Empire 100 foreign films

sxt

It is a scientific fact that non english speaking movies > english speaking movies . I just happened across this random comprehensive list of 100 non english speaking films , with striking imagery from each movies and descriptions of why you should see the movie etc

( everyone knows that these lists are completely subjective and random to what ever person made them, and that there are 1000's of movies that may be more worthy to be in these random lists etc).

But Based on viewing this particular list...


Empire List



Based on the pictures and the blurbs, Which movies that you haven't seen before,would you be most interested in seeing?



8 7th Seal, 1957 I really want to see this , with the amount of praise on boards forum for Bergman

9The wages of fear , 1953 "Two trucks. Four men. Enough nitrogylcerine to blow up South America. "


23 Spirit of the beehive , 1973

"Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth owes Beehive a huge debt in its story of a small girl who parlays political realities into a fantasy world"


24 Come and see ,1985 "Nothing, before or since, has captured the psychological carnage of war

like the final shot of the boy's face, now hollow-eyed, lined and aged. "

45 Suspiria ,1977

"...and filled with the sort of insane set-pieces for which Argento is famous, this is arguably the best horror film not made in the English language"


Creepy horror trailer !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB4u6qC_ORE&feature=player_embedded




98 Ran , 1985 " A Japanese warlord coming to the end of his days, decides to divide his kingdom up between his three sons. But his youngest thinks him mad, and that his plan will lead to bloodshed, and soon enough the older brothers have taken up arms against one another"

87 Andrei Rublev ,1966 " A kind of companion piece to The Seventh Seal, Andrei Tarkovsky imagines eight episodes in the life of a medieval monk "

johnny_ultimate

Christ, was going to read this but I'm not giving Empire a hundred page views. I hate lists that are complied in that way.

I also hate Empire's attempts at witticisms with their 'what not to say' bubbles. Cringey stuff.

sxt

Yes , its Empire , but it is done quite well I think . I agree that going through each movie one by one is tedious , but that is the nature of these kind of zines.( I will try and find the "list".) However, the list seems quite wide ranging and alot of the movies look like gems , and not the stereotypical "best foreign films" that I would have expected .There is some amazing Imagery which grabs you even more so then the blurbs .

quickbeam

sxt wrote: »

It is a scientific fact that non english speaking movies > english speaking movies .

I absolutely refute that. It may appear so because only the good foreign language films make it over to us.

Glad to see my all time favourite foreign language film (and well up there as my favourite film of all time) on the list at no 20 - Y Tu Mama Tambien. Beautiful movie!

johnny_ultimate

Yep, there are countless foreign films that do not reach our shores, and we're likely better off without them.

And America seems to be going through a damn good time for cinema at the moment particularly. Indeed, almost every 'great' film of the year so far has been American.

That's an aside. It's perhaps unfortunate that generally speaking films are perceived as 'foreign' and 'not foreign' - certainly seems the Empire way of thinking. A great film is a great film, subtitles or not. Still, if this list provokes someone to discover something wonderful, than I guess its purpose has been fulfilled.

(Akira Kurosawa totally made better films than Seven Samurai, though )

sxt

This was the 100 in this list ( once again this is a random magazine , with a random subjective view from a writer, who would have been influenced by many factors )


I think that there are alot of good movies in there however.

http://www.imdb.com/list/UsCPpPRfweE/

krudler

quickbeam wrote: »

I absolutely refute that. It may appear so because only the good foreign language films make it over to us.

this, there's dozens if not hundreds of utterly sh1te movies made by other countries every year, same as hollywood. and a lot of foreign movies seem to have to be good, because they're foreign according to some people, err, no, doesnt matter what language a movie is in, a crap movie is still a crap movie.

Irish Aris

a rather diverse list, me thinks. Some of my favourite films are there (Kieslowski's colours' trilogy, a couple of Almodovar films, Amelie). . . I don't think I saw the Life of Others on the list, I would expect it to be there.
Anyway, as previously said in the thread, these lists are totally subjective.

losthorizon

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

A great film is a great film, subtitles or not.

Unfortunately, cinema chains don't believe that and aren't willing to show Non-english films (or even Australian or films a bit different etc) and most cinema goers don't believe that either.

The Oscar winning Film The Artist wasn't shown in my local cinema, neither was any of those gritty great Aussie gangster flicks (I think they don't like putting on over 18 films).

I find that hugely ironic has the best attendances last year were for a documentary Senna when they literally had to squeeze people into the auditorium with a flashlight and and the other great attraction was the Oscar winner. And yet, they never learnt from this.

That Empire List isn't bad but its a few years old so there are a lot of modern films left out. Also they have excluded tons of movies which should be watched by any one interested in the movies.

FlashD

Wow, Empire! :eek:

Theres a film mag I haven't heard of in a decade, surprised its still on mag shelves with all the film based websites.

I used to totally rely on it mid 90's for what was up and coming and reviews.....it wasn't bad back in the day but yeah, they liked their lists back in the day too. :pac:

Out of interest, where did 'Cinema Paradiso' and 'Ringu' place, those are two of my favourite foreign flicks.

e_e

"Amelie > Tokyo Story" according to Empire. :rolleyes:

Finneen

Empire magazine's top 100 foreign-language films is like Smash Hits' top 100 rock albums!

Technocentral

Quite a solid list I think, top 20 is pretty spot on except for one glaring inclusion: Amelie at no 2 :eek:, would be well outside the top 50 for me, a bit like including The Shawshank Redemption in top 10 films of all time.

bnt

I keep hearing about The Bicycle Thieves (#4), which never seems to be shown on TV at all. Several others from Italian cinema, which seems to be a major gap in my viewing portfolio. I haven't looked at all 100, but if The Conformist is on there, I found I admired it but didn't actually ... like it. :cool: (edit: #85)

The Idiots should be in a bottom 100, if there is such a thing - horrible film, I thought.

I agree about Tokyo Story - it deserves to be right up near the top. Ditto for Rashōmon. And where the heck is the original Metropolis? If it's in the top 50, I missed it - still looking ...

Mickeroo

bnt wrote: »

I keep hearing about The Bicycle Thieves (#4), which never seems to be shown on TV at all. Several others from Italian cinema, which seems to be a major gap in my viewing portfolio. I haven't looked at all 100, but if The Conformist is on there, I found I admired it but didn't actually ... like it. :cool: (edit: #85)

The Idiots should be in a bottom 100, if there is such a thing - horrible film, I thought.

I agree about Tokyo Story - it deserves to be right up near the top. Ditto for Rashōmon. And where the heck is the original Metropolis? If it's in the top 50, I missed it - still looking ...

Metropolis is at number 12

Sad Professor

I love Metropolis. Which reminds me, I still haven't seen the restored version.

bnt

Mickeroo wrote: »

Metropolis is at number 12

Just beat me to it - though I think it needs to be higher.

(Suggestion: you only need to quite the bit of a post that you're replying to, not the whole thing. Saves space.)

Mickeroo

bnt wrote: »

Just beat me to it - though I think it needs to be higher.

(Suggestion: you only need to quite the bit of a post that you're replying to, not the whole thing. Saves space.)

Woops, I'll try and take up less internet next time :pac:

EDIT: just realised I did it again.

FlashD

Mickeroo wrote: »

Woops, I'll try and take up less internet next time :pac:
.

Good idea because servers all over the world are crumbling with your replies.