7 Foreign Language Films To Save For Your Next Night In
One of the best parts of the Oscars and the awards season is the spotlight it shines on international films that may not have initially hit the major media headlines. Some of the best films in recent years have popped up in the International film category, rather than the Best Picture one. In honour of European Day of Languages, we’ve rounded up some of the best from recent years. The best foreign films from the past few years are from the Oscar’s Best International Feature to RRR, the Telugu-language epic action drama.
All Quiet on the Western Front
Winner of 2023’s Oscar for Best International Feature and several technical Academy Awards, the anti-war film All Quiet On The Western Front adapts and modernises the 1929 novel. A classic of modern European literature, the book and its Netflix adaptation follows the life of Paul Bäumer, an idealistic young German soldier who is keen on becoming a hero of the Imperial German Army.
Such fantastical aspirations are soon shattered when he confronts the awful reality of battle and modern warfare, and Felix Kammerer embodies this transformation in a heartrending way. Also starring Albercht Schuch, Daniel Brühl and Sebastian Hulk, All Quiet is worth a watch now more than ever.
Argentina, 1985
Argentina, 1985 is as you might guess an Argentinian film about the country’s politics in 1985. Specifically, it follows the trials of members of the Junta military government that had ruled until only two years prior. An extensive legal process bringing to justice those who committed torture, rape, disappearances and extrajudicial murder, the trials were a serious reckoning for the country but were handled with tact across the 140-minute run time.
The film is directed by Santiago Mitre who also made The Summit and White Elephant, and won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.
RRR
RRR clocks in at over three hours, and yet the film, which is described as an epic action drama, is an exhilarating experience from start to finish.
Focusing on fictionalised versions of two Indian revolutionaries (Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem), the story sees two friends fight against the British Raj in the 1920s. RRR is best known for the infectious Naatu Naatu, which became the first song from an Indian film to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song, but the entire movie is worth a watch as a gateway into Indian cinema. It’s become one of the most successful Telugu films in history, and Steven Spielberg lauded as being “like eye candy… …it was extraordinary to look at and experience.”
Girl Picture
Finnish film Girl Picture was hailed as one of the best foreign language films of 2022, and centres around three young women in Finland trying to negate the effects of the persistent winter darkness. As they do so, they learn more about themselves and each other, and who they want to become. Mimmi, Ronkkö and Emma are all trying to make sense of love, sex and relationships. Ronkko is focused on finding satisfaction in her love life, while Mimmi and Emma are navigating their own relationship.
While the coming-of-age theme is prevalent, Girl Picture is more about the performances and the interactions between the trio and those they meet than melodrama.
EO
EO was another nominee for Best International Feature at the Oscars and is certainly one of the most unique films from last year. It follows the life of a donkey named EO, born in a Polish circus and performing with a woman, Kasandra, who lovingly looks after him. However, he’s taken away after an animal rights group intervenes to close the circus down. EO eventually escapes though and undergoes a journey where he (and we) observe the turbulent world around him, both good and bad. As a donkey, he is far away from human morals and emotions, and instead purely experiences things that happen to him.
Running just under an hour and a half, EO is a remake of the acclaimed French tragedy Au Hasard Balthazar, cited as one of the best films of all time. Can a film about a donkey in Poland be one of 2022’s most emotional and existential journeys? Somehow, yes.
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Close
Belgian film Close won the Cannes Film Festival’s coveted Grand Prix award and is about the close friendship between two boys in rural Belgium whose deep affection for one another becomes the subject of ridicule.
It’s a look at toxic masculinity and the behaviours of teenage boys and is a deeply emotional film that will tug on your heartstrings with its powerful message and observations. Leo and Remi are inseparable and share everything with each other, but this becomes disrupted as their classmates start to tease them and ask questions. Close asks questions about the roles society puts on young men and the relationship between the boys is dealt with ambiguously.
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The Quiet Girl
The Quiet Girl is directed by Colm Bairéad and was another International Feature Oscar nom. The film’s dialogue is mostly in Irish, with the plot taking place in 1981 on a farm in County Waterford.
The titular girl, nine-year-old Cait, has a dysfunctional and difficult family and is quiet and introverted. She goes to stay in the summer with her distant relatives, who are a middle-aged couple, and finds herself away from her troubled home. She soon finds herself experiencing a new way of living, and it becomes a life-changing trip. It’s based on a short story by Claire Keegan, who also wrote Small Things Like These which will be released later this year starring Cillian Murphy, and is a small yet memorable journey that, like Close, is about a formative period of pre-adolescence.
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