foreign films to watch
by kelsonlomen | created - 26 May 2013 | updated - 13 Sep 2013 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Memories of Murder (2003)
Not Rated | 132 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
In a small Korean province in 1986, two detectives struggle with the case of multiple young women being found raped and murdered by an unknown culprit.
Director: Bong Joon Ho | Stars: Song Kang-ho, Kim Sang-kyung, Kim Roe-ha, Song Jae-ho
Votes: 216,196 | Gross: $0.01M
2. Devils on the Doorstep (2000)
139 min | Comedy, Drama, War
Villagers in World War II China are unsure what to do with the two enemy prisoners who have been left in their care.
Director: Wen Jiang | Stars: Wen Jiang, Kenya Sawada, Hongbo Jiang, Teruyuki Kagawa
Votes: 8,616 | Gross: $0.02M
3. 13 Assassins (2010)
R | 141 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A group of assassins come together for a suicide mission to kill an evil lord.
Director: Takashi Miike | Stars: Koji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Yûsuke Iseya, Ikki Sawamura
Votes: 68,585 | Gross: $0.80M
4. Barefoot Gen (1983)
TV-PG | 83 min | Animation, Biography, Drama
A powerful statement against war, Barefoot Gen is a disturbing story about the effect of the atomic bomb on a boy's life and the lives of the Japanese people.
Director: Mori Masaki | Stars: Issei Miyazaki, Catherine Battistone, Yoshie Shimamura, Iona Morris
Votes: 9,206
5. Only Yesterday (1991)
PG | 119 min | Animation, Drama, Romance
A twenty-seven-year-old office worker travels to the countryside while reminiscing about her childhood in Tokyo.
Director: Isao Takahata | Stars: Miki Imai, Toshirô Yanagiba, Yoko Honna, Mayumi Izuka
Votes: 37,213 | Gross: $0.45M
6. Ran (1985)
R | 160 min | Action, Drama, War
In Medieval Japan, an elderly warlord retires, handing over his empire to his three sons. However, he vastly underestimates how the new-found power will corrupt them and cause them to turn on each other...and him.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryû
Votes: 136,138 | Gross: $4.14M
7. Eureka (2000)
217 min | Drama
The traumatized survivors of a murderous bus hijacking come together and take a road trip to attempt to overcome their damaged selves. Meanwhile a serial killer is on the loose.
Director: Shinji Aoyama | Stars: Koji Yakusho, Aoi Miyazaki, Masaru Miyazaki, Yôichirô Saitô
Votes: 4,337 | Gross: $0.05M
8. Children of Heaven (1997)
PG | 89 min | Drama, Family, Sport
After a boy loses his sister's pair of shoes, he goes on a series of adventures in order to find them. When he can't, he tries a new way to "win" a new pair.
Director: Majid Majidi | Stars: Mohammad Amir Naji, Amir Farrokh Hashemian, Bahare Seddiqi, Nafise Jafar-Mohammadi
Votes: 80,673 | Gross: $0.93M
9. Testament of Orpheus (1960)
Not Rated | 79 min | Biography, Fantasy
The Poet looks back over his life and work, recalling his inspirations and obsessions.
Director: Jean Cocteau | Stars: Jean Cocteau, Françoise Arnoul, Claudine Auger, Charles Aznavour
Votes: 3,737
10. I Saw the Devil (2010)
Not Rated | 144 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A secret agent exacts revenge on a serial killer through a series of captures and releases.
Director: Jee-woon Kim | Stars: Lee Byung-hun, Choi Min-sik, Jeon Gook-hwan, Chun Ho-jin
Votes: 146,136 | Gross: $0.13M
11. Dragon (2011)
R | 98 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A papermaker gets involved with a murder case concerning two criminals leading to a determined detective suspecting him and the former's vicious father searching for him.
Director: Peter Ho-Sun Chan | Stars: Donnie Yen, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Tang Wei, Jia-Min Li
Votes: 15,796 | Gross: $0.01M
12. Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011)
Not Rated | 128 min | Drama
A tale of revenge, honor and disgrace, centering on a poverty-stricken samurai who discovers the fate of his ronin son-in-law, setting in motion a tense showdown of vengeance against the house of a feudal lord.
Director: Takashi Miike | Stars: Koji Yakusho, Munetaka Aoki, Naoto Takenaka, Hikari Mitsushima
Votes: 9,146 | Gross: $0.08M
13. Still Life (2006)
Unrated | 111 min | Drama
A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.
Director: Zhangke Jia | Stars: Tao Zhao, Zhou Lan, Sanming Han, Lizhen Ma
Votes: 7,301 | Gross: $0.07M
14. The Warlords (2007)
R | 126 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
China, 1860s: Having his army slaughtered, General Qingyun joins 2 bandit leaders in raids on rebels and in blood oath. They form a Qing loyal army with eyes on rebel held Suzhou and Nanjing.
Directors: Peter Ho-Sun Chan, Wai-Man Yip | Stars: Jet Li, Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Jinglei Xu
Votes: 27,815 | Gross: $0.13M
15. La Jetée (1962)
Not Rated | 28 min | Short, Drama, Romance
The story of a man forced to explore his memories in the wake of World War III's devastation, told through still images.
Director: Chris Marker | Stars: Étienne Becker, Jean Négroni, Hélène Chatelain, Davos Hanich
Votes: 37,049
16. The Butcher (1970)
Unrated | 93 min | Drama, Thriller
An unlikely friendship between a dour, working class butcher and a repressed schoolteacher coincides with a grisly series of Ripper-type murders in a provincial French town.
Director: Claude Chabrol | Stars: Stéphane Audran, Jean Yanne, Antonio Passalia, Pascal Ferone
Votes: 9,382 | Gross: $0.47M
17. Ikiru (1952)
Not Rated | 143 min | Drama
A bureaucrat tries to find meaning in his life after he discovers he has terminal cancer.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Shin'ichi Himori, Haruo Tanaka
Votes: 87,513 | Gross: $0.06M
18. Throne of Blood (1957)
Not Rated | 110 min | Drama
A war-hardened general, egged on by his ambitious wife, works to fulfill a prophecy that he would become lord of Spider's Web Castle.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Minoru Chiaki, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura
Votes: 55,922
19. Sansho the Bailiff (1954)
Not Rated | 124 min | Drama
In medieval Japan, a compassionate governor is sent into exile. His wife and children try to join him, but are separated, and the children grow up amid suffering and oppression.
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi | Stars: Kinuyo Tanaka, Yoshiaki Hanayagi, Kyôko Kagawa, Eitarô Shindô
Votes: 18,223
20. Samurai Rebellion (1967)
Not Rated | 128 min | Drama
The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped away from her husband by the lord. The husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to get her back.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi | Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Yôko Tsukasa, Gô Katô, Tatsuyoshi Ehara
Votes: 14,081
21. Harakiri (1962)
Not Rated | 133 min | Action, Drama, Mystery
When a ronin requesting seppuku at a feudal lord's palace is told of the brutal suicide of another ronin who previously visited, he reveals how their pasts are intertwined - and in doing so challenges the clan's integrity.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Ishihama, Shima Iwashita, Tetsurô Tanba
Votes: 68,598
22. Early Summer (1951)
Not Rated | 125 min | Drama, Romance
A family chooses a match for their daughter Noriko, but she, surprisingly, has her own plans.
Director: Yasujirô Ozu | Stars: Setsuko Hara, Chishû Ryû, Chikage Awashima, Kuniko Miyake
Votes: 9,664
23. Late Spring (1949)
Not Rated | 108 min | Drama
Several people try to talk 27-year-old Noriko into marrying, but all she wants is to keep on caring for her widowed father.
Director: Yasujirô Ozu | Stars: Chishû Ryû, Setsuko Hara, Yumeji Tsukioka, Haruko Sugimura
Votes: 19,315
24. Red Beard (1965)
Not Rated | 185 min | Drama
In 19th-century Japan, a rough-tempered yet charitable town doctor trains a young intern.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Yûzô Kayama, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Reiko Dan
Votes: 21,090
25. You, the Living (2007)
Not Rated | 95 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
You, the Living is a film about humankind, its greatness and its baseness, joy and sorrow, its self-confidence and anxiety, its desire to love and be loved.
Director: Roy Andersson | Stars: Elisabeth Helander, Jörgen Nohall, Jan Wikbladh, Björn Englund
Votes: 16,288 | Gross: $0.02M
26. Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
Not Rated | 145 min | Drama, Mystery
A naive young man witnesses an escalation of violence in his small hometown following the arrival of a mysterious circus attraction.
Directors: Béla Tarr, Ágnes Hranitzky | Stars: Lars Rudolph, Peter Fitz, Hanna Schygulla, János Derzsi
Votes: 15,925 | Gross: $0.03M
27. Songs from the Second Floor (2000)
Not Rated | 98 min | Comedy, Drama
Where are we humans going? A film poem inspired by the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. We meet people in the city. People trying to communicate, searching compassion and get the connection of small and large things.
Director: Roy Andersson | Stars: Lars Nordh, Stefan Larsson, Bengt C.W. Carlsson, Torbjörn Fahlström
Votes: 20,344 | Gross: $0.00M
28. Damnation (1988)
120 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A lonely barfly falls in love with a married bar singer.
Director: Béla Tarr | Stars: Miklós Székely B., Vali Kerekes, Gyula Pauer, György Cserhalmi
Votes: 6,764
29. The Sacrifice (1986)
PG | 149 min | Drama
At the dawn of World War III, a man searches for a way to restore peace to the world and finds he must give something in return.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Allan Edwall, Guðrún Gísladóttir
Votes: 30,967 | Gross: $0.30M
30. The Vanishing (1988)
Not Rated | 107 min | Mystery, Thriller
Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation. They stop at a busy service station and Saskia is abducted. After three years and no sign of Saskia, Rex begins receiving letters from the abductor.
Director: George Sluizer | Stars: Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steege, Gwen Eckhaus
Votes: 44,144
31. Shoot the Piano Player (1960)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A pianist helps his brother escape from two gangsters, who retaliate by abducting their kid brother.
Director: François Truffaut | Stars: Charles Aznavour, Marie Dubois, Nicole Berger, Michèle Mercier
Votes: 20,625
32. Presunto culpable (2008)
87 min | Documentary
Two young Mexican attorneys attempt to exonerate a wrongly convicted man by making a documentary. In the process, they expose the contradictions of a judicial system that presumes suspects guilty until proven innocent.
Directors: Roberto Hernández, Geoffrey Smith
Votes: 1,419
33. Cell 211 (2009)
113 min | Action, Crime, Drama
The story of two men on different sides of a prison riot -- the inmate leading the rebellion and the young guard trapped in the revolt, who poses as a prisoner in a desperate attempt to survive the ordeal.
Director: Daniel Monzón | Stars: Luis Tosar, Alberto Ammann, Antonio Resines, Manuel Morón
Votes: 70,762
34. Hero (2002)
PG-13 | 120 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A defense officer, Nameless, was summoned by the King of Qin regarding his success of terminating three warriors.
Director: Yimou Zhang | Stars: Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Maggie Cheung, Ziyi Zhang
Votes: 187,615 | Gross: $53.71M
35. A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
R | 99 min | Action, Drama, Western
A wandering gunfighter plays two rival families against each other in a town torn apart by greed, pride, and revenge.
Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volontè, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy
Votes: 232,584 | Gross: $14.50M
36. 9th Company (2005)
R | 139 min | Action, Drama, History
A group of Russian army recruits complete training and take their posting in late-1980s Afghanistan, where the insurgents are slowly gaining the upper hand.
Director: Fedor Bondarchuk | Stars: Artur Smolyaninov, Aleksey Chadov, Konstantin Kryukov, Ivan Kokorin
Votes: 21,683
37. The Count of Monte Cristo (1943)
90 min | Adventure, Drama
Edmond Dantes is falsely accused by those jealous of his good fortune, and is sentenced to spend the rest of his life in the notorious island prison, Chateau d'If. While imprisoned, he ... See full summary »
Director: Robert Vernay | Stars: Pierre Richard-Willm, Michèle Alfa, Aimé Clariond, Marcel Herrand
Votes: 194
38. The Samurai (1967)
GP | 101 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
After professional hitman Jef Costello is seen by witnesses his efforts to provide himself an alibi drive him further into a corner.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier
Votes: 57,108 | Gross: $0.04M
39. Sekai daisensô (1961)
110 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
This Japanese film speculates on the events which lead the U.S. and the Soviet Union into a nuclear Armageddon.
Director: Shûe Matsubayashi | Stars: Furankî Sakai, Akira Takarada, Yuriko Hoshi, Nobuko Otowa
Votes: 263
40. Amores Perros (2000)
R | 154 min | Drama, Thriller
An amateur dog fighter, a supermodel, and a derelict assassin, all separately struggling to find love, find their lives transformed by a devastating car wreck in Mexico City.
Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu | Stars: Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal, Goya Toledo, Álvaro Guerrero
Votes: 252,837 | Gross: $5.38M
41. The Kingdom (1994–2022)
TV-MA | 60 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Doctors at an ultramodern hospital in Denmark become convinced, by way of weird, inexplicable happenings, that the place is haunted.
Stars: Ernst-Hugo Järegård, Kirsten Rolffes, Ghita Nørby, Søren Pilmark
Votes: 20,342 | Gross: $0.09M
42. The Science of Sleep (2006)
R | 105 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
A man entranced by his dreams and imagination is love-struck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world.
Director: Michel Gondry | Stars: Gael García Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Miou-Miou, Alain Chabat
Votes: 70,885 | Gross: $4.66M
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