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Foreign Classics Movies
Build your taste profile and get better suggestions. You've rated 0 of 38 movies. Want more suggestions? Launch Quick Rate- Metropolis
Starring Alfred AbelGustav FrohlichBrigitte Helm
By Fritz Lang, 1927.
In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.
- Seven Samurai
Starring Takashi ShimuraToshirô MifuneYoshio Inaba
By Akira Kurosawa, 1954.
Akira Kurosawa's heroic tale of honor and duty begins with master samurai Kambei (Takashi Shimura) posing as a monk to save a kidnapped child. Impressed by his bravery, a group of farmers begs him to defend their village from encroaching bandits. Kambei agrees and assembles a group of six other...
- M
Starring Peter Lorre
By Fritz Lang, 1931.
German-American director Fritz Lang presents his first "talkie" -- and cinema's first serial killer -- in this 1931 classic. Plump pedophile Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre), propelled by a compulsion he can't control, escapes the eye of the law -- but not the wrath of the Berlin underworld being blamed...
- La Dolce Vita
Starring Marcello MastroianniAnita EkbergAnouk Aimée
By Federico Fellini, 1960.
Federico Fellini's lush and intoxicating masterpiece, La Dolce Vita, is a meditation on the meaning of life and love and stars Marcello Mastroianni as Marcello, a gossip writer who seeks the fleeting excesses and decadence of life and sex. He sleeps with the beautiful Maddalena (Anouk Aimee)...
- Rashomon
Starring Minoru ChiakiFumiko HommaDaisuke Kato
By Akira Kurosawa, 1950.
This 1950 film by Akira Kurosawa is more than a classic: it's a cinematic archetype that has served as a template for many a film since. (Its most direct influence was on a Western remake, The Outrage , starring Paul Newman and directed by Martin Ritt.) In essence, the facts surrounding a rape and...
- Ran
Starring Tatsuya NakadaiAkira TeraoJinpachi Nezu
By Akira Kurosawa, 1985.
Legendary Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa sets Shakespeare's classic tragedy "King Lear" against a samurai backdrop, re-envisioning the timeless story through the eyes of a warlord (Tatsuya Nakadai) who transfers his kingdom to his eldest son. When a power struggle ensues, incited by the warlord's...
- The Seventh Seal
Starring Max von SydowGunnar BjornstrandBibi Andersson
By Ingmar Bergman, 1957.
Exhausted and disillusioned, a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) makes the journey home after years of combat in the Crusades. When the black-robed figure of Death confronts him, the knight challenges him to a game of chess. A powerful meditation on the existence of God and the meaning of life, this...
- 8 1/2
Starring Marcello MastroianniClaudia CardinaleRossella Falk
By Federico Fellini, 1963.
Dog-tired movie director Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) retreats to thoughts of yesteryear when his producers, his wife (Anouk Aimee) and his mistress (Sandra Milo) all pressure him to start making another movie. Director Federico Fellini's semiautobiographical rumination on the joys and...
- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Starring Lil DagoverConrad VeidtWerner Krauss
By Robert Wiene, 1919.
In this silent 1920s masterpiece, an insane asylum inmate explains to his psychiatrist how he came to the institution, telling the shrink the story of the evil hypnotist Caligari (Werner Krauss) and his unwitting pawn, the sleepwalker Cesare (Conrad Veidt).
- Wings of Desire
Starring Bruno GanzSolveig DommartinOtto Sander
By Wim Wenders, 1987.
Wim Wenders won the award for Best Director at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival for this captivating vision about an angel (Bruno Ganz) who falls in love with a beautiful circus performer while drifting unnoticed through West Berlin. Overcome by the girl's beauty, the angel decides he wants to become...
- The Bicycle Thieves
Starring Lamberto MaggioraniEnzo StaiolaLianella Carell
By Vittorio De Sica, 1948.
A poor young father in postwar-ravaged Rome who finally finds work putting up Rita Hayworth posters around town, only have his precious bicycle stolen the first day on the job. In a light moment as the father and his young son chase after the thief, the boy attempts to relieve himself against a...
- The 400 Blows
Starring Jean-Pierre LéaudAlbert RémyClaire Maurier
By François Truffaut, 2006.
Francois Truffaut's first feature was this 1959 portrait of Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre L aud), a boy who turns to petty crime in the face of neglect at home and hard times at a reform school. Somewhat autobiographical for its director, the film helped usher in the heady spirit of the French New...
- Breathless
Starring Jean-Paul BelmondoJean SebergDaniel Boulanger
By Jean-Luc Godard, 1960.
The first feature film directed by Jean-Luc Godard and one of the seminal films of the French New Wave, Breathless is story of the love between Michel Poiccard, a small-time hood wanted for killing a cop, and Patricia Franchini, an American who sells the International Herald Tribune along the...
- La Strada
Starring Giulietta MasinaAnthony QuinnRichard Basehart
By Federico Fellini, 1954.
Gelsomina is sold by her very poor mother to Zampanò, an itinerant strongman. She follows him on the road ("la strada") and helps him during his shows. Zampanò ill-treats her. She meets "The Fool", a funambulist. She feels like going with him, but he puts confusion in her mind by pointing out...
- The Battleship Potemkin
Starring I. BobrovBeatrice VitoldiN. Poltavseva
By Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925.
Propaganda notwithstanding, director Sergei M. Eisenstein's masterwork remains a cinematic landmark, charting events that ultimately led to the Bolshevik Revolution. Fed up with the ship's officers' brutalities and with maggot-infested rations, the crew of the battleship Prince Potemkin revolts.
- Ikiru
Starring Takashi ShimuraShinichi HimoriHaruo Tanaka
By Akira Kurosawa, 1952.
When a stoic government official (Takashi Shimura, with a BAFTA nomination for Best Foreign Actor) in post-war Japan learns he has terminal cancer, he realizes he has squandered his life on meaningless red tape and has no close family or friendships to lean on.
- Jules and Jim
Starring Jeanne MoreauOskar WernerHenri Serre
By François Truffaut, 2005.
Fran ois Truffaut's third feature, though it's named for the two best friends who become virtually inseparable in pre-World War I Paris, is centered on Jeanne Moreau's Catherine, the most mysterious, enigmatic woman in his career-long gallery of rich female portraits.
- The Passion of Joan of Arc
Starring Maria FalconettiEugene SilvainAndre Berley
By Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928.
Widely considered director Carl Theodor Dreyer's finest achievement and one of the greatest movies of all time, this stunning emotional drama recounts the events surrounding Joan of Arc's 1431 heresy trial, burning at the stake and subsequent martyrdom.
- Wild Strawberries
Starring Victor SjöströmBibi AnderssonIngrid Thulin
By Ingmar Bergman, 2002.
An elderly college professor sets out in his car to receive an honorary degree--and takes a trip instead through his own past and subconscious--in this bittersweet but ultimately tender and understanding 1957 film by Swedish master Ingmar Bergman. Casting Swedish star Victor Sj str m in the lead...
- Amarcord
Starring Bruno ZaninPupella MaggioArmando Brancia
By Federico Fellini, 1974.
Federico Fellini's warmly nostalgic memory piece examines daily life in the Italian village of Rimini during the reign of Mussolini, and won the 1974 Academy Award as Best Foreign Film.
- Persona
Starring Bibi AnderssonLiv UllmannMargareta Krook
By Ingmar Bergman, 1966.
Persona is difficult to characterize in simple terms, but it may be helpful to describe this complex film as being an exploration of identity that combines elements of drama, visual poetry, and modern psychology.
- Stalker
Starring Aleksandr KajdanovskyAlisa FrejndlikhAnatoli Solonitsyn
By Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979.
This science fiction milestone from director Andrei Tarkovsky takes you into the Zone, a mysterious, guarded realm containing a mystical room in which occupants' secret dreams come true. Stalker, a man able to lead others to this holy grail, escorts a writer and a scientist through this foreboding...
- The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Starring Fernando ReyDelphine SeyrigStéphane Audran
By Luis Buñuel, 1972.
In typical Luis Buñuel fashion, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie surrealistically skewers the conventions of society.
- The Battle of Algiers
Starring Brahim HadjadjJean MartinYacef Saadi
By Gillo Pontecorvo, 2004.
Director Gillo Pontecorvo's 1966 movie The Battle of Algiers concerns the violent struggle in the late 1950s for Algerian independence from France, where the film was banned on its release for fear of creating civil disturbances. Certainly, the heady, insurrectionary mood of the film, enhanced by a...
- Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Starring Klaus KinskiCecilia RiveraRuy Guerra
By Werner Herzog, 1972.
A few decades after the destruction of the Inca empire, a Spanish expedition leaves the mountains of Peru and goes down the Amazon river in search of gold and wealth. Soon, they come across great difficulties and Don Aguirres, a ruthless man who cares only about riches, becomes their leader. But...
- The Rules of the Game
Starring Nora GregorPaulette DubostMila Parely
By Jean Renoir, 1939.
When affluent Marquis Robert de la Chesnaye (Marcel Dalio) hosts a party at his sprawling property, emotions run high. Guests include Robert's mistress Genevieve (Mila Parely) and pilot Andre Jurieu (Roland Toutain), who fancies Robert's wife, Christine (Nora Gregor).
- Contempt
Starring Brigitte BardotMichel PiccoliJack Palance
By Jean-Luc Godard, 1963.
Paul Javal is a writer who is hired to make a script for a new movie about Ulysses more commercial, which is to be directed by Fritz Lang and produced by Jeremy Prokosch. But because he let his wife Camille drive with Prokosch and he is late, she believes, he uses her as a sort of present for...
- Grand Illusion
Starring Jean GabinPierre FresnayErich Von Stroheim
By Jean Renoir, 1937.
Frequently cited as both one of the greatest films about war and one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir 's La Grande Illusion is an often witty, sometimes poignant, frequently moving examination of the futility of war.
- Tokyo Story
Starring Chishu RyuChieko HigashiyamaSo Yamamura
By Yasujiro Ozu, 1953.
An elderly couple journey to Tokyo to visit their children and are confronted by indifference, ingratitude and selfishness. When the parents are packed off to a resort by their impatient children, the film deepens into an unbearably moving meditation on mortality.
- Pickpocket
Starring Martin La SalleMarika GreenJean Pelegri
By Robert Bresson, 1959.
Acclaimed French director Robert Bresson helms this stylized black-and-white drama following the trials of a Paris pickpocket named Michel (Martin LaSalle), a thief who grows so successful at his craft that he worries his luck will run out. Despite his own fears -- and the persistent pleas from his...
- L'Avventura
Starring Gabriele FerzettiMonica VittiLea Massari
By Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960.
On a resort island in the Mediterranean, a vacationing rich woman (Italian superstar Monica Vitti) goes on a search for a missing friend that evolves into a search for love and the meaning of life. As the breakthrough film for the man (Michelangelo Antonioni) who would go on to direct Blow-Up, this...
- Berlin Alexanderplatz
Starring Günter LamprechtHanna SchygullaFranz Buchrieser
By Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1983.
This film, which is basically the longest narrative film ever made, is a 15-1/2 hour episodic exploration of the character of Franz Biberkopf, "hero" of Alfred Döblin's acclaimed novel, as well as the Alexanderplatz area of Berlin that he inhabits.
- Rocco and His Brothers
Starring Alain DelonRenato SalvatoriAnnie Girardot
By Luchino Visconti, 1960.
With the emotional sweep of a Verdi opera and the narrative density of a 19th-century novel, Luchino Visconti's "Rocco and His Brothers" represents the artistic apotheosis of Italian Neo-Realism.
- Ugetsu
Starring Ikio SawamuraMitsuko MitoMasayuki Mori
By Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953.
With 16th century Japan's feudal wars as a backdrop, director Kenji Mizoguchi's lyrical masterpiece delivers a profound message about the ephemeral nature of human life. Despite the conflict raging around them, a potter (Masayuki Mori) and a farmer (Saka Ozawa) -- two peasants with visions of...
- Mamma Roma
Starring Anna MagnaniEttore GarofoloFranco Citti
By Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1962.
Mamma Roma (Anna Magnani) is an Italian call girl who's hoping to get out of her current vocation in order to spend more time with her son and create a better life for herself. Things don't go as planned, though, as her pimp and previous customers keep resurfacing, making it nearly impossible for...
- The Diary of a Country Priest
Starring Claude LayduAndré GuibertMarie-Monique Arkell
By Robert Bresson, 1950.
Robert Bresson's bleak but richly photographed film is about the suffering and downfall of a young, critically ill priest (Claude Laydu) who struggles in vain to gain some kind, any kind, of ecclesiastical foothold in a rural area bent on circumventing him and the church.
- Pather Panchali
Starring Kanu BannerjeeSubir BannerjeeKaruna Bannerjee
By Satyajit Ray, 1955.
The first film in director Satyajit Ray's acclaimed Apu Trilogy. A boy named Apu is born to a poor but proud Brahmin family. When his father, Harihar, loses his treasury job, he sets out to find work elsewhere, leaving his family with depleted resources.
- Au Hasard Balthazar
Starring Anne WiazemskyFrancois LafargePhilippe Asselin
By Robert Bresson, 1966.
This religious fable from director Robert Bresson traces the lives of a farm girl, Marie, and her beloved pet donkey, Balthazar. The two eventually become separated, but their experiences follow strangely parallel paths. As a young woman, Marie is cruelly abused by her lover, while Balthazar...
