Which country would you say produces the best non-English language films?

[meowdi gras]

I'm really curious, which Soviet Union films are good and worth watching and where can I find them?

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Strike/Стачка (Sergei Eisenstein)
Battleship Potemkin/Бронено́сец «Потёмкин» (Sergei Eisenstein)
Mother/Мать (Vsevolod Pudovkin)
October/Октябрь (Sergei Eisenstein)
The End of St Petersburg/Конец Санкт-Петербурга (Vsevolod Pudovkin)
The New Babylon/Новый Вавилон (Grigori Kozintsez, Leonid Trauberg)
Arsenal/Арсенал (Alexander Dovzhenko)
Man With a Movie Camera/Человек с кино-аппаратом (Dziga Vertov)
Earth/Земля (Alexander Dovzhenko)
The Maxim Gorky trilogy (Mark Donskoy)
Alexander Nevsky/Алекса́ндр Не́вский (Sergei Eisenstein)
Ivan the Terrible/Иван Грозный (Sergei Eisenstein)
The Cranes are Flying/Летят журавли (Mikhail Kolotozov)
Ballad of a Soldier/Баллада о солдате (Grigori Chukhrai)
Letter Never Sent/Неотправленное письмо (Mikhail Kalatozov)
Fate of a Man/Судьба человека (Sergei Bondarchuk)
Ivan's Childhood/Ива́ново де́тство (Andrei Tarkovsky)
Hamlet/Гамлет (Grigori Kozintsev)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors/Тіні забутих предків (Sergei Parajanov)
I Am Twenty/Мне двадцать лет (Marlen Khutsiev)
Andrei Rublev/Андрей Рублёв (Andrei Tarkovsky)
War and Peace/Война и мир (Sergei Bondarchuk)
Commissar/Комиссар (Aleksandr Askoldov)
The Story of Asya Klyachina, Who Loved But Did Not Marry/История Аси Клячиной, которая любила, да не вышла замуж (Andrey Konchalovskiy)
The Color of Pomegranates/Цвет граната (Sergei Parajanov)
Uncle Vanya/Дядя Ваня (Andrey Konchalovskiy)
King Lear/Король Лир (Grigori Kozintsev)
Trial on the Road/Проверка на дорогах (Aleksei German)
The Long Farewell/Долгие проводы (Kira Muratova)
Solaris/Солярис (Andrei Tarkovsky)
Mirror/Зеркало (Andrei Tarkovsky)
A Slave of Love/Раба любви (Nikita Mikhalkov)
The Ascent/Восхождение (Larisa Shepitko)
An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano/Неоконченная пьеса для механического пианино (Nikita Mikhalkov)
The Lonely Voice of Man/Одинокий голос человека (Aleksandr Sokurov)
Stalker/Сталкер (Andrei Tarkovsky)
Siberiade/Сибириада (Andrey Konchalovskiy)
My Friend Ivan Lapshin/Мой друг Иван Лапшин (Aleksei German)
Come and See/Иди и смотри (Elem Klimov)
Days of Eclipse/Дни затмения (Aleksandr Sokurov)

Many of these can be seen on the Criterion Channel, Amazon Prime, and for free on YouTube.

 

[meowdi gras]

Also, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland have all turned out a huge number of great films; particularly during the "New Wave" 1960s:

The White Dove/Holubice (František Vláčil)
Mother Joan of the Angels/Matka Joanna od Aniołów (Jerzy Kawalerowicz)
Ikarie XB-1 (Jindřich Polák)
Passenger/Pasażerka (Andrzej Munk)
The Sun in a Net/Slnko v sieti (Štefan Uher)
Diamonds of the Night/Démanty noci (Jan Nêmec)
The Ashes/Popioły (Andrzej Wajda)
The Fifth Horseman is Fear/A pátý jezdec je strach (Zbyněk Brynych)
Twenty Hours/Húsz óra (Zoltán Fábri)
My Way Home/Így jöttem (Miklós Jancsó)
The Saragossa Manuscript/Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie (Wojciech Has)
The Shop on Main Street/Obchod na korze (Ján Kadár & Elmar Klos)
Ten Thousand Suns/Tízezer nap (Ferenc Kósa)
Father/Apa (István Szabó)
Cold Days/Hideg napok (András Kovács)
A Report on the Party and Guests/O slavnosti a hostech (Jan Nêmec)
The Round-Up/Szegénylegények (Miklós Jancsó)
Marketa Lazarová (František Vláčil)
The Red and the White/Csillagosok, katonák (Miklós Jancsó)
Valley of the Bees/Údolí včel (František Vláčil)
The Cremator/Spalovač mrtvol (Juraj Herz)
Adelheid (František Vláčil)

 

[Terror-Billy]

Don't sleep on Argentina, you guys. Wild Tales, Tango and The Secret in their Eyes are among the best foreign films ever made.

 

[John Caboose]

I've become really impressed with Denmark. Jagten (The Hunt) and Krigen (A War) were both excellent.

 

[Ushay]

South Korea
Turkey (some good stuff on Netflix)
Japan
Hong Kong
Germany

 

[Serpens007]

Strike/Стачка (Sergei Eisenstein)
Battleship Potemkin/Бронено́сец «Потёмкин» (Sergei Eisenstein)
Mother/Мать (Vsevolod Pudovkin)
October/Октябрь (Sergei Eisenstein)
The End of St Petersburg/Конец Санкт-Петербурга (Vsevolod Pudovkin)
The New Babylon/Новый Вавилон (Grigori Kozintsez, Leonid Trauberg)
Arsenal/Арсенал (Alexander Dovzhenko)
Man With a Movie Camera/Человек с кино-аппаратом (Dziga Vertov)
Earth/Земля (Alexander Dovzhenko)
The Maxim Gorky trilogy (Mark Donskoy)
Alexander Nevsky/Алекса́ндр Не́вский (Sergei Eisenstein)
Ivan the Terrible/Иван Грозный (Sergei Eisenstein)
The Cranes are Flying/Летят журавли (Mikhail Kolotozov)
Ballad of a Soldier/Баллада о солдате (Grigori Chukhrai)
Letter Never Sent/Неотправленное письмо (Mikhail Kalatozov)
Fate of a Man/Судьба человека (Sergei Bondarchuk)
Ivan's Childhood/Ива́ново де́тство (Andrei Tarkovsky)
Hamlet/Гамлет (Grigori Kozintsev)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors/Тіні забутих предків (Sergei Parajanov)
I Am Twenty/Мне двадцать лет (Marlen Khutsiev)
Andrei Rublev/Андрей Рублёв (Andrei Tarkovsky)
War and Peace/Война и мир (Sergei Bondarchuk)
Commissar/Комиссар (Aleksandr Askoldov)
The Story of Asya Klyachina, Who Loved But Did Not Marry/История Аси Клячиной, которая любила, да не вышла замуж (Andrey Konchalovskiy)
The Color of Pomegranates/Цвет граната (Sergei Parajanov)
Uncle Vanya/Дядя Ваня (Andrey Konchalovskiy)
King Lear/Король Лир (Grigori Kozintsev)
Trial on the Road/Проверка на дорогах (Aleksei German)
The Long Farewell/Долгие проводы (Kira Muratova)
Solaris/Солярис (Andrei Tarkovsky)
Mirror/Зеркало (Andrei Tarkovsky)
A Slave of Love/Раба любви (Nikita Mikhalkov)
The Ascent/Восхождение (Larisa Shepitko)
An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano/Неоконченная пьеса для механического пианино (Nikita Mikhalkov)
The Lonely Voice of Man/Одинокий голос человека (Aleksandr Sokurov)
Stalker/Сталкер (Andrei Tarkovsky)
Siberiade/Сибириада (Andrey Konchalovskiy)
My Friend Ivan Lapshin/Мой друг Иван Лапшин (Aleksei German)
Come and See/Иди и смотри (Elem Klimov)
Days of Eclipse/Дни затмения (Aleksandr Sokurov)

Many of these can be seen on the Criterion Channel, Amazon Prime, and for free on YouTube.

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Thanks!

 

[Vault]

Italy and Hong Kong

 

[Pwnz]

Really hard to answer because the US is so much of a leader in film, and runner ups include the UK. I think the US will continue being the leader for a long time because it is a melting pot culturally and has pretty good free speech. I could see myself enjoying Chinese made films especially on history pieces, but not much beyond that because I'm not going to understand it culturally.

 

[Bronx-Man]

I say South Korea not just for it's arthouse scene but for how satisfying their genre flicks are.

 

[Gwenpoolshark]

Iran deserves a mention. Asghar Farhadi made one of the best films of the decade in A Separation, along with certified bangers About Elly and The Past.

The great Abbas Kiarostami ended his career with a couple of international productions with a pair of A-grade films in Certified Copy and Like Someone in Love, but he made his mark early on in Iran with experimental films such as Close-Up (a masterpiece in quasi-docu narrative) and A Taste of Cherry.

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Anyone who hasn't seen Close-Up is genuinely missing a window into a whole different possibility as to what cinema can be.

 

[Soapbox Killer]

Epic Kung Fu Movies


Shaolin
Crouching Tiger
Hero
House OF Flying Daggers

Where do these come from?

 

[Deleted member 15428]

South Korea, France, Japan

 

[BLEEN]

France.

 

[bionic77]

India hands down for me.

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Surprised India is not getting any love in this thread seeing how successful they have been at making movies.

I can't say I see a lot of foreign films so I can't judge who is the best, but I always appreciated how different a lot of Indian movies are to American movies. I like the focus on romance and relationships instead of the American fascination with violence. I could say the same thing about the few Japanese movies I have seen (mostly Ghibli).

 

[PSqueak]

For me, Mexico.

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As a mexican, im gonna be honest with ya, i feel like Mexico only stepped it's movie game now that we have a foot in Hollywood, growing up i never really liked Mexican movies during the 90's and early 2000's, Mexican Cinema went through an annoying "edgy, gritty, crude reality" phase that i couldn't stand.

 

[meowdi gras]

Surprised India is not getting any love in this thread seeing how successful they have been at making movies.

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I'm a huge fan of the works of Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak. Can't say I've seen much else from the subcontinent yet, though.

 

[Solaris]

Japanese film during the 50's and 60's is probably my favourite period of non-English film making. A huge list of incredible films.

 

[bionic77]

I'm a huge fan of the works of Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak. Can't say I've seen much else from the subcontinent yet, though.

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The only stuff I watch are Amer Khan movies. He is like my Ghibli for the subcontinent. I saw it on Netflix last year and I really liked PK. I thought it was pretty brilliant stuff but I am not sure if that is popular sentiment or if it was just a movie I really liked.

 

[Cocolina]

France, Germany and Russia

 

[Siggy-P]

I've never really delved into Korean cinema, but without a doubt all the Korean films I used to act on late night movie channels have been genuinely great.

Make no mistake though, all countries have great movies in them.

Can't go wrong with:

Oldboy
The Man From Nowhere
A Moment to Remember
Train to Busan
Seoul Station
My Sassy Girl
A Tale of Two Sisters
I Saw the Devil
Memories of Murder
The Host
The Admiral: Roaring Currents
Mr. Go
The Wailing
The Handmaiden
Sympathy of Mr. Vengeance
Lady Vengeance
International Market

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If the quality of the films I haven't seen in that list are the same as the ones I have seen, youve done the lord's work here friend.

 

[metalgear89]

Korea and France have some really great horror movies.

 

[Deleted member 36543]

South Korea. No contest.

 

[Berto]

France, Japan, Italy and USSR are the big ones with amazing auteurs with defining and groundbreaking moviments. Nowadays Mexico, Spain and South Korea are on fire.

 

[Deleted member 15428]

After discovering Jia Zhang-ke's 'Ash is Purest White', I'm gonna have to dig deeper into Chinese cinema. This film blew me away just like certain Korean or Japanese films dd, but with a different aesthetic and sensibility.

 

[Puck Beaverton]

South Korea has been killing it since the turn of the century

 

[Lunchbox-]

England

sometimes you have subtitle them to understand what they are saying, but still good

 

[CloudWolf]

France, South Korea and Japan are the canon answers for 2019.

Germany, Italy and Russia (Soviet Union) are also acceptable answers if you look to the past.

I have a really strong bias towards animation so for me it's Japan, but yeah South Korea has a ton of baller films

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Honestly, for animation I would actually say France. Japan is very good, but very specific (if you do not like anime-style films you have very little to go to), the French animation industry on the other hand is extremely varied and goddamn amazing: Persepolis, Triplets of Belleville, The Red Turtle (Dutch director and collab with Ghibli, but production was in France), Ernest & Celestine, the list goes on.

 

[apocat]

I don't think I could choose, but I will admit that my mind leapt to South Korea the moment I saw the premise of the thread.

 

[Slim]

India hands down for me.

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This.

 

[marrec]

South Korea, at least as far as the past decade or two goes.






Can't go wrong with:

Oldboy
The Man From Nowhere
A Moment to Remember
Train to Busan
Seoul Station
My Sassy Girl
A Tale of Two Sisters
I Saw the Devil
Memories of Murder
The Host
The Admiral: Roaring Currents
Mr. Go
The Wailing
The Handmaiden
Sympathy of Mr. Vengeance
Lady Vengeance
International Market

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Good list, would add Okja.

 

[Lord Azrael]

Honestly, for animation I would actually say France. Japan is very good, but very specific (if you do not like anime-style films you have very little to go to), the French animation industry on the other hand is extremely varied and goddamn amazing: Persepolis, Triplets of Belleville, The Red Turtle (Dutch director and collab with Ghibli, but production was in France), Ernest & Celestine, the list goes on.

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I don't know if that's a completely fair assessment. Yeah there's a predominant style in Japanese animation but there's still a ton of variety outside of that too. But yes I did enjoy the French films you listed so that's a good call too.

 

[fluffydelusions]

I've become really impressed with Denmark. Jagten (The Hunt) and Krigen (A War) were both excellent.

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Watch the movie the guilty

 

[wig split]

Germany, France and Italy are the only ones worth their salt. Really surprised by the amount people saying Korea... I watched a bunch of their highly rated movies - newer and older ones - and just found them to be fluff but to each their own, I guess.