Elected: 100 Must-See Foreign Films

Thank god there's atleast somebody with serious film cred doesn't think Amelie is a masterpiece. I also must check out "Sansho Dayu", I'm very intrigued. Thanks for posting the list!

Excellent Top 25. I've seen 20 of them. My favourite of those 25 is #8, Aguirre (aka "Apocalypse Before") with Bicycle Thieves, Rashomon, and of course The Seven Samurai not far behind.

Question---when did The Bicycle Thief become Bicycle Thieves? It's probably a more accurate title, sure, but when did it change? Did I miss another memo?

I saw Sansho Dayu a few weeks ago based on your recurring praise of the film.

It immediately went to the top of my favorites list, up there with 2001, Seven Samurai, and Rules of the Game.

I don't understand why Ugetsu gets all the love....

I'm pleased to see that Cinema Paradiso made the list, and in the middle of the pack, right where it belongs. I was worried that the film had enough haters to maybe keep it off.

Maybe I've missed an earlier post, Jim - but could you please explain why you seem to dislike "Amelie" so much? I can completely see where you're coming from on "Life is Beautiful," and in fact I agree with you on that one. But "Amelie"? Sure, it doesn't compare to many of the films on this list...but what's your problem with the film? What's wrong with it?

Jim,

It's okay to get gooey over a film, never apologize. I've had Sansho in my top ten netflix for almost 6 months but others keep jumping up. I must stay the course this time.

And Ugetsu is a fine film indeed. One should not be taken down while another praised.

Can we just dump all the Bergmans cluttering up the list and make room for some real movies? Sorry, I was just feeling nostalgic for the Bergman debate. :)

Aguirre, Contempt, Au Hasard Balthazar and Playtime are all films that rate in my Top 25 so I like seeing them.

I like almost every other Truffaut film better than "Jules and Jim" but I understand I am in a minority only slightly larger than 1 regarding that movie.

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Ryan,

The title should always have been "Bicycle Thieves." In Italian, it is "Ladri di bicycletti" and "ladri" is plural, not singular. Why it was translated for years in English as singular I don't know, but Criterion's recent re-release restored the plural to the title, so maybe that's why the proper title finally seems to be sticking. Or maybe the type sof folks that make up foreign film lists have always been calling by the correct title.

The elitist attitude is why some people won't give foreign films a chance. I've seen and loved many of the movies on this list. I also love Amelie, Cinema Paradiso and (gasp) Life is Beautiful. Is that supposed to make me less of a film fan?

This is like the AFI Top 100 list of foreign lists - nothing surprising at all, except for some of the rankings. I've seen 98 of them, and that's just because I've been pushing stuff ahead of Day for Night on my Netflix queue pretty much since the day it hit DVD, and, seriously, if I've seen 23 Grams and Babel, I'm not really sure I have to see Amores Perros.

I agree with Ryan on Ugetsu. Seen it twice now (though not on the apparently beautiful new DVD) and didn't find it to be among Mizoguchi's best. My favorites are Life of Oharu and Street of Shame.

It's shocking that Satyajit Ray was left off the list, but I suppose that's because his films are not readily available. And even the ones that are are on very poor DVDs.

Just to clarify, Jim . . .

174 people chose their favorite 25 out of a preliminary list of 123 films made by a nominating committee of 51. So those of us in the larger group had an already-defined group to pick from, not including some of our favorites for sure.

EC wound up with a pretty good, standard list, as will happen with a large group coming to consensus. I believe 13 of my top 25 wound up in the final list's top 25 (and I think the #1 & 2 were my #2 & 3). I nice place to start, I guess, if you were recommending non-English Language films to someone who hadn't seen many . . .

Ryan,
I can't believe you missed the memo. Man, we sent that out to everybody. Okay, seriously, the original Italian title is Ladri di biciclette. The optimum word here is Ladri which means Thieves. The singular is Ladro or Ladra. So the actual title is Bicycle Thieves but for years it has been distributed in the U.S. as The Bicycle Thief and the name has stuck. I use it myself.

"Amelie" was an excellent film, though maybe not a "great" film. I find it though in poor taste to consider it "bad news" that it made the list. But since I frequently disagree with many of Mr. Emerson's slight opinions, I'm not losing any sleep over it.

The Top 25 are an excellent grouping though, and I'm glad to have seen 19 of them - mostly thanks to Roger Ebert as I might have never discovered the great "Aguirre" without him. Though I feel I would have, eventually, found my way to Kurosawa, Mr. Ebert just got me there sooner.

I wondered about The Bicycle Thief/Bicycle Thieves change as well. I think it coincided with the last Criterion special edition where they decided that was the more accurate translation.

AMELIE making the list is Bad News?!? what???

Where is Au Revoir, les Enfants?

I would have liked to see more Tarkovsky in the list. Solaris, Mirror.... Also, Isao Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies, Fritz Lang's Metropolis, F. W. Murnau's The Last Laugh.... Maybe even Takeshi Kitano's Kikujiro.

As Jonathan comments above, The Bicycle Thief was the title for US distribution purposes, but the film was always known as Bicycle Thieves in the UK (and perhaps in other English-speaking countries); that was the title under which I first encountered the film.

Perhaps there are many films that could've or should've made the list, but I'll mention one that surprises, if not bothers me that it's missing. That movie is Jean De Florette. I checked Rotten Tomatoes and it's one of those few that has 100 % on the tomatometer. I saw the film first when I was a child and I never forgot it. It's so painful, honest and poetic. To see Run Lola Run make the list rather than Jean De Florette is very strange.

Zetes, I don't blame you for being hesitant to watch Amores Perros after 21 Grams and especially Babel, but unlike those two, Amores Perros isn't bad. I wouldn't put it up near the top even for the year it came out, but I liked it unlike the later films.

I would like to think that Life Is Beautiful wasn't among the nominations because of the voters' tastes, but it may be because the English dubbed version is the one most of us are familiar with, and EC counted it out as an English language film. He mentions doing the same thing to Sergio Leone's films.

Thanks all for your insights on Bicycle Thieves. I'll never again be able to watch Vincent D'Onofrio and Tim Robbins watch Bicycle Thievesssss in The Player.

In my ignorance, actually, I didn't buy the Criterion DVD for quite some time because I didn't think it was De Sica's movie. Figured it was some kinda documentary or something.

Speaking of DVDs and foreign films, does anyone else feel a bit reluctant to buy some of the great titles because they cost so much? My shelves aren't stocked with as many foreign flicks as they should be, but that's partly because a lot of the best choices are Criterion DVDS that'll run you 50 or 60 bucks.

Maybe I'm just a cheapskate.

Ed: I didn't hate either of the Innaritu films, but I did hate their scripts. 21 Grams survives, barely, on the strength of the acting. I actually liked Babel a bit better, though it's far from a great movie. It has some beautiful moments, but the structure has been overdone in recent years, and here is at times simply idiotic.

I, too, wished there was more Tarkovsky. But more importantly I wish there were more female directors, specifically Claire Denis. I think her work, her entire career, is about as cinematic as can be. And her last film is just impossibly good: every time I _think_ about it I get silly delirious.

I'm quite sure the existence or alleged popularity of an English dubbed version of Life is Beautiful had any affect on its eligibility... or frankly whether anyone considered nominating it. It did, after all win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. And I wouldn't have even been aware of the existence of this dubbed version had I not read these comments.

In fact, had I known about it, I probably would have used in it in my rather extended email regarding the language issue. I noted the wide theatrical releases of English dubbed versions of Cries and Whispers and Das Boot, the latter of which at least was the only version available on VHS for quite some time, in fact, and yet both of them made the list comfortably.

I agree re: Hate for "Amelie". It wasn't that bad and I can see what some actually loved about it. Different type of filmgoer, maybe, but I have no contempt for them. Besides, in ten years it will not be here. My disappointing absence is definitely "Maborosi". Great, great, great.

To renton: I'm definitely an elitist but you are no less of a film fan than anybody. Tell the other elitists I said so.

To Justin Francis: Um, what did "Run, Lola, Run" have to do with "Jean de Florette" again? Maybe I'm missing something. I'm not saying I disagree with you about the latter film, mind you. (I think I liked "Manon" even better. Montand and Auteuil are great and Beart [forgive my ignorance regarding French accent marks on my damn keyboard], well, you know.)

I guess to me claiming that "Amelie" is an all-time great film is like claiming that a Big Mac is one of the all-time great meals. You might like it, and you might keep going back for more, but you know darn well it's no good for you and you always feel sick afterwards. But maybe fast food is in the eye of the beholder since I would argue that a good Philly cheesesteak really is one of the best possible meals in the world. So never mind.

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I agree with Zetes. Innaritu needs to dump Arriaga like a bad habit... or rather lke a really bad screenwriter. Innaritu might turn out to be nothing anyway, but as long as he's anchored by these dreadfully ponderous, schematic screenplays, we'll never know.

Danny, Neil: I know "Life is Beautiful" didn't play in an English dubbed version in most American markets on first release. (And I know I didn't see it that way.) But now that you mention it, I do recall Miramax pumping some money into an English-dubbed version after the movie was a hit in the US, in hopes of broadening the audience for it. Was this before or after the Oscars? I don't recall. (Some Truffaut films -- "Stolen Kisses," "Day for Night," if I'm not mistaken -- were also available in dubbed versions in the US. The "Das Boot" comparison is apt. It even became... "The Boat"!)

Re: "Amelie." I admit it has evaporated from my consciousness entirely. But these things are relative. On the "runner-up" list of 22 titles that didn't make the top 100 are "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant," "The Marriage of Maria Braun," "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser," "I Vitelloni," "Lola Montes," "The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums"... I rest my case.

I second both Mabarosi and Jean de Florette, and would throw in a runner up vote for After Life--mostly because my first viewing of this remains my most near-perfect movie-going experience ever and I admit to a very soft place in my heart for this film.

Personally I love Amelie. As a matter of fact, my comment about it is used in the final list. But remember, this is a list of favourites - films that just work for you and which are a matter of taste (it doesn't necessarily mean you think they are perfect films or masterpieces). There shouldn't be any discussion of what a crime it is that film X which is "clearly" superior was pushed out of its slot due to Amelie. And what does a person's taste regarding one specific film have to do with their overall, ahem, "cred"? That's just silliness.

I suppose it looks like I'm being defensive about it...I don't have a problem with anyone who doesn't like Amelie (or who even hates it). It's the "more cred" than thou folks that irk me and do a disservice to the list as whole.

On the positive side, the list is getting people to watch some classic films AND hopefully dig deeper to find other films by directors on the list. I watched my first Rohmer in prep for voting and it ended up making my Top 25 because it was so good...

Yay for "Tokyo Story". I just bought and watched "Sansho the Baliff" a week ago on you recommendation Jim and I was amazed by it.

It's a shame Satyajit Ray's films were not mentioned. I saw "The Apu Trilogy" for the first time only a couple of years ago but it opened my eyes to things I've never seen before in film.

To Dane Walker: What do they have to do with each other? Absoloutly nothing I guess. All I was saying is that if I had to bump one film off the list and replaced it with Jean De Florette, it probably would've been Run Lola Run. I loved RLR, but I thought it was more of a trendy movie, especially in the US. I remember everyone raving about it when it came out, and now no one I know cares much about it. Not that trendiness in itself makes a movie less credible, but when you look at that list, RLR seemed a little out of place to me. (Some have been saying the same about Amelie.) In addition, I got a chance to spend some time with Moritz Bleibtreu in a private interview, and while listening to him talk about German cinema vs. American cinema, I couldn't help but start to think that RLR was successful in America at least in part because of it's appeal to America's demand for bigger and better. JDF is probably unknown to most Americans who saw RLR. To me, a big part of the value in a list of great films is to steer you to a film you were unaware of. I think that JDF deserved to be on the list. Maybe RLR did too, but I thought JDF deserved it more. Just my opinion.

To Dane Walker: What do they have to do with each other? Absoloutly nothing I guess. All I was saying is that if I had to bump one film off the list and replaced it with Jean De Florette, it probably would've been Run Lola Run. I loved RLR, but I thought it was more of a trendy movie, especially in the US. I remember everyone raving about it when it came out, and now no one I know cares much about it. Not that trendiness in itself makes a movie less credible, but when you look at that list, RLR seemed a little out of place to me. (Some have been saying the same about Amelie.) In addition, I got a chance to spend some time with Moritz Bleibtreu in a private interview,(http://www.drinkswithtony.com/moritz.html) and while listening to him talk about German cinema vs. American cinema, I couldn't help but start to think that RLR was successful in America at least in part because of it's appeal to America's demand for bigger and better. JDF is probably unknown to most Americans who saw RLR. To me, a big part of the value in a list of great films is to steer you to a film you were unaware of. I think that JDF deserved to be on the list. Maybe RLR did too, but I thought JDF deserved it more. Just my opinion.

Rather than kvetching about which films I liked that didn't make it (no Alain Resnais in the Top 25 - that's a crime!!!!!), I think the most glaring weakness is the absence of non-Japanese Asian films (with only "In the Mood for Love" and "Raise the Red Lantern" cracking the Top 50).

I don't think this requires any more explanation than the fact that most voters probably know their European and Japanese cinema much, much better than Asian cinema, either from school or because they are more readily available on DVD. Also perhaps because many Asian national cinemas have only come on line with a vengeance in the past two decades, and any list like this will be skewed to older, more established films.

And not a single Iranian film? Not one? I guess the same reasons apply here.

With a list of only 100 films to capture the entirety of foreign-language cinema, you're only going to get more-or-less canonized films, so the pool to select from is naturally going to be relatively small to begin with. I personally don't see a problem with the inclusion of "Amelie" over something like "Lola Montes" because, if one were to exclude it based on principle, I think one is severely (and unfairly) weighting film as art versus film as entertainment and emotional stimulant. Given that this list is under the pretense of being a starting-place for people with little to no experience with foreign-cinema, I think a more panoramic and inclusive selection of titles is entirely warranted -- especially given that so many people shy away from foreign movies because of the mostly misguided assumption of their universal austerity and "artiness".

And I personally like "Amelie" a great deal (I also loved Jeunet and Caro's "City of Lost Children"), and it seems that the backlash it's received in recent years has more to do with it's popularity than any intrinsic quality (or lackthereof) within the film itself. Of course, I could be wrong.

To Justin Francis: Yeah, I know, it's just that I'm facetious as well as elitist. I'm kind of a list addict and would never turn one down but just think the individual lists are much more compelling and helpful than the big amalgamated list that puts "Sound of Music" next to "Eraserhead" or something. That's how you find the critic whose taste matches yours best and then there is less comparing of apples and oranges or Amelies and Lolas.

And I would also nominate "Ju Dou".

Neil, jim: I guess I was wrong, then.

Not to join the snarky, cred-obsessed crowd, but I am actually upset that both Amelie and Run Lola Run made it despite the exclusion of people like Ray and Kiarostami. If we're talking craftsmanship, attention to detail, subtle and deeply felt works of art, then Amelie and RLR, as pleasing as they are, don't belong on this list if they're taking away from more deserving films.

As I peace offering I'll volunteer the unpopular opinion that All About My Mother doesn't belong on this list as much as Bad Education does -- hell, it might have been best to have a horse race between BE and Talk To Her and have only one Almodovar grace the list. Furthermore, I'm not sure that Y Tu Mama Tambien and Chungking Express belong but I'll keep quiet since I like them (Happy Together is a notch above CE, IMO). And I'm inclined to question the inclusion of Amores Perros but I haven't seen it all the way through.

Overall, I can't believe I've actually seen a good bit of what made the list! Well, good for someone who admittedly doesn't spend her life watching movies. One thing, though: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul should have placed MUCH, MUCH higher.

Christopher Long,

You want to talk about vengeance...take a look at "Lady Vengeance", probably one of my favoritest films in a long time, and it's foreign and non-Japanese-Asian.

And maybe because I'm not important enough to help compile one of these lists, I will also add a Japanese film that struck a chord, this is what i wrote about the film..."Ley Lines" dir Takashi Miike - Two half-breed brothers and a friend travel to Tokyo to escape their uninteresting lives in a small town where they were always looked down upon. They befriend a hooker, sell drugs on the street, and tussle with a crime boss. By the end all of these pieces come together and create a breathtaking portrait of characters that are constantly fighting to earn their respect in the underworld. There are moments in this film that capture the quality and essence of some of the greatest foreign films. Take for instance the moment these four delinquents exact their revenge on the mob boss. They travel through the city on their mopeds as if they were two Itallian characters who had just fallen in love. It’s a moment of sheer deranged beauty. Which is pure Miike.

I am positive that there are at least a hundred (more) foreign language films that are better than Amelie, but as far as the inclusion of undeserving trendy foreign films goes Amores Perros, Run Lola Run, and City of God are far more criminal.

I don't like Pickpocket or Last Year at Mabriend but I can't exactly complain about them going on there. The real question is where's Cannibal Holocaust?!

Kudos to Come and See making the cut.

I like lists like these but they are always heavy with "classics", Rules of the Game, Seven Samurai...Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa...etc.. It'll be nice to have a list of 100 greatest foreign movies of the past.....say 25 years that way we can be introduced to new names and new titles. and I do praise all those filmmakers of long ago still making films today... Rohmer, Rivette, Varda, Bertolucci,

Not a single Ray (Not even Nayak)? Pity. I guess his films just haven't made the leap yet.

I've seen 22. I have work to do. At least I've seen half of the top 10.