Your Favourite Foreign Language Films

I had completely forgotten about Das Boot (how???) but agree with isthisallthereis that it has to be the full television version. Loved Fellini, particularly La Strada and Juliet of the Spirits. I enjoyed Il Postino and Cinema Paradiso but watched them both without subtitles so may have missed some of the finer points!

Adore 'Amelie'......it always cheers me up. The 'A very long Engagement' is also rather sweet.

Thanks mice,I was trying to remember the title of the Untouchables- must see it soon.My DD1 knows I like foreign films so took me to see Dogtooth (Greek) when I was in London a couple of years ago.It's a horrible film and half the audience walked out.It still disturbs me thinking about it

I don't suppose anyone else cares, but I have tracked down the title of the Cuban film. It's called La Muerte de un Burocrata (The Death of a Bureaucrat). That's such a relief because otherwise I would be worrying about it all night. You know how it is.

Has anyone seen The untouchables? It's French and based on a true story, with the principal characters still happily alive.

I very rarely laugh at anything out loud but this was really funny - and moving and life affirming.

It is set in Paris, partly in the banlieues and partly in the plush ancestral home of one of the main characters, but it could easily have been Deptford and Kensington. It's still showing in London.

And yes, The Lives of Others is brilliant.

Let the Right One In is probably what set me off watching all the latest Scandinavia films; I couldn't believe what I was watching. isthis; I haven't bothered with the [why did they bother?] remake, although I did enjoy the American Girl With the Dragon Tattoo [albeit not as much as the original]. The worst foreign language films of recent years have been The Headless Woman and Uncle Boonmee.

GrannyKnot; what do you think to the later Killing? I'm not as engrossed as I was first time round but still wouldn't miss it [it's getting a bit formulaic imo].

I once saw a bizarre Cuban film about a trade unionist who died and his union card was buried with him. His widow was then unable to claim a pension and the whole of the rest of the film was about attempts to dig him up again to get the card. (This outline of the plot does not do it justice.) I am damned if I can remember the title or the director's name. Did anyone else ever see that?

Is it actually possible to have a favourite book/film/ piece of music/food/ poem? Yesterday, I watched the last in the series 'Britain's Best Number One' (I think that was the title). The 'winner' was 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. What does that tell us? Is it the music or the things associated with it?

I made the 'plebs' comments as I'm pig sick with tv programming lately - same old garbage or continously running the same stuff year after year. For Example: Strictly,The Apprentice,X.Factor, all the cookery programmes like Master Chef - all, except for X-factor, good when they had their first two or three series - now its ALL the time. Thank goodness for a Sky dish as the PBS channel is having a series of Ken Burns documentaries that are cracking.

Excellent thread, so many wonderful movies listed already!

My list:

The Lives of Others - utterly one of my favourite movies. Saw it for a second time recently and it was even better than I remembered.
Run Lola Run
Kings of the Road - this could be a very German list!!
Goodbye Lenin
Fear Eats the Soul
My Life as a Dog - very, very quirky Swedish movie about a young boy. 1st non-German movie on this list!
Let The Right One In - spooky, excellent Swedish movie. The US remake is apparently rubbish!
Fanny and Alexander
Persona
Wild Strawberries - in fact almost all Bergman's output
Kanal
Knife in the Water
Closely Observed Trains
The Fireman's Ball
Rome Open City
Wild Rice
8 1/2
La Dolce Vita
La Strada
Juliet of the Spirits
All the Spaghetti Westerns
Suspiria
The Illusionist
Le Havre
Intouchables
Ran
Tokyo Story
Departures - wonderfully odd film about a young unemployed cellist who accepts a socially unacceptable job laying out the dead before funerals.
Tokyo Olympiad
Olympia 1 & 2 (Leni Riefenstahl)
Das Boot - but the full TV version is better than the movie imho
Central Station- heartbreaking and uplifting, both at the same time
Y Tu Mamá También - sexy!
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
The Travelling Players
Of Gods and Men
Into Great Silence - almost three hours of contemplative silence, yet it's very involving!
Lagaan
Hard Boiled
Chungking Express

Un Homme et Une Femme - this came out when I was living in Geneva and the music from it brings it all back. Anything by Sanjit Ray. Manon and Jean la Florette of course, Lives of Others, Das Boot, Fellini films, The Red Lantern, so many and so hard to find in the local video stores. BBC and Channel 4 used to have foreign film evenings now very rare - the plebs win again.

jO5 - I can't really reel (haha a pun!) off a list of foreign language films either, although I did like Il Postino and Cinema Paradiso. Right now I'm immersed in Forbrydelsen (The Killing), so I hope that counts!

I'd forgotten the Fellini films. Why do they never have them on the telly, I wonder? A favourite film from way back which I'd love to see again is The Lacemaker.

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

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 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...

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!