be Argentina's Oscar submission this year, follows the attorney tasked with prosecuting these powerful men, and his ragtag team of aides who faced overwhelming odds in the name of justice. If you love a legal drama or just want to learn more about global history, this is an incredibly engaging way to delve into the past.
3.Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Romania)
If a teacher were to film a sex tape with her husband and upload it online, only for it to be discovered by the parents and faculty at her school, should that teacher be fired? This is the central premise of last year's Romanian Oscar submission, a controversial examination of sexism, nationalism, and our attitudes toward sex. The satirical comedy won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 2021 before being released in the US at the end of the year. While the film follows Emi (Katia Pascariu) a teacher on trial for her morality by the parents of her students, director Radu Jude is examining more than just the politics of gender and sex as he entertainingly wanders down many thought lines, exploring the state of Romanian society in general. The film's ending (which I will not spoil) is especially interesting and well executed.
4.A Chiara (Italy)
A Chiara is the third installment of American/Italian director Jonas Carpignano's Calabrian trilogy. (For those of you who never bothered to take Italian geography in high school, Calabria is the toe-region of the boot-shaped Italy that is kicking the Sicilian football). While it's the third in a trilogy of films set in the same small town, they are not directly connected, so you can hop in to this one without watching Mediterranea or A Ciambra. This drama, which debuted at Cannes 2021 but wasn't released in the US for a year, follows Chiara, a 15-year-old girl who begins to investigate her family's history after her father mysteriously disappears the night of her sister's birthday party. What secrets lie in her family tree, and how will they affect her life? She's determined to find out in a way that only a headstrong teenage girl can do.
5.Compartment No. 6 (Finland)
I must say that I love a train ride. And I love a train movie. There is just something oddly romantic and philosophical and timeless and otherworldly about a train that other modes of transportation (car, plane, bike, spaceship, tugboat) just aren't bringing to the table. To step on a train is to be divorced from your real life for a brief moment, and a chance encounter with a stranger seems almost inevitable. Such is the case with last year's Finnish Oscar submission about a female student from Finland who boards a train in Moscow and finds herself in a compartment with a Russian miner. What compartment you ask? No. 6. (Duh!) The pair are from completely different corners of the universe and poke at one another's humanity in a series of fascinating conversations as they cross the Russian countryside. The film, based on a novel, makes me want to hustle down to Grand Central, hop aboard a train, and meet a mysterious a stranger.
6.Decision to Leave (South Korea)
Competing against All Quiet on the Western Front and Argentina, 1985 for this year's Best International Feature Oscar is South Korea's submission, this noir detective thriller. Director Park Chan-wook added the Best Director prize at Cannes this year to his ever-expanding shelf of accolades for films like The Handmaiden, Thirst, and Stoker. In his latest mystery, Park Hae-il plays a detective who falls in love with the widow of a man who mysteriously fell to his death while rock climbing. Tang Wei is haunting as the widow, and the pair's cat-and-mouse game is hauntingly sexy. A series of twists and one of the year's most riveting endings make this a must-see for any thriller junkies, but the gorgeous cinematography elevates it out of its genre-only appeal. The drone shot on the causeway? Stunning! *in Olivia Cooke's voice*.
Currently in theaters. Buy tickets at Fandango.
7.Drive My Car (Japan)
Couldn't be me (and every other critic) out here recommending a three-hour-long Japanese film about a man riding around in a red Saab listening to his dead wife recite Uncle Vanya over a cassette tape. Last year, the adaptation of a Haruki Murakami story snuck into the Oscar's Best Picture race to my shock and delight. While the film is quiet, its screenplay and performances will leave you glued to the screen for the entire runtime. Its slow build to a forceful climax is storytelling at its finest, and the beautiful landscape shots of the titular car sliding back and forth across the Japanese countryside are intoxicating. While this film didn't win Best Picture, it was easily my favorite in the lineup. Never have I been so fascinated by a mixed-language performance of a Chekov play and squabbling over car insurance. If you're only going to watch one thing on this list, please carve the time out of your calendar to make it this one.
8.Flee (Denmark)
Flee would be a remarkable story no matter how it was told. A gay man on the verge of his wedding tells his life story for the first time, and it's a doozie. Born in Afghanistan, he and his family fled the country as it crumbled into war. He escapes the fighting only to become stranded in Russia, before moving to Denmark completely alone, his family members disappearing one by one along the way. What makes this documentary one-of-a-kind, though, is its use of animation. The pseudonymous storyteller "Amin" requested his anonymity, so filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen decided to create a documentary not of live-action shots but in stylized animated graphics that bend and flow with the narrative. As a result, this was the first film to ever snag Best Animated, Best Documentary, and Best International Feature Oscar nominations all in a single year. A queer masterpiece.
9.The Good Boss (Spain)
Because the international films that make their way to the US often do so via the festival circuit and their Oscar campaigns, we tend to end up with a fairly dour view of the world's cinema. Dramas, after all, are more awards-friendly than comedies. Last year's Spanish submission, however, is a satirical workplace comedy starring Javier Bardem (most recently spotted in the unhinged Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile film) that is just plain funny. The film from lauded Spanish director Fernando León de Aranoa follows Julio (Bardem), the owner of a factory who starts meddling in the personal lives of his employees in order to win an award. Who among us hasn't been subjected to a boss who is just a liiiiiiiiiiittle too curious about our out-of-work goings-on? And while the film is sharp comedically, it doesn't shy away from making a statement as well. If you want to laugh internationally, hit play on The Good Boss.
10.Great Freedom (Austria)
With a dearth of cinematic gay films going back a century, we have to take our queer narratives where we can find them, and if that means in prison, then so be it. Last year's Austrian Oscar submission, which was released in the States this May, is the story of Hans (Franz Rogowski), a gay man put in prison for being gay in post-World War II Germany. Ironically, it is within prison that he finds some semblance of freedom (after all, you can't go to prison for being gay if you're already in prison for being gay). Over his years locked away, he has several relationships and strikes up an unlikely friendship with his gruff cellmate. While of course, we've started to see happier, healthier cinematic gay relationships recently (the delightful Fire Island comes to mind), Great Freedom reminds us of the centuries and centuries of LGBTQ+ history in which queer people had to find the small bits of joy and freedom wherever they could.
11.The Hand of God (Italy)
It's hard to capture what it's like to grow up; the hodgepodge of tiny moments that create a person and lead them to where they ought to be. And often, in looking back, we tend to tidy up the journey, edit out the ephemera and missteps into something clean and concise (because that is how we are taught to tell a story). In his semi-autobiographical film, Oscar winner Paolo Sorrentino retraces his steps as an aimless teen in Naples through a series of interlocking vignettes. His family, his sexual awakening, the loss of his parents, his discovery of filmmaking. He plots points on a map, both the profound and insignificant, in a way that mimics the meandering of life while coalescing into something painstakingly purposeful. The Italian submission for Best International Feature at the Oscars and an eventual Oscar nominee, the film depicts the wandering of youth in all its pain, pleasure, absurdity, and importance. It also depicts a woman in a fur coat gobbling down a giant hunk of mozzarella, so there's a little something for everyone.
12.Happening (France)
While Happening takes place in 1963 France, its subject feels terrifyingly present in the United States of 2022. The film, based on a novel by this year's recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature Annie Ernaux, follows a young woman named Anne who finds herself pregnant and weighing her options. After debuting at the Venice International Film Festival to rave reviews, it arrived in the US earlier this spring, in the thick of the Roe v. Wade reversal. Anne, played masterfully by Anamaria Vartolomei, watches as her life wanders away from the course she'd planned for herself, but realizes that to get an abortion is not only difficult, but illegal. This brutal catch-22 is playing out now across the US, as many areas push for abortions to become less and less accessible (especially for young, poor, and minority individuals). While this is not an easy sit, it is a necessary and timely one.
13.Hatching (Finland)
Don't fret, my beloved horror fans, I have something for you as well. One of this years most grizzly experiments in body horror is this Finnish monster film that debuted at Sundance. Young actress Siiri Solalinna pulls double duty playing both Tinja, an anxious gymnast under constant pressure from her mother to perform well, and Alli, her destructive doppelgänger, that was birthed out of a massive egg. It quickly becomes apparent that Alli is acting on the repressed emotions of Tinja with no regard for how much violence and bloodshed it may take to secure Tinja's happiness. The film is Dance Moms gone wrong, and for as much fun as the gore is, director Hanna Bergholm paints a startling picture of the immense stress child athletes endure. Not for a million dollars would I ever want to compete at that level. Give me a homicidal avian protector as well.
14.A Hero (Iran)
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has won the Oscar for Best International Feature twice since 2010: once for A Separation in 2011 and then again for The Salesman in 2016. And while he didn't win for A Hero, I'd argue that it's some of his best work. Last year's Oscar short-listed title follows a man who thinks his ticket out of debtors prison is a purse full of cash his girlfriend finds. But a fairly simple act goes awry very quickly and threatens to leave him worse off than he started. The intricately subtle set of moral quandaries at this film's center are as terrifying as they seem insignificant, and watching Amir Jadidi act his way through them is mesmerizing. Farhadi has been in the news lately as a prominent Iranian figure speaking out in support of the people of Iran, and his films paint a nuanced portrait of life in his country that we don't often see in the US.
15.I'm Your Man (Germany)
Would you have sex with a robot version of Dan Stevens? Because that is the central question of last year's German Oscar submission. The Downton Abbey star gives a mesmerizing performance as a robot designed to be the perfect companion for the film's protagonist, Alma (Maren Eggert). Playing a character that is clearly not a human but still manages to be human enough for Maren (and the audience) to fall in love with him is a tall order, but Stevens does it with his placid smile and speedy math calculations. This was one of my favorite films of last year, something that felt wholly original and incredibly heartwarming at the same time. It's laugh out loud funny at points, desperately heartbreaking at others, and gives us an incredible final scene. This is a crowdpleaser from start to finish.
16.Lamb (Iceland)
Lamb is a bit of an outlier on this list, as it's one of the few international films in the past few years that got a sizable theatrical rollout PRIOR to its awards buzz. That's primarily because it was picked up by A24 out of Cannes, making it one of their few non-English language titles, although it does star Noomi Rapace, who has made a name for herself in the US. While it's billed a "folk horror" on Wikipedia, it conducts itself as a quiet folk family drama for most of its runtime. Rapace plays Maria, a farmer who, along with her husband, raises a half-sheep/half-human baby on their misty Icelandic ranch. The little sheepman is very cute, and the grossest thing about the film is a couple of animal birthing scenes prior to the movie's bloody climax. It's a quiet horror film where the dread slowly grows until its tremendous climax. It was the Icelandic submission for the Oscars last year, but its genre I think precluded it a bit from that conversation even though it's well done.
17.Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (Bhutan)
The surprise International Feature nominee from last year's Oscars was this charming Bhutanese film. While dozens of countries have won Best International Feature Oscars (Italy alone has won 14 times), the tiny Asian country of Bhutan has yet to win an Oscar. In fact, this was only the second film they'd ever submitted to the Academy, so its nomination alone was quite remarkable. The film follows Ugyen, a young teacher in training who would much rather move to Australia to be a singer than teach. As a result of his lackluster performance, he's sent to train in a high altitude, poor community. The town doesn't have enough money for a designated school building, so he must teach the children in a classroom that doubles as a yak pen. The delightful, feel-good saga is certainly a crowdpleaser, and if you (like me) knew nothing of Bhutan, the film paints an interesting picture of an often cinematically overlooked region.
18.Memoria (Colombia)
I hesitated to include Memoria on this list, because more likely than not, you will have no way of watching it. The film, which premiered at Cannes last year and became Colombia's Oscar submission, will never be available to stream according to its director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Rather it will roam around the world in a string of arthouse theatrical engagements from now until the end of eternity. This is due in part to the fact that the film is intensely focused on the sense of sound, and as someone who has watched it in a theater, I can say it's an experience unlike any other. The fantasy thriller follows Jessica (played by the forever enigmatic Tilda Swinton) who hears a mysterious sound at night and goes on a lengthy journey to uncover what it is she's hearing. Home sound systems just don't seem to be up to snuff according to the studio, so they'd prefer to just let the film wander from theater to theater. If Memoria does show up at your local indie cinema, run — don't walk — to watch it if for no other reason than its sheer exclusivity.
19.Official Competition (Spain)
Official Competition spent PLENTY of time on the festival circuit. It originally premiered at the Venice Film Festival of 2021. It then played Toronto, a few dozen other smaller festivals, opened in theaters in Spain back in February, and debuted in several other countries before its eventual arrival at Tribeca (and subsequent US release). That doesn't make it any less stellar of a film, though, and for a movie about filmmakers attempting to win awards (and then, perhaps shred them in a wood chipper), the team here certainly understands how to roll out a film for maximum exposure. The Spanish film starring Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz, and Oscar Martínez is an actor's dream, and follows an enigmatic director (Cruz) as she prepares two rival actors (Banderas and Martinez) to star in her upcoming film. The rye comedy is an incredible actor's showcase and leaves you with a deliciously twisted ending.
20.Parallel Mothers (Spain)
And here's another Penélope Cruz title just in case you need more of her in your life (and you do). When Spain opted to submit The Good Boss instead of this Pedro Almodóvar thriller as its Oscar submission last year, many assumed it was out of the running. The increasingly international voting body, however, liked it enough that both Cruz and its score were nominated. Following Cruz and Milena Smit as a pair of mothers who meet as they're about to give birth in a hospital, the film examines the different forms that motherhood can take. Taking several twists and turns before its satisfying conclusion, Parallel Mothers is an engrossing film, and Cruz's performance is certainly Oscar-worthy. The way she swabs her mouth alone is worth a Golden Globe.
21.Petite Maman (France)
And the award for the shortest film on this list goes to... With a runtime of only 72 minutes, Petite Maman is indeed petite, a perfect morsel of a film that you'll flit through many episodes of prestige television these days. In the followup to her critically acclaimed arthouse juggernaut Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma tells a much quieter, less assuming tale. Translated to "Little Mother," the film is about a girl, who in the wake of her grandmother's death, wanders into the woods and stumbles upon the childhood version of her own mother. The two form a poignant relationship as they discuss their own relationships with their adult mothers and how they relate to one another in their child/adult selves. Short and sweet, it's a gorgeous watch.
22.RRR (India)
RRR is the most expensive Indian film ever made, the third highest-grossing Indian film of all time, and has received topnotch reviews from critics the world over. Now, it's readily accessible on Netflix and continuing to build a fandom in the US. It's a frenetic, highly stylized Indian musical action film about two revolutionaries who fought against British imperialism (using tigers, according to this). Think Moulin Rouge! meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets The Matrix meets The Patriot. It's a three-hour-plus gory action film with extended musical numbers (including a rather upbeat public torture song), which sounds miserably weird, but I loved every single second of it. India, unfortunately, did not select it for the International Feature race, BUT this seems to almost be helping its Oscar chances as more and more fans are rallying around the musical's music in hopes of an Original Song nomination.
23.The Worst Person in the World (Norway)
Another of last year's breakout international films was Joachim Trier's film about a woman (Renate Reinsve) floating aimlessly through life, juggling a pair of relationships and looking for purpose. The film, the third in Trier's "Oslo Trilogy," was nominated for both Best International Feature and Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars, with many crying for Reinsve to be nominated in Best Actress for her performance as well. In the titular role, (although, is she the worst person in this cinematic world? Perhaps not. But I digress.) Reinsve, who won the acting prize at Cannes in 2021, delivers an infuriating performance that will make you love and hate this "everywoman" at the same time. She's a slow-motion train wreck that has you oscillating between cheering her destruction and mourning her losses as each consecutive train jumps the track. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll learn how to identify an "iconic butthole."
24.Writing with Fire (India)
Only the second documentary on this list, Writing with Fire did go head-to-head with Flee last year in Best Documentary Feature (although, both lost to Summer of Soul only seconds after "the slap"). A powerful and encouraging documentary, it follows the staff of Khabar Lahariya, a news organization run by a group of low-caste Indian women. Equipped with iPhones, they travel the region, tackling some of the toughest stories of their day even as they face discrimination based on their gender and caste (mixed with a healthy dose of corruption). It's an empowering doc, and one that has stuck with me since I first watched it last winter.
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