Niche foreign film recommendations anyone??

[Pinklady]

I wanna like foreign films so bad (foreign meaning anything outside of the English language) but everything is either mind-numbingly boring or has been so talked about it gets spoiled for me ;(

[chillycat]

oh well idk if this one is niche but i watched a movie called RRR a few months back with some friends which takes place in India during the time of the British occupation :O

i'd definitely recommend it! very fun and action packed!

[Pinklady]

OOOOO that sounds cool! i'll check it out :D

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

Well, what kind of movie do you like?
If you want comedy, I can recommend the works of Anders Thomas Jensen.
Or more serious stuff? Newer movies of Thomas Vinterberg are also rather fast and surely won't bore you out. Another recommendation would be early Lars von Trier movies.
Japan has a rich movie tradition, including various great samurai and thriller movies. "Bullet Train" is one hell of a ride, and the works of Akira Kurosawa could also suit you (Yojimbo/Sanjuro are great samurai flicks that essentially spawned the genre of italo western). Speaking of Italo Western: Italian movies. Dario Argentos Suspiria, the works of Luccio Fulci (both horror), and ofc italo western: I heavily recommend The great silence, Companeros, and the Mercenary by Sergio Corbucci.

Also, most of the work of Werner Herzog with Kinski should fit you: Fitzgeraldo, Aquire, and Nosferatu are all rather thrilling.


There are tons of great non-english directors that are great, deep, and not at all boring but might be difficult to get into; watching their works with on open mind might prove rewarding ;).

[Pinklady]

Wonderful reply, i'll check some of these out!!

[94673]

This weird little movie, 1992's Op Afbetaling or 'The Betrayed'. With one whole review on letterboxd, I think it's pretty niche. It's about a man who finds out his wife cheated on him, so he sets out to slowly ruin her life. I'm pretty sure it was straight to DVD. But if you can find it it's pretty good, imo.

[Memory]

My favourite movie for this case would be Themroc. A movie that uses a fantasy language. No translation needed, as everyone will understand, what's going on by the tone of how the people talk.
Movie is French-made from the seventies. Expect lots of nude skin.

Very Finnish movie: "Lights in the Dusk" by Aki Kaurismäki.
Disgusting Hungarian movie: "Taxidermia". Urgh. Well, you asked for something different!
For Japanese movies, I'd pick the samurai movie "Okami", as being really different (I think it's from the Seventies) from today's movies. Completly different way of letting images speak with calm settings.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

My favourite movie for this case would be Themroc. A movie that uses a fantasy language. No translation needed, as everyone will understand, what's going on by the tone of how the people talk.
Movie is French-made from the seventies. Expect lots of nude skin.

Very Finnish movie: "Lights in the Dusk" by Aki Kaurismäki.
Disgusting Hungarian movie: "Taxidermia". Urgh. Well, you asked for something different!
For Japanese movies, I'd pick the samurai movie "Okami", as being really different (I think it's from the Seventies) from today's movies. Completly different way of letting images speak with calm settings.

Themroc is great, and so are the movies of Kaurismäki!
Gotta checkout Taxidermia/Okami.

Another recommendation: Arabian Nights by Pasolini. Its one of the best fantasy movies I know of.

[MrsMoe]

I feel nervous to recommend my favs because there is a chance you might find them boring, but I think the safest movie to recommend would be Pan's Labyrinth. It's a spanish dark fantasy film about a little girl learning she may be a princess reincarnated while dealing with a life shrouded by fascism during Francoist era Spain. It's among my top five films ever and I would give the same recommendation any of Del Toro's other non-english films, like The Devil's Backbone or Cronos.

[Junebug]

Life is Beautiful, directed by Roberto Benigni. It's a comedy.

[wygolvillage]

La Morte Vivante/The Living Dead Girl (1982), a blood-soaked lesbian vampire/zombie/okay we'll just say undead(?) flick from France's Jean Rollin. At its core it's about a woman (Helene) finding out that her childhood lover (Christine) has come back from the dead, has lost her memories and most of her humanity and needs to eat human flesh/blood to survive. Over time Christine recovers more and more of her conciousness, and Helene becomes more and more dedicated to keeping her fed- these two desires clash, of course. It's a compelling tragedy and you can easily read it as a metaphor for grief, codependency, etc...

If you're into that kind of horror movie it's a real treat.

[e-]

Andrei Tarkovsky is a bit like the Russian Stanly Kubrick. His films are meditative, melancholic, And just beautiful. He really encourages you to actively reflect rather than be a passive observer. Solaris(1972) is a good starting point. This is probably exactly what you'd consider 'mind numbingly boring' tho...

On the other end, Sion Sanno is a Japanese extremist horror director who does crazy, fast-paced stuff you'd never dream of getting away with in western cinema. his 2013 film Tag is like a Matrix+tarentino+finaldestination+feminisim fever dream of awesomeness. 2001s' Suicide club is just as insane. Definitely not boring!

other random ones:
Run lola run-German time travel action thing
das boot-German submarine drama
wings of desire-German fantasy romance
pulse-Japanese horror
houseu-Japanese experimental horror
The handmaiden-Korean lesbian drama
delicatessen-French dystopian comedy
rare exports-Finnish christmas horror comedy

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

Andrei Tarkovsky is a bit like the Russian Stanly Kubrick. His films are meditative, melancholic, And just beautiful. He really encourages you to actively reflect rather than be a passive observer. Solaris(1972) is a good starting point. This is probably exactly what you'd consider 'mind numbingly boring' tho...

Recommending Tarkovsky after the OP complained about foreign films being boring is quite hardcore :D.

@MrsMoe was the same for me. I suppose the OP did watch mainly Hollywood cinema until now and asks for rather crispy movies.

Another that comes to mind (how could I forget): The seventh seal by Ingmar Bergman. A knight playing chess against the reaper in a post-apocalyptic medieval world. Its great!

[invader_gvim]

Come And See is probably the most brutal and impactful movie about war you will ever watch for free on Youtube. It is about the Eastern Front of World War 2 from the perspective of a young child soldier who joins the resistance against the Nazis. It is a very dark movie because it is not just about war being bad, but instead it is about how war is an unavoidable monster who comes to you, murders your family and friends, and then leaves you no option but to participate. It is about the motivations of someone who has nothing left, and how in order to have any semblance of happiness you need to be motivated by more than just revenge.

HERE is the link to the very dark movie. Just a warning... this is probably the  darkest and most intense movie you will ever see. 

[thefanciestpigeon]

this is also an old silent film so idk if you like that but it's special to me, the asta nielsen hamlet (or like, anything else nielsen did I like her <3) but yeah. technically an adaptation of hamlet but it gets... weird. it starts with hamlet's birth and he is a girl, but then they pretend that he is a boy so they have an heir and so hamlet has all this interesting gender stuff going on (kinda trans tbh), hamlet is canonically in love with both horatio and ophelia, hamlet sets claudius on fire, etc. it is in german!