Your Favourite Foreign Language Films

How about Life is Beautiful? I also have a soft spot for Les Enfants du Paradis and Cinema Paradiso. Once upon a time I was so pretentious that I wrote essays (in French) about Jean Luc Godard, but not now. I am also not so sure that Luis Buñuel was quite the creative hero that I believed then.

Jean de Florette & Manon des Sources were the first foreign language films that I recall seeing. I have enjoyed watching them several times. 'Il y a longtemps que je t'aime' is a more recent favourite.

Top of my list has to be 'The Lives Of Others' (Germany 2006).

Set in 1984 East Berlin, Gerd Wiesler is a member of the feared Stasi, who spends his days listening to suspected anti-regime activists. However, this insight into a world of free-thinking, free-speech, and freedom gradually begins to change the mind-set of this loyal agent of the state.

4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days (Romania 2007). A compelling story about 2 friends arranging an illegal abortion. As well as an examination of repression in society, it is also a truly moving film about friendship.

Belleville Rendezvous (France 2003) - Brilliant animation. Impossible to describe.

Oh yes, we enjoyed (if that is the word) The Lives of Others. One of our first dates in 1969 was to see Bunuel's Le Chien Andalou at Film Soc. Hmm....

Pan's Labyrinth. I'm hoping I've got a recording of Belleville Rendezvous somewhere; Haven't seen it..think it was Oscar nominated that year?

Cinema Paradiso has to be my favourite film of all time. I also agree with The Lives of Ohers and Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources.

Would also like to add Black Book and the White Ribbon plus Talk to Her and All About my Mother and the Counterfeiters.

Consequences of Love is another favourite.

Try Pans Labyrinth, City of God, Amores Perres and Il Postino.

if you belong to Lovefilm or any film club and you are fed up with some of the modern pap they churn out, try the the World Cinema Section. We hire several each week and are well rewarded. Soraya's Stoning (an Iranian film) is a recent viewing - harrowing but well worth watching.

Two lovely French films both set in schools on television recently, 'Etre et Avoir' and 'The Chorus'.

The Story of the Weeping Camel is lovely, as is Cave of the Yellow Dog. A wonderful insight into another culture.

Yes - Cinema Paradiso, Lives of Others - the last scene 'das ist fur mich'.Aahh. Marius et Jeanette - heartwarming . The Prophet - chilling and that really funny one about the post office worker who is moved to the north of France - priceless!

The Danish film, Babette's Feast was one I found very moving and entertaining. Amélie was enjoyable - was the first time I'd seen Audrey Tatou.

The original version of The Ring was made in Japan and subtitled. It's much better and far more disturbing that the sanitised Hollywood remake.

Jean de Florette got so much publicity at the Oscars that I vowed never to see it, eventually it was on television and I wept all the way through it! When I was a student the big film was Un Homme et Une Femme. We all went to see it several times and bought the soundtrack LP. Lately I have loved La Vita e Bella and also enjoyed Begnoni's Cinderella. Mustn't forget all Kurosawa's great films one of my favourites (I think it was his) was called Living I think and was about an old man dying of cancer, but was much more enjoyable than it sounds.

Jean de Florette and Manon are both great films I think. We have also watched Être et Avoir several times - in fact very time we have seen it listed. Have not seen The Chorus but will now look out for it.
The only one in this line we have not been able to watch was La Reine Margo - it was so utterly bloodthirsty and the plot was so difficult to follow that we abandoned it - then found many of our French class had the same experience.

La Reine Margot is my favourite film!
Also love: All about my mother/ Todo sobre mi madre, Fresa y Chocolate and Y tu Maman tambien.
Think we are a strange family. Someone has to choose a DVD to watch on Christmas Day and I usually choose something tame like Pirates of the Carribean or Mama Mia. DS1 has chosen in the past 'The Orphanage'-weird and ' Tell no-one' which I am still trying to figure out.He is coming to stay this Christmas so I think I shall get in before him!

I also enjoyed Amélie anno. I found Audrey Tatou captivating. My son put all the music from the film onto a CD for me, and played it when he looked after me when I had been in hospital a few years ago. I have happy memories of being tucked up on the sofa listening to the soundtrack whilst he was busy making nourishing food for me in the kitchen.

Jour de Fete, an early Jacques Tati film. He's the village postman, inspired by a film showing how mail in the US is delivered.

Ahhh Jaques Tati - love him. I have all the DVDs and always play M Hulot's Holiday at Christmas, whilst relaxing with a mince pie and glass of wine after a busy time

I still love The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. It takes me back to a wonderful time in my life!

Me too Ana - I saw it in Vienna in my 'au pair' year, with friends. Only the French ones didn't like it - one lass reckoned that opera is no good in your own language - it is embarrassing. Anyway, I loved the film. And the music.

I enjoyed some German films a few years ago- 'The Nasty Girl' was good, as was 'The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum'. I liked Das Boot too. My husband was a submariner and reckoned Das Boot was very authentic. Oh, another one - 'Sonnenallee' about East Germany behind the wall, and 'Goodbye Lenin'

I still love the Red Balloon - I had a tape of that which I used to show the children the last week of the Christmas term- a quiet oasis in what was usually a hectic week.

I always enjoy 'La Strada', Frederico Fellini's 1954 fim set around a travelling carnival. Anthony Quinn is wonderful in it.

I have the Tati DVDs as well - apart from Trafic... as a schoolboy in 1952/3 a French student teacher told me that there was a film on in London that I would like - so I took myself into town and went to the Cameo-Poly to see Jour de Fête - and became an instant fan.

Later, the Everyman Cinema in Hampstead provided me with a diet of foreign films - Les Enfants du Paradis, L'Auberge Rouge - all the Fernandel films as they came out, then Rififi...

Re 'Opera in your own language' - did the French lass not realise that the most popular opera in the world, Bizet's Carmen, has a French libretto?
To say nothing of La fille du regiment and Tales of Hoffmann!

I am amazed that anyone actually has a favourite foreign language film.